1.) I think you overestimate the value of Apple for MOT SPS. They selling a lot more PPCs to other customers in total. At some time Cisco was buying more PPCs than Apple. All actions of the last years clearly show that Apple isn't that important to MOT as some think (wish).</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not. You're making the mistake of assuming that Apple requires dedicated "desktop" chips, whatever those are. As I said, Cisco and the telcos will buy the most powerful G4s Mot can offer by the truckload, so it isn't just about Apple. Mot has plenty of incentive to keep cranking out powerful chips. And Apple is one of their big customers.
The 7455 was "embedded processor of the year."
[quote]<strong>2.) Regardless how stupid MOT's management was (which it surely was, no argue 'bout that), their decision to cut down investment on the desktop PPCs was right. Look at Apple's current marketshare. It is still not clear if Apple will ever be able to return to it's former share.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Look at Apple's current lineup. Why would they require a "desktop processor?" 3 out of 4 lines are better off with a highly efficient embedded one.
[quote]<strong>3.) Everyone knew that MOT would become the number 1 mac producer, so in reality MOT not lose only $95 mil but whole opportunities tide with it. And SJ pissed off MOT big time, believe it or not.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Of course he did. But being the #1 Mac producer is small consolation when Apple goes under, isn't it? Over the three years of their existence, the clones did nothing but take market share from Apple - and in the profitable pro segment, to boot - while breaking Apple's traditional strength in integration and offering poorly engineered machines that broke all the time.
Besides, whether or not Mot still nurses a grudge about that, Mot SPS is currently fighting for its continued survival, and Mot senior management is busily trying to keep the shareholders from rolling out a guillotine while correcting the damage caused by years of incompetent management. They're simply not in a position to nurse years-old grudges against their customers.
If it ever does come up, I'm sure someone on the board mentions Firestone, which lost a 100-plus year old partnership with Ford by refusing to take some of the blame for the Explorer tire debacle.
3.) Everyone knew that MOT would become the number 1 mac producer, so in reality MOT not lose only $95 mil but whole opportunities tide with it. And SJ pissed off MOT big time, believe it or not.
End of Line</strong><hr></blockquote>
Moto lost more than an opportunity than with Apple clones. Lets not forget CHRP that IBM was designing as an alternative Mobo design to Apples, and Intel's offerings. This would have had to potential for some big $ in chip sales in todays pro Linex world.
Umm for a person who keeps harping that 5%, 5% is a PERCENTAGE. 90% of a dollar is a laughing number to my income. 1% of a trillion would make me independently rich.
Apple may be 5% of pc general, but that number is much higher against indivual PC makers[24% at last count?]. I say that's a pretty big customer.
And raw numbers alone, except for the recent shrinking of the pie, the numbers of sales where growing. In terms of money I don't care if it's 5% or 1% as long as the profit is ever increasing from a supplier's standpoint.
There is the issue of R&D+production cost versus profit, but Apple is a long time, credit worthy customer. What does that mean? They are a constant source of revenue, they contribute a good amount to the bottom line. Of course cisco and the others apply here.
Unless there is a good monetary reason to ignore these people, evem of Moto breaks even, they better well please them. They can save you in tough time, i.e. "now".
Unless Moto has some big secret, they really have dropped the ball. They have brain drains and pink slips to the left, a sagging ecconomy on the right, and long time customers angry at them.
I'm not going to second guess Moto's strategies, but as always, if apple does Ditch them, it might come back to haunt them.
I think Moto could still play an important role making processor for Apple. IBM's MiniMe-Power4 chip is going to be aimed at "desktops and low end servers"... probably not something that Apple would want to stick in a laptop. I wouldn't imagine anybody would find one appealing, either, unless you like laptops that double as space heaters and have a battery life of twenty minutes.
Moto's already got chips in the works that could be the basis for pretty good laptop CPUs-- the 8560 & 8540. Take away all the I/O stuff that's in there for the communications market, add an FPU and keep the on-chip RapidIO & DDR SDRAM interfaces and Apple has a chip ready to drop into a new laptop (with a new chipset, of course).
Remember-- the 85x0 chips are built to the Book E spec-- and this type of swapping in & out of "units" or "modules" or whatever you want to call them is precisely what the spec was designed for. It's entirely possible Apple could get a low power, low heat processor with respectable performance for laptops (or iMacs, for that matter) from Moto. I wouldn't count them out yet.
I'm not. You're making the mistake of assuming that Apple requires dedicated "desktop" chips, whatever those are. As I said, Cisco and the telcos will buy the most powerful G4s Mot can offer by the truckload, so it isn't just about Apple. Mot has plenty of incentive to keep cranking out powerful chips. And Apple is one of their big customers.
The 7455 was "embedded processor of the year."
</strong><hr></blockquote>
1.) Apple has different needs, they care much less about power consumption (execpt PB). Cisco wouldn't use a 80W.
2.) This only backs what I'm saying: Motorola is making the cpus, which fit their customer base most. If Apple can use it too, fine but they are not focusing on it.
[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:
<strong>
Of course he did. But being the #1 Mac producer is small consolation when Apple goes under, isn't it? Over the three years of their existence, the clones did nothing but take market share from Apple - and in the profitable pro segment, to boot - while breaking Apple's traditional strength in integration and offering poorly engineered machines that broke all the time.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
See other thread.
