CONFIRMED: Apple has hitched itself to a sunken ship!

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 84
    x704x704 Posts: 276member
    Apparently, some people seem to forget that we're in a recession. Newsflash, a lot of companies are loosing money. Motorala has had it's 4th consecutive quarterly loss but again, we're in a recession. Most likely when the economy get's better, so will Motorola. Talking about it's demise is way premeture.



    Talking about it's demise from the desktop market may not be though. I'm sure that if Motorola cannot deliver with the G5 (with a nice speed improvement) this year (or G4's in the 2 Ghz range) that Apple will seriously be looking for options & will probably take one of them <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" /> .



    As programmer said, Apple isn't stupid. They know their PM's are hurting. If it makes sense to jump ship to Intel/AMD, an IBM PPC or someother processor they will.



    Personally I think that Apples going to stick with PPC & that the G5 is going to be here soon & it's going to be a killer. Why? Simple, Amiga said they're going to use the G5. Currently (unless I'm mistaken) they're shipping boxes with intel or AMD chips. Why bother supporting a different architecture? Obviously there's only one reason, the G5 is a serious processor.
  • Reply 22 of 84
    If you know anything about the economy then you know that after a recession most companies feel the aftershock for a bit. MOZ is going through a normal phase of an economic turn around. This is all just expected.
  • Reply 23 of 84
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Moogs wrote:



    [quote]<strong>If you had a bunch of shares, would you sell them all if the price went up a few dollars from where it is now, but without any indication that major changes are being made (besides layoffs)? Me too.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    How about new management, brought in from companies that were lean and mean? How about consolidating product lines to reduce engineering costs? Or eliminating the silly conceit of setting several engineering teams to compete with each other on a product in favor of setting one team to design one? How about a more hands-on approach from the CEO? Or shutting down fabs that aren't performing well and subcontracting production out to dedicated fabs like TSMC? There are some pound-foolish - and, one hopes, provisional - cost-cutting measures in there too, but Motorola is turning itself around in meaningful ways.



    They're also bringing back six sigma, the extremely - and once uniquely - high standard of quality that cemented its reputation to begin with, and then lapsed a few years ago. If memory serves, it only allows 3.4 defects per million parts.



    [ 01-24-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]



    [ 01-24-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
  • Reply 24 of 84
    renanrenan Posts: 49member
    Perhaps, WalMart will take over Motorola's PPC

    Plant???JCPenny is also going Bankrupt.Pretty

    soon we will all be using Celeron Chips and living

    in trailers.Seriously though I asked a MacMall

    Education Rep. about when the New PM would be released and he said whenever Steve Jobs feels like it.So... too many current PM in the channel still...Plus, they are still in the wake of the

    new iMacG4 Hype...so time to still wait.
  • Reply 25 of 84
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,457member
    [quote]Originally posted by ryukyu:

    [QB]They may not be going completely down, but their capacity to produce processors is!!!



    <a href="http://http://news.com.com/2100-1033-820898.html"; target="_blank">news.com</a>

    QB]<hr></blockquote>





    It doesn't say which fabs (some have older equipment, not usable for the latest processes). What we really want from Moto is a G5 design, whether they outsource production doesn't really matter.
  • Reply 26 of 84
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    <a href="http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=03M943030450467M983989030230"; target="_blank">Check this out</a> This is such bull. today is the first time I've looked at Motorolas roadmap since they changed it the first time from starting speeds of 2.2GHz, to starting speeds of 2GHz+.

    Now it's speeds of 800MHz to 2GHz <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> What kind of BS is that? <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />



    No Altivec mentioned either. It looks like they are abandoning it. What a crock.



    [ 01-24-2002: Message edited by: onlooker ]



    [ 01-24-2002: Message edited by: onlooker ]



    [ 01-24-2002: Message edited by: onlooker ]</p>
  • Reply 27 of 84
    Moogs, as someone pointed out most of Motorola's loss was one time charges, probably for laying people off and thus not necessarily indicitive of sales growth (contraction). Apple in 1996 lost 1.6B. If you use market cap to compare the two Apple lost about 6B in "MOT dollars" since MOT has a market cap nearly four times Apple's. Additionally, share price has nothing to do with staying out of bankruptcy. So you're "if the shareholders don't buy in" argument doesn't hold water. Don't be such an alarmist. America is full of them and we don't need any more. We've got ENOUGH people running around like headless chickens.
  • Reply 28 of 84
    one thing to consider too...apple may be waiting for motorola to really start hurting before they try to be PPC assets. would you rather buy when a company is doing well or when they're bleeding out the ears?
  • Reply 29 of 84
    [quote]Originally posted by koffedrnkr:

    <strong>one thing to consider too...apple may be waiting for motorola to really start hurting before they try to be PPC assets. would you rather buy when a company is doing well or when they're bleeding out the ears?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Bleeding from the ears indicates head trauma. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
  • Reply 30 of 84
    [quote]Originally posted by Programmer:

    <strong>I'd count on seeing a couple of aces.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Actually, I'm hoping for a couple of (G)fives in one box!
  • Reply 31 of 84
    [quote]Originally posted by onlooker:

    <strong><a href="http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=03M943030450467M983989030230"; target="_blank">Check this out</a> This is such bull. today is the first time I've looked at Motorolas roadmap since they changed it the first time from starting speeds of 2.2GHz, to starting speeds of 2GHz+.

