MacSlash has an original editorial regarding different PowerPC projects that never made it to shipping. It mentions things like the obscure PowerPC 615 that could run x86 instructions, or the PowerPC 750VX, which would have been IBM's answer to the Motorola G4. This article reads like a requiem, but lest we forget: here, here, here, and of course, here. I'm starting to believe IBM won't miss Apple all that much.
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Member since:2005-08-11
Member since:2005-07-06
You're right in that the important thing here is the number of units over which the development cost is amortized. An Intel design has a lifespan of 18-months to two years. Every cycle, hundreds of millions in R&D costs are incurred developing an improved design. That's fine for Intel, because in that period, it ships 70+ million chips. For IBM and Apple, the equation was very different. The product life-cycle was the same (or at least, should have been the same, to stay competitive with Intel and AMD), and the R&D was barely cheaper (because IBM used more automated methods, which again hurt PPC's performance relative to x86), but even in its best years Apple could never move more than a few million chips of a given architecture over an 18-month period.
Member since:
2006-01-03
"IBM and Motorolla couldn't keep up with Apples demands - IBM wanted nice long cycles between pushing the clock speed up; Apple needed short bursts and rapid updates as to keep up to date with the latest Intel and AMD offerings"
Exactly right. IBM is hosed; low margin toys lik ethe XBox won't fill the hole left by AAPL's departure.