[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:
<strong>
Besides, whether or not Mot still nurses a grudge about that, Mot SPS is currently fighting for its continued survival, and Mot senior management is busily trying to keep the shareholders from rolling out a guillotine while correcting the damage caused by years of incompetent management. They're simply not in a position to nurse years-old grudges against their customers.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
They aren't nursing years-old grudges but they changed direction years ago after the clone end. And now Apple faces this changes and people blame MOT for this change.
<strong>Umm for a person who keeps harping that 5%, 5% is a PERCENTAGE. 90% of a dollar is a laughing number to my income. 1% of a trillion would make me independently rich.
Apple may be 5% of pc general, but that number is much higher against indivual PC makers[24% at last count?]. I say that's a pretty big customer.
And raw numbers alone, except for the recent shrinking of the pie, the numbers of sales where growing. In terms of money I don't care if it's 5% or 1% as long as the profit is ever increasing from a supplier's standpoint.
There is the issue of R&D+production cost versus profit, but Apple is a long time, credit worthy customer. What does that mean? They are a constant source of revenue, they contribute a good amount to the bottom line. Of course cisco and the others apply here.
Unless there is a good monetary reason to ignore these people, evem of Moto breaks even, they better well please them. They can save you in tough time, i.e. "now".
Unless Moto has some big secret, they really have dropped the ball. They have brain drains and pink slips to the left, a sagging ecconomy on the right, and long time customers angry at them.
I'm not going to second guess Moto's strategies, but as always, if apple does Ditch them, it might come back to haunt them.
~kuku</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple had a market share of 2.5% worldwide in 2001.
[quote]<strong>1.) Apple has different needs, they care much less about power consumption (execpt PB). Cisco wouldn't use a 80W.
2.) This only backs what I'm saying: Motorola is making the cpus, which fit their customer base most. If Apple can use it too, fine but they are not focusing on it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You are consistently ignoring the fact that the eMac and the iMac and the iBook and the PowerBook are all best suited to embedded designs. They have always been so. Apple would have little use for an 80W processor. It would go into the PowerMacs, but nowhere else.
Low power consumption frees the industrial designers to come up with useful forms and expect that the engineers can fit the guts into them. 80W processors require that the machine be designed for the needs of the CPU, not the needs of the user. For professionals who require as much power as they can get, that's an acceptable tradeoff. For everyone else, it isn't. Given that Apple has always prided itself on user-centric design, this is not a small matter.
[quote]<strong>See other thread.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Nothing in the other thread is relevant. Perhaps it's unfortunate for Austria that Apple can't address the build-your-own market, but they never have, they never will, and they never could. Not without squandering their ability to advance standards like USB and FireWire and applications like movie authoring and transparent networking (all of which assume a certain configuration of onboard hardware), and also the elegance, reliability and ease of use of the platform itself.
[quote]<strong>They aren't nursing years-old grudges but they changed direction years ago after the clone end. And now Apple faces this changes and people blame MOT for this change.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No.
The 500Mhz roadblock was Mot's fault, 100%: They tried producing a new chip design on a new fab. The yield problems were and are their fault, 100%: Their fabs were and are filthy. The lack of focus and quality was Mot's fault, 100%: They frittered their profits away in stupid, expensive ideas and ridiculously inefficient processes instead of concentrating on what they did well. They insulted and scared off a lot of their talent as well. Apple's cancellation of the clones and the death of CHRP/PREP meant that they changed their focus back to where it had been: chips designed for a long and profitable lifetime in the embedded market, such as the 68040 - which, you recall, was no slouch when it came out. Everything else is Mot's fault. Incompetent management has consequences. Mot SPS's current progress is remarkable considering that their employees are demoralized, their fabs are unkempt, their management is in transition, and they're facing insolvency.
Mot has always designed every CPU with an eye toward the embedded market. PowerPCs have always been intended to be designed elegantly and to run efficiently - even the Power4, mammoth that it is, places a priority on elegance of design and efficient use of resources. None of this is new, and all of it is very much in Apple's interest. To the extent that it hasn't worked, Apple is somewhat to blame, partly for circumstances beyond its control ( MS killing NT for PPC certainly didn't help) and partly because of some questionable management decisions on its end (pre-Jobs), but Mot is very much to blame as well.
Simmer down, Amorph, you're in danger of sounding vehement.
Anymore of that and I'll have to close this thread.
Wait a sec'...I'm not an over zealous moderator...drat.
Amorph's right though. Nailed Moto' pretty good. Without sounding irrational either. Damn. We'll catch him out one of these days.
Hang on. Er...yes...he was competely trashed on the tower for a £1K argument and the significance of the slice of pie PC gaming market. But hey, you can't win 'em all and that's another thread consigned to the grey fog of insider threads past...
