One dual, two single : a huge marketing error ?
Apple has great troubles to ship the dualies in time , at least in Europe (only less than 1% of the order of dualies where granted in France at this date).
The problem come from a bad marketing. One dualie for two single was a bad choice. The G5 is made for dualie, at least his mobo is done for that. For 300 bucks you have a nearly 80 % increase for MP applications, or at least a much better user experience in multitasking.
It's strange that the best quality prize/ratio is in the advantage of the dualie. In general the best quality prize/ratio is at the advantage of the low end or middle range model.
50 % of the G5 ordered are dual G5. It means that for 4 PPC 970 produced 3 must be the top model one the 2 ghz model. I am not an expert in fabbing or yields, but i never seen that the best yields are belonging to the faster speed.
The result of this choice is a lack of supply of PPC 970 at 2 ghz.
If Apple have offered a 1,8 ghz dual, they will have more chips avalaible for this model. Futhermore the majority of people would have choosen this model who will have shipped in time.
I Hope that they'll fix this issue in the next coming revision.
The problem come from a bad marketing. One dualie for two single was a bad choice. The G5 is made for dualie, at least his mobo is done for that. For 300 bucks you have a nearly 80 % increase for MP applications, or at least a much better user experience in multitasking.
It's strange that the best quality prize/ratio is in the advantage of the dualie. In general the best quality prize/ratio is at the advantage of the low end or middle range model.
50 % of the G5 ordered are dual G5. It means that for 4 PPC 970 produced 3 must be the top model one the 2 ghz model. I am not an expert in fabbing or yields, but i never seen that the best yields are belonging to the faster speed.
The result of this choice is a lack of supply of PPC 970 at 2 ghz.
If Apple have offered a 1,8 ghz dual, they will have more chips avalaible for this model. Futhermore the majority of people would have choosen this model who will have shipped in time.
I Hope that they'll fix this issue in the next coming revision.
Comments
Like any company, Apple has prefered customers. European consumers must not be on that list. Consider also that Virginia Tech bought 1100 Powermac G5's. That's a lot. I bet an order like that goes to the top of the list.
They definitely seem to have underestimated demand. If, as I've heard, fully 50% of PowerMac sales are duallies, then a single order of 1,100 would not be enough to explain the continued delays. At 220,000 units shipped last quarter, that would be maybe a day's output, or not quite. Apple is swamped, pure and simple.
If IBM is in fact producing 970s rated at 2.5GHz these days (as I've heard, but this is of course rumor) then their yields at 2GHz should be quite good.
Originally posted by Amorph
In the conference call Wednesday, Fred Anderson mentioned that Apple was still behind on orders, and that their margins on the PowerMac had taken a substantial hit because they had to air freight them all.
They definitely seem to have underestimated demand. If, as I've heard, fully 50% of PowerMac sales are duallies, then a single order of 1,100 would not be enough to explain the continued delays. At 220,000 units shipped last quarter, that would be maybe a day's output, or not quite. Apple is swamped, pure and simple.
If IBM is in fact producing 970s rated at 2.5GHz these days (as I've heard, but this is of course rumor) then their yields at 2GHz should be quite good.
In Europe only the dualie have order problems. That's why i think the problem come from the number of 2 ghz chip avalaible : if it was a problem of mobo supply, HD or DVD burner supply or any other componements of the tower G5, then all models will encounter problems. And it's not the case.
I trust the rumor saying that IBM produced 970 rated at 2,5 ghz, but the problem is that speaking of yields, 75 % of the chips fabbed by IBM must rated at 2 ghz. If IBM is able to rated 50 % of his PPC 970 at 2 ghz, it will be an excellent result, but an insufficient one.