    Now it's speeds of 800MHz to 2GHz <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> What kind of BS is that? <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />



    No Altivec mentioned either. It looks like they are abandoning it. What a crock.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    MOT's PPC roadmap also shows the G4 STARTING at 1GHz+



    I'd like to know where those chips went!! <img src="confused.gif" border="0">
  • Reply 32 of 84
    [quote]Originally posted by onlooker:

    <strong><a href="http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=03M943030450467M983989030230"; target="_blank">Check this out</a> This is such bull. today is the first time I've looked at Motorolas roadmap since they changed it the first time from starting speeds of 2.2GHz, to starting speeds of 2GHz+.

    Now it's speeds of 800MHz to 2GHz <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> What kind of BS is that? <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />



    No Altivec mentioned either. It looks like they are abandoning it. What a crock.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    MOT's PPC roadmap also shows the G4 STARTING at 1GHz+



    I'd like to know where those chips went!! <img src="confused.gif" border="0">
  • Reply 33 of 84
    eskimoeskimo Posts: 474member
    [quote]Originally posted by Programmer:

    <strong>





    It doesn't say which fabs (some have older equipment, not usable for the latest processes). What we really want from Moto is a G5 design, whether they outsource production doesn't really matter.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The fabs that I know of that are currently in phase out or have been announced for phase out are MOS8 in Austin, BiPolar 1,2, and 3 in Phoenix, and MOS4 and MOS6 in Phoenix. To my knowledge G4 processors are only produced in MOS12 in Phoenix and MOS13 in Austin. And possibly in their MOS17 in China.



    Even more interesting, yesterday AMD floated $500 million in convertible bonds for the purpose of "aquisition". Could AMD be preparing to buy out Motorola's Semiconductor Product Sector?
  • Reply 34 of 84
    ryukyuryukyu Posts: 450member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eskimo:

    <strong>

    Could AMD be preparing to buy out Motorola's Semiconductor Product Sector?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    We can only hope.
  • Reply 35 of 84
    heinzelheinzel Posts: 120member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eskimo:

    Could AMD be preparing to buy out Motorola's Semiconductor Product Sector?<hr></blockquote>



    Whoaa! What a new spin to everythin'...!

    :eek:



    Probably wouldn't be all that bad for both, better chip design for Motorola and a nice embedded chip section for AMD. They share their work on the process technology already anyways.



    Time will tell! (Funny how that applies to so many things like ..., oops, nevermind.)
  • Reply 36 of 84
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Check out http://www.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?p...0ZrRW1TW90b3Jv



    In it moto says that they will sell their entire chip division if it doesn't turn a profit soon.



    Moving to a new architecture would be disasterous for Apple, imagine having PPC Macs and IA-64 (for example) Macs simultaniously? *shudder*



    You can bet that if Moto SPS is sold, Apple and IBM will split the division between the two companies.



    Barto



    PS My first post on Apple insider!



    [EDIT: UBB can't handle the URL, just copy and paste if you want to visit the site]



    [ 01-24-2002: Message edited by: Barto ]</p>
  • Reply 37 of 84
    [quote]Originally posted by Barto:

    <strong>Moving to a new architecture would be disasterous for Apple, imagine having PPC Macs and IA-64 (for example) Macs simultaniously? *shudder*</strong><hr></blockquote>



    IA-64 is turning out to be more of a disaster than the G4 was. Low clock rates, worse than expected performance per clock, poor yields, and over-reliance on compilers that just aren't up to the task. Not a real impressive showing by Intel.
  • Reply 38 of 84
    snoopysnoopy Posts: 1,901member
    Apple has been intensely involved with chip development lately. It is almost a sure bet they have contracts protecting their interests, like an option to buy or take over all design and engineering tools to make these chips, in the event Motorola cannot fulfill their commitments. They could get any number of semiconductor plants to supply chips. It would surprise me a lot if Apple is at the mercy of Motorola or whoever buys them out. Apple has a lot invested in the PPC, and only a very foolish company would not have this interest protected against many possible contingencies.
  • Reply 39 of 84
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    I used IA-64 as example due to its modern instruction set, as moving to i386 would be a step backwards, the CPU equivalent of moving from Mac OS X back to Mac OS 9. But I'm just an end-user when it comes to CPUs.



    Barto
  • Reply 40 of 84
    [quote]Originally posted by Moogs ?:

    <strong>

    As for comparisons to Apple, there is noe comparison. When Apple was struggling and people were saying "they're going to die", they weren't losing .5 to 1+ billion dollars a QUARTER, were they?

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Actually, yes, they were. They had a single quart loss of over $700 million when Gil Amelio took over (not his fault) which was a 1 time NRL of writing off ancient unsold hardware in warehouses.
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