The 500Mhz roadblock was Mot's fault, 100%: They tried producing a new chip design on a new fab. The yield problems were and are their fault, 100%: Their fabs were and are filthy. The lack of focus and quality was Mot's fault, 100%: They frittered their profits away in stupid, expensive ideas and ridiculously inefficient processes instead of concentrating on what they did well. They insulted and scared off a lot of their talent as well. Apple's cancellation of the clones and the death of CHRP/PREP meant that they changed their focus back to where it had been: chips designed for a long and profitable lifetime in the embedded market, such as the 68040 - which, you recall, was no slouch when it came out. Everything else is Mot's fault. Incompetent management has consequences. Mot SPS's current progress is remarkable considering that their employees are demoralized, their fabs are unkempt, their management is in transition, and they're facing insolvency.
Mot has always designed every CPU with an eye toward the embedded market. PowerPCs have always been intended to be designed elegantly and to run efficiently - even the Power4, mammoth that it is, places a priority on elegance of design and efficient use of resources. None of this is new, and all of it is very much in Apple's interest. To the extent that it hasn't worked, Apple is somewhat to blame, partly for circumstances beyond its control ( MS killing NT for PPC certainly didn't help) and partly because of some questionable management decisions on its end (pre-Jobs), but Mot is very much to blame as well.
1.) You are getting emotional. Please remember: it's just a disscusion!
2.) Please answer following questions:
If Apple is that important to MOT, why is the FSB still SD? MOT stated theirs customer don't want DD!
Why is nobody blaming IBM? They left Somerset and contributed almost nothing the folling years.
Did ever cross your mind that MOT simply didn't care put more efforts to end 500mhz debacle?
3.) I agree with you on most of your statements but still I want to point out that blaming MOT for the state the PPCs are in, is simple but far from accurate. Apple has got to share the same amount of blame at least IMO. "Good Apple Bad MOT" thinking is naiv period.
4.) If you don't care if Apple can't sell into 95% of the computer market then don't wonder why they lost so much share. This elite thinking may break Apple one time.
5.) Pushing HW standards has only little to do with controlling the HW. It's a matter of integration. FW did succeed because Sony integrated it into their camcorders and Apple added value to their software but surely not because Apple is the only MAC manufactor.
6.) Why would Apple make worst software (Video editing,..) if it would run on a different HW with same features? Sorry but can't see any logic in this.
I find it very hard to believe that Mot's customers don't want DDR, given the dramatic price drop of DDR relative to SDR and it's better power consumption characteristics. DDR, it consumes less power and it doesn't cost more than SDR. In fact, at some point next year DDR will probably start to retail cheaper than SDR as most memory fabs reduce their SDR production.
Mot's customers may want the shared bus part of MPX, but even the embedded market would like DDR FSB.
Still, when I think about RIO, I wonder why their embedded customers wouldn't want that? Of course they want it. It's just mot covering their pathetic ass. And they are pathetic. I know a couple of :cough: engineers :cough: who worked on communications/cellular for Mot. It's a company besieged with set-back after set-back. Half the time a team couldn't even get started on their work because others way up at the start of the development chain were completely behind and no one was informed of it. I know these guys from high-school and they literally did NOTHING for months on end cause the project they were assigned to was so completely lost. I wish I could have worked there; come in late, or not at all, leave early, entertain a few job offers from the headhunters, schmooze with visiting higher-ups, do a little independent work, and finally get an offer at a better company. It's amazing to me how the culture at Mot could be so degraded, but based on what I saw/heard, it was bad. Kind of refreshing actually, there's nothing I enjoy seeing more than someone else's employees doing their best to do as little as possible.
Anyone here who works at Moto can feel free to confirm how much they suck.
5.) Pushing HW standards has only little to do with controlling the HW. It's a matter of integration. FW did succeed because Sony integrated it into their camcorders and Apple added value to their software but surely not because Apple is the only MAC manufactor.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think the point is that FireWire is available throughout the whole Mac lineup. Thus, third-party vendors can assume that any recent Mac has FireWire, and knowing this, can design new products using it without giving up a significant part of the potential target market.
On the x86 side however, FireWire is far from being omnipresent. Thus, peripheral makers have to think twice before using FireWire. A large percentage of current PCs does not have it, so do you really want to exclude these from your target market?
A much better example IMO is USB - Apple had the guts to just have USB replace ADB completely, rather than simply adding it to ADB. This IMO is what really enabled USB to catch on as much and as fast as it did. If Apple hadn't had full control over their hardware, many of us would still be using ADB keyboards and mice on brand new machines today, much like you still have half a ton of legacy ports on virtually all x86 boards.
1.) You are getting emotional. Please remember: it's just a disscusion!
</strong><hr></blockquote>
No, I post calmly. But when I feel like my points are being glossed over I try to speak a little more forcefully.
[quote]<strong>If Apple is that important to MOT, why is the FSB still SD? MOT stated theirs customer don't want DD!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Missing here is a cost/benefit analysis of taking MaxBus to DDR. MaxBus is much more complicated and much more efficient than the busses on the PC side - and the 60x bus on the PPC side - and it's a shared bus, so it's probably a significant engineering challenge to try to take it DDR. The net performance gain of going DDR has been as low as 5% in some implementations. So: Mot has a bus that currently performs brilliantly for its customers. They're moving to RapidIO, which will be a huge step forward. Why waste a lot of engineering resources on trying to design a DDR MaxBus? The G4 will still be starved.
It looks like they're skipping a .13u stepping for the G4 for the same reason: If they have access to a .09u fab, and the design and engineering costs will be essentially the same, why bother going halfway?
[quote]<strong>Why is nobody blaming IBM? They left Somerset and contributed almost nothing the folling years.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Obvious answer: This thread concerns Motorola, not IBM.
Probably because everyone was busy blaming Mot, and it was just too depressing not to have an alternative to compare them unfavorably to?
It's true that IBM didn't want a vector unit spoiling their clean RISC designs. They've learned better since.
They kept making the G3 cheaper and more efficient, rather than designing it for raw speed. Given that that made it perfectly suited for the iBook (among other things), how is that not in Apple's interest? The iBook, despite the gaping lack of an 80W, 6GHz processor, is one of their most popular and compelling machines.
[quote]<strong>Did ever cross your mind that MOT simply didn't care put more efforts to end 500mhz debacle?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Companies that are going out of business do care if their products stall. Sorry. Mot won Cisco as a customer with the 7451. The 7400 was such an embarrassing debacle that they don't even list the model anymore - unusual, since Mot likes to get years worth of sales out of anything they make.
Mot SPS desperately needed more sales and more customers to become profitable. It still needs to become a solid, self-sustaining venture to avoid the axe. New, high-performance chips are immensely profitable. So Mot needed to get past the 7400 quick. Of course, they were in no position to move quickly - lack of funds and poor management tends to slow you down, and it takes at least two years to design a new chip - but they have succeeded in getting past that. As I noted earlier, the 7455 is a hit.
[quote]<strong>3.) I agree with you on most of your statements but still I want to point out that blaming MOT for the state the PPCs are in, is simple but far from accurate. Apple has got to share the same amount of blame at least IMO. "Good Apple Bad MOT" thinking is naiv period.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is just an assertion. What could Apple have done differently? If the 7400 hadn't had a design flaw that kept it from scaling, and/or if Motorola had been where they were in 1994, Apple might be in a much different position right now, and Motorola might be selling them a lot more processors.
IMO, if Apple made a mistake, it was getting on board CHRP/PREP in the first place. But that's the sort of judgement you can only make in hindsight, so it's not really fair. Mot's problems are not the sort that can only be judged in hindsight - they were doing a lot of really, unbelievably stupid things at the management level. (Ironically, now that CHRP is dead, Linux seems to be slowly reviving the PPC as an alternative architecture - not coincidentally because IBM is pouring tremendous amounts into Linux.)
[quote]<strong>4.) If you don't care if Apple can't sell into 95% of the computer market then don't wonder why they lost so much share. This elite thinking may break Apple one time.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not sure where this came from - oh, you're assuming that anyone concerned about selling into the other 95% must be in favor of clones. Nope, sorry. The #1 fear I run into is compatibility. See, where I am (in the country where Apple sells 50% of its hardware ), the people I know don't blink at spending an Apple price to get a name-brand computer. The last time there was a hardware refresh at my place of work, they spent enough money per workstation to get us PowerMacs with 17" Apple LCDs. They just didn't. There are a lot of reasons - mostly psychological, but some practical - behind that. From my end, Apple is addressing those issues pretty well right now. They just need to open an Apple Store in Iowa City, dammit.
[quote]<strong>5.) Pushing HW standards has only little to do with controlling the HW. It's a matter of integration. FW did succeed because Sony integrated it into their camcorders and Apple added value to their software but surely not because Apple is the only MAC manufactor.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Enh. Remember all the people clamoring for Apple to make FireWire standard on all their machines? They were remembering USB, which went nowhere until Apple forced peripherals makers to make USB peripherals if they wanted to sell to iMac owners (and, by strong implication, all future Mac owners). That worked because USB had been widely deployed on PCs already - though completely ignored, and because Apple could force the issue like that with their control of the platform. Any PC vendor who tried to lead the charge that way that would immediately suffer a competitive disadvantage - lack of compatibility - relative to their competitors, and Apple would be in the same boat if there were clones. Notice how "legacy free" PCs didn't start appearing until the iMac was safely entrenched?
[quote]<strong>6.) Why would Apple make worst software (Video editing,..) if it would run on a different HW with same features? Sorry but can't see any logic in this.</strong><hr></blockquote>
1) No hardware sales subsidizing software = less money to spend on software development;
2) The "different HW with same features" is a pipe dream. The clones rarely had the same features; when they did, they were hardly ever implemented well or reliably. More importantly, some of the machines could be rearranged in ways that removed and added features willy-nilly. Power users love this; software (and game) developers hate it. Suddenly, instead of being able to design around a small set of assumptions about what capabilities the target hardware will have, you have to design around what it might have, and come up with scenarios to deal with every permutation of missing or inadequate hardware. This sends design time and costs skyrocketing, adds bloat, and adds bugs. Hardware simplicity and consistency translates directly into simpler, cheaper and better software.
It looks like they're skipping a .13u stepping for the G4 for the same reason: If they have access to a .09u fab, and the design and engineering costs will be essentially the same, why bother going halfway?<hr></blockquote>
Aren't they currently @ 0.18µ, which would mean they'd be skipping past both the 0.15µ and 0.13µ process'? Based on Motorola's track record, I doubt this, but I do hope your right.
Speaking of PPC linux, there's now an emulator that let's you boot OSX under PPC-linux (and it supports altivec). Now if only we had cheap third party PPC motherboards.
Apple will not be able to keep the platform closed forever...
<strong>Speaking of PPC linux, there's now an emulator that let's you boot OSX under PPC-linux (and it supports altivec). Now if only we had cheap third party PPC motherboards.
Apple will not be able to keep the platform closed forever...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Comments
<strong>
1.) I think you overestimate the value of Apple for MOT SPS. They selling a lot more PPCs to other customers in total. At some time Cisco was buying more PPCs than Apple. All actions of the last years clearly show that Apple isn't that important to MOT as some think (wish).</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not. You're making the mistake of assuming that Apple requires dedicated "desktop" chips, whatever those are. As I said, Cisco and the telcos will buy the most powerful G4s Mot can offer by the truckload, so it isn't just about Apple. Mot has plenty of incentive to keep cranking out powerful chips. And Apple is one of their big customers.
The 7455 was "embedded processor of the year."
[quote]<strong>2.) Regardless how stupid MOT's management was (which it surely was, no argue 'bout that), their decision to cut down investment on the desktop PPCs was right. Look at Apple's current marketshare. It is still not clear if Apple will ever be able to return to it's former share.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Look at Apple's current lineup. Why would they require a "desktop processor?" 3 out of 4 lines are better off with a highly efficient embedded one.
[quote]<strong>3.) Everyone knew that MOT would become the number 1 mac producer, so in reality MOT not lose only $95 mil but whole opportunities tide with it. And SJ pissed off MOT big time, believe it or not.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Of course he did. But being the #1 Mac producer is small consolation when Apple goes under, isn't it? Over the three years of their existence, the clones did nothing but take market share from Apple - and in the profitable pro segment, to boot - while breaking Apple's traditional strength in integration and offering poorly engineered machines that broke all the time.
Besides, whether or not Mot still nurses a grudge about that, Mot SPS is currently fighting for its continued survival, and Mot senior management is busily trying to keep the shareholders from rolling out a guillotine while correcting the damage caused by years of incompetent management. They're simply not in a position to nurse years-old grudges against their customers.
If it ever does come up, I'm sure someone on the board mentions Firestone, which lost a 100-plus year old partnership with Ford by refusing to take some of the blame for the Explorer tire debacle.
[ 09-05-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>
3.) Everyone knew that MOT would become the number 1 mac producer, so in reality MOT not lose only $95 mil but whole opportunities tide with it. And SJ pissed off MOT big time, believe it or not.
End of Line</strong><hr></blockquote>
Moto lost more than an opportunity than with Apple clones. Lets not forget CHRP that IBM was designing as an alternative Mobo design to Apples, and Intel's offerings. This would have had to potential for some big $ in chip sales in todays pro Linex world.
Apple may be 5% of pc general, but that number is much higher against indivual PC makers[24% at last count?]. I say that's a pretty big customer.
And raw numbers alone, except for the recent shrinking of the pie, the numbers of sales where growing. In terms of money I don't care if it's 5% or 1% as long as the profit is ever increasing from a supplier's standpoint.
There is the issue of R&D+production cost versus profit, but Apple is a long time, credit worthy customer. What does that mean? They are a constant source of revenue, they contribute a good amount to the bottom line. Of course cisco and the others apply here.
Unless there is a good monetary reason to ignore these people, evem of Moto breaks even, they better well please them. They can save you in tough time, i.e. "now".
Unless Moto has some big secret, they really have dropped the ball. They have brain drains and pink slips to the left, a sagging ecconomy on the right, and long time customers angry at them.
I'm not going to second guess Moto's strategies, but as always, if apple does Ditch them, it might come back to haunt them.
~kuku
Moto's already got chips in the works that could be the basis for pretty good laptop CPUs-- the 8560 & 8540. Take away all the I/O stuff that's in there for the communications market, add an FPU and keep the on-chip RapidIO & DDR SDRAM interfaces and Apple has a chip ready to drop into a new laptop (with a new chipset, of course).
Remember-- the 85x0 chips are built to the Book E spec-- and this type of swapping in & out of "units" or "modules" or whatever you want to call them is precisely what the spec was designed for. It's entirely possible Apple could get a low power, low heat processor with respectable performance for laptops (or iMacs, for that matter) from Moto. I wouldn't count them out yet.
<strong>
I'm not. You're making the mistake of assuming that Apple requires dedicated "desktop" chips, whatever those are. As I said, Cisco and the telcos will buy the most powerful G4s Mot can offer by the truckload, so it isn't just about Apple. Mot has plenty of incentive to keep cranking out powerful chips. And Apple is one of their big customers.
The 7455 was "embedded processor of the year."
</strong><hr></blockquote>
1.) Apple has different needs, they care much less about power consumption (execpt PB). Cisco wouldn't use a 80W.
2.) This only backs what I'm saying: Motorola is making the cpus, which fit their customer base most. If Apple can use it too, fine but they are not focusing on it.
[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:
<strong>
Of course he did. But being the #1 Mac producer is small consolation when Apple goes under, isn't it? Over the three years of their existence, the clones did nothing but take market share from Apple - and in the profitable pro segment, to boot - while breaking Apple's traditional strength in integration and offering poorly engineered machines that broke all the time.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
See other thread.
[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:
<strong>
Besides, whether or not Mot still nurses a grudge about that, Mot SPS is currently fighting for its continued survival, and Mot senior management is busily trying to keep the shareholders from rolling out a guillotine while correcting the damage caused by years of incompetent management. They're simply not in a position to nurse years-old grudges against their customers.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
They aren't nursing years-old grudges but they changed direction years ago after the clone end. And now Apple faces this changes and people blame MOT for this change.
End of Line
<strong>Umm for a person who keeps harping that 5%, 5% is a PERCENTAGE. 90% of a dollar is a laughing number to my income. 1% of a trillion would make me independently rich.
Apple may be 5% of pc general, but that number is much higher against indivual PC makers[24% at last count?]. I say that's a pretty big customer.
And raw numbers alone, except for the recent shrinking of the pie, the numbers of sales where growing. In terms of money I don't care if it's 5% or 1% as long as the profit is ever increasing from a supplier's standpoint.
There is the issue of R&D+production cost versus profit, but Apple is a long time, credit worthy customer. What does that mean? They are a constant source of revenue, they contribute a good amount to the bottom line. Of course cisco and the others apply here.
Unless there is a good monetary reason to ignore these people, evem of Moto breaks even, they better well please them. They can save you in tough time, i.e. "now".
Unless Moto has some big secret, they really have dropped the ball. They have brain drains and pink slips to the left, a sagging ecconomy on the right, and long time customers angry at them.
I'm not going to second guess Moto's strategies, but as always, if apple does Ditch them, it might come back to haunt them.
~kuku</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple had a market share of 2.5% worldwide in 2001.
End of Line
Dual 1.25 ship a full nine months after dual 1.
It's crap.
Moto. Not dead yet? They ought to be.
I hope the next nine months sees a deserved demotion to the consumer line.
Lemon Bon Bon
[quote]<strong>1.) Apple has different needs, they care much less about power consumption (execpt PB). Cisco wouldn't use a 80W.
2.) This only backs what I'm saying: Motorola is making the cpus, which fit their customer base most. If Apple can use it too, fine but they are not focusing on it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You are consistently ignoring the fact that the eMac and the iMac and the iBook and the PowerBook are all best suited to embedded designs. They have always been so. Apple would have little use for an 80W processor. It would go into the PowerMacs, but nowhere else.
Low power consumption frees the industrial designers to come up with useful forms and expect that the engineers can fit the guts into them. 80W processors require that the machine be designed for the needs of the CPU, not the needs of the user. For professionals who require as much power as they can get, that's an acceptable tradeoff. For everyone else, it isn't. Given that Apple has always prided itself on user-centric design, this is not a small matter.
[quote]<strong>See other thread.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Nothing in the other thread is relevant. Perhaps it's unfortunate for Austria that Apple can't address the build-your-own market, but they never have, they never will, and they never could. Not without squandering their ability to advance standards like USB and FireWire and applications like movie authoring and transparent networking (all of which assume a certain configuration of onboard hardware), and also the elegance, reliability and ease of use of the platform itself.
[quote]<strong>They aren't nursing years-old grudges but they changed direction years ago after the clone end. And now Apple faces this changes and people blame MOT for this change.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No.
The 500Mhz roadblock was Mot's fault, 100%: They tried producing a new chip design on a new fab. The yield problems were and are their fault, 100%: Their fabs were and are filthy. The lack of focus and quality was Mot's fault, 100%: They frittered their profits away in stupid, expensive ideas and ridiculously inefficient processes instead of concentrating on what they did well. They insulted and scared off a lot of their talent as well. Apple's cancellation of the clones and the death of CHRP/PREP meant that they changed their focus back to where it had been: chips designed for a long and profitable lifetime in the embedded market, such as the 68040 - which, you recall, was no slouch when it came out. Everything else is Mot's fault. Incompetent management has consequences. Mot SPS's current progress is remarkable considering that their employees are demoralized, their fabs are unkempt, their management is in transition, and they're facing insolvency.
Mot has always designed every CPU with an eye toward the embedded market. PowerPCs have always been intended to be designed elegantly and to run efficiently - even the Power4, mammoth that it is, places a priority on elegance of design and efficient use of resources. None of this is new, and all of it is very much in Apple's interest. To the extent that it hasn't worked, Apple is somewhat to blame, partly for circumstances beyond its control ( MS killing NT for PPC certainly didn't help) and partly because of some questionable management decisions on its end (pre-Jobs), but Mot is very much to blame as well.
[ 09-06-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
Anymore of that and I'll have to close this thread.
Wait a sec'...I'm not an over zealous moderator...drat.
Amorph's right though. Nailed Moto' pretty good. Without sounding irrational either. Damn. We'll catch him out one of these days.
Hang on. Er...yes...he was competely trashed on the tower for a £1K argument and the significance of the slice of pie PC gaming market. But hey, you can't win 'em all and that's another thread consigned to the grey fog of insider threads past...
Lemon Bon Bon
<strong>User Tron wrote:
No.
The 500Mhz roadblock was Mot's fault, 100%: They tried producing a new chip design on a new fab. The yield problems were and are their fault, 100%: Their fabs were and are filthy. The lack of focus and quality was Mot's fault, 100%: They frittered their profits away in stupid, expensive ideas and ridiculously inefficient processes instead of concentrating on what they did well. They insulted and scared off a lot of their talent as well. Apple's cancellation of the clones and the death of CHRP/PREP meant that they changed their focus back to where it had been: chips designed for a long and profitable lifetime in the embedded market, such as the 68040 - which, you recall, was no slouch when it came out. Everything else is Mot's fault. Incompetent management has consequences. Mot SPS's current progress is remarkable considering that their employees are demoralized, their fabs are unkempt, their management is in transition, and they're facing insolvency.
Mot has always designed every CPU with an eye toward the embedded market. PowerPCs have always been intended to be designed elegantly and to run efficiently - even the Power4, mammoth that it is, places a priority on elegance of design and efficient use of resources. None of this is new, and all of it is very much in Apple's interest. To the extent that it hasn't worked, Apple is somewhat to blame, partly for circumstances beyond its control ( MS killing NT for PPC certainly didn't help) and partly because of some questionable management decisions on its end (pre-Jobs), but Mot is very much to blame as well.
[ 09-06-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well
1.) You are getting emotional. Please remember: it's just a disscusion!
2.) Please answer following questions:
If Apple is that important to MOT, why is the FSB still SD? MOT stated theirs customer don't want DD!
Why is nobody blaming IBM? They left Somerset and contributed almost nothing the folling years.
Did ever cross your mind that MOT simply didn't care put more efforts to end 500mhz debacle?
3.) I agree with you on most of your statements but still I want to point out that blaming MOT for the state the PPCs are in, is simple but far from accurate. Apple has got to share the same amount of blame at least IMO. "Good Apple Bad MOT" thinking is naiv period.
4.) If you don't care if Apple can't sell into 95% of the computer market then don't wonder why they lost so much share. This elite thinking may break Apple one time.
5.) Pushing HW standards has only little to do with controlling the HW. It's a matter of integration. FW did succeed because Sony integrated it into their camcorders and Apple added value to their software but surely not because Apple is the only MAC manufactor.
6.) Why would Apple make worst software (Video editing,..) if it would run on a different HW with same features? Sorry but can't see any logic in this.
End of Line
Mot's customers may want the shared bus part of MPX, but even the embedded market would like DDR FSB.
Still, when I think about RIO, I wonder why their embedded customers wouldn't want that? Of course they want it. It's just mot covering their pathetic ass. And they are pathetic. I know a couple of :cough: engineers :cough: who worked on communications/cellular for Mot. It's a company besieged with set-back after set-back. Half the time a team couldn't even get started on their work because others way up at the start of the development chain were completely behind and no one was informed of it. I know these guys from high-school and they literally did NOTHING for months on end cause the project they were assigned to was so completely lost. I wish I could have worked there; come in late, or not at all, leave early, entertain a few job offers from the headhunters, schmooze with visiting higher-ups, do a little independent work, and finally get an offer at a better company. It's amazing to me how the culture at Mot could be so degraded, but based on what I saw/heard, it was bad. Kind of refreshing actually, there's nothing I enjoy seeing more than someone else's employees doing their best to do as little as possible.
Anyone here who works at Moto can feel free to confirm how much they suck.
<strong>
5.) Pushing HW standards has only little to do with controlling the HW. It's a matter of integration. FW did succeed because Sony integrated it into their camcorders and Apple added value to their software but surely not because Apple is the only MAC manufactor.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think the point is that FireWire is available throughout the whole Mac lineup. Thus, third-party vendors can assume that any recent Mac has FireWire, and knowing this, can design new products using it without giving up a significant part of the potential target market.
On the x86 side however, FireWire is far from being omnipresent. Thus, peripheral makers have to think twice before using FireWire. A large percentage of current PCs does not have it, so do you really want to exclude these from your target market?
A much better example IMO is USB - Apple had the guts to just have USB replace ADB completely, rather than simply adding it to ADB. This IMO is what really enabled USB to catch on as much and as fast as it did. If Apple hadn't had full control over their hardware, many of us would still be using ADB keyboards and mice on brand new machines today, much like you still have half a ton of legacy ports on virtually all x86 boards.
Bye,
RazzFazz
I wonder why.
"They left Somerset and contributed almost nothing the folling years."
I wonder why.
Lemon Bon Bon
PS. Matsu, you've got my money again. Well put.
<strong>
Well
1.) You are getting emotional. Please remember: it's just a disscusion!
</strong><hr></blockquote>
No, I post calmly. But when I feel like my points are being glossed over I try to speak a little more forcefully.
[quote]<strong>If Apple is that important to MOT, why is the FSB still SD? MOT stated theirs customer don't want DD!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Missing here is a cost/benefit analysis of taking MaxBus to DDR. MaxBus is much more complicated and much more efficient than the busses on the PC side - and the 60x bus on the PPC side - and it's a shared bus, so it's probably a significant engineering challenge to try to take it DDR. The net performance gain of going DDR has been as low as 5% in some implementations. So: Mot has a bus that currently performs brilliantly for its customers. They're moving to RapidIO, which will be a huge step forward. Why waste a lot of engineering resources on trying to design a DDR MaxBus? The G4 will still be starved.
It looks like they're skipping a .13u stepping for the G4 for the same reason: If they have access to a .09u fab, and the design and engineering costs will be essentially the same, why bother going halfway?
[quote]<strong>Why is nobody blaming IBM? They left Somerset and contributed almost nothing the folling years.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Obvious answer: This thread concerns Motorola, not IBM.
Probably because everyone was busy blaming Mot, and it was just too depressing not to have an alternative to compare them unfavorably to?
It's true that IBM didn't want a vector unit spoiling their clean RISC designs. They've learned better since.
They kept making the G3 cheaper and more efficient, rather than designing it for raw speed. Given that that made it perfectly suited for the iBook (among other things), how is that not in Apple's interest? The iBook, despite the gaping lack of an 80W, 6GHz processor, is one of their most popular and compelling machines.
[quote]<strong>Did ever cross your mind that MOT simply didn't care put more efforts to end 500mhz debacle?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Companies that are going out of business do care if their products stall. Sorry.
Mot SPS desperately needed more sales and more customers to become profitable. It still needs to become a solid, self-sustaining venture to avoid the axe. New, high-performance chips are immensely profitable. So Mot needed to get past the 7400 quick. Of course, they were in no position to move quickly - lack of funds and poor management tends to slow you down, and it takes at least two years to design a new chip - but they have succeeded in getting past that. As I noted earlier, the 7455 is a hit.
[quote]<strong>3.) I agree with you on most of your statements but still I want to point out that blaming MOT for the state the PPCs are in, is simple but far from accurate. Apple has got to share the same amount of blame at least IMO. "Good Apple Bad MOT" thinking is naiv period.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is just an assertion. What could Apple have done differently? If the 7400 hadn't had a design flaw that kept it from scaling, and/or if Motorola had been where they were in 1994, Apple might be in a much different position right now, and Motorola might be selling them a lot more processors.
IMO, if Apple made a mistake, it was getting on board CHRP/PREP in the first place. But that's the sort of judgement you can only make in hindsight, so it's not really fair. Mot's problems are not the sort that can only be judged in hindsight - they were doing a lot of really, unbelievably stupid things at the management level. (Ironically, now that CHRP is dead, Linux seems to be slowly reviving the PPC as an alternative architecture - not coincidentally because IBM is pouring tremendous amounts into Linux.)
[quote]<strong>4.) If you don't care if Apple can't sell into 95% of the computer market then don't wonder why they lost so much share. This elite thinking may break Apple one time.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not sure where this came from - oh, you're assuming that anyone concerned about selling into the other 95% must be in favor of clones. Nope, sorry.
[quote]<strong>5.) Pushing HW standards has only little to do with controlling the HW. It's a matter of integration. FW did succeed because Sony integrated it into their camcorders and Apple added value to their software but surely not because Apple is the only MAC manufactor.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Enh. Remember all the people clamoring for Apple to make FireWire standard on all their machines? They were remembering USB, which went nowhere until Apple forced peripherals makers to make USB peripherals if they wanted to sell to iMac owners (and, by strong implication, all future Mac owners). That worked because USB had been widely deployed on PCs already - though completely ignored, and because Apple could force the issue like that with their control of the platform. Any PC vendor who tried to lead the charge that way that would immediately suffer a competitive disadvantage - lack of compatibility - relative to their competitors, and Apple would be in the same boat if there were clones. Notice how "legacy free" PCs didn't start appearing until the iMac was safely entrenched?
[quote]<strong>6.) Why would Apple make worst software (Video editing,..) if it would run on a different HW with same features? Sorry but can't see any logic in this.</strong><hr></blockquote>
1) No hardware sales subsidizing software = less money to spend on software development;
2) The "different HW with same features" is a pipe dream. The clones rarely had the same features; when they did, they were hardly ever implemented well or reliably. More importantly, some of the machines could be rearranged in ways that removed and added features willy-nilly. Power users love this; software (and game) developers hate it. Suddenly, instead of being able to design around a small set of assumptions about what capabilities the target hardware will have, you have to design around what it might have, and come up with scenarios to deal with every permutation of missing or inadequate hardware. This sends design time and costs skyrocketing, adds bloat, and adds bugs. Hardware simplicity and consistency translates directly into simpler, cheaper and better software.
[ 09-07-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]
[ 09-07-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
It looks like they're skipping a .13u stepping for the G4 for the same reason: If they have access to a .09u fab, and the design and engineering costs will be essentially the same, why bother going halfway?<hr></blockquote>
Aren't they currently @ 0.18µ, which would mean they'd be skipping past both the 0.15µ and 0.13µ process'? Based on Motorola's track record, I doubt this, but I do hope your right.
Apple will not be able to keep the platform closed forever...
<strong>Speaking of PPC linux, there's now an emulator that let's you boot OSX under PPC-linux (and it supports altivec). Now if only we had cheap third party PPC motherboards.
Apple will not be able to keep the platform closed forever...</strong><hr></blockquote>
An emulator? Do you have a link?
Dave