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Behind the Apple-Intel Deal, IBM Surprised

Saturday June 11, 2005 10:45 am PDT by Arnold Kim
The New York Times provides some details behind Apple's switch to Intel. Of note, IBM was in the dark about the transition until very late in the game.

Several executives close to the last-minute dealings between Apple and I.B.M. said that Mr. Jobs waited until the last moment - 3 p.m. on Friday, June 4 - to inform Big Blue [IBM]. Those executives said that I.B.M. had learned about Apple's negotiations with Intel from news reports and that Apple had not returned phone calls in recent weeks.


IBM claims pricing was the major issue, while Apple insists performance delivery was at the core of the switch.

The New York Times also confirms that Apple has investigated other chips as well. Apple reportedly met with Sony regarding the Cell design but Jobs "was disappointed with the Cell design, which he believes will be even less effective than the PowerPC."
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UberMac
87 months ago
Surprised IBM were left in the dark so long...shows how powerful Apple must be I guess. Nice to see details will be emerging. Guess it's not much of a surprise that IBM make excuses about price, they wouldn't want their products lookin' bad.
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Jedda
87 months ago
Thats the Jobs in true form.

Interesting to see an insight into his thoughts on the Cell. I'll be interested to see how this whole thing pans out.
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cube
87 months ago
Who says the PowerPC is not effective??
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beatle888
87 months ago

Who says the PowerPC is not effective??



i believe it was steve jobs.
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arn
87 months ago
... so one concern is what keeps IBM interested in developing PowerPC processors in the meanwhile? Contractual obligation?

I don't know if the 970's are used in volume much elsewhere.

arn
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iJaz
87 months ago
I am quite surprised about the poor performance of the Cell chip that everybody is hyping.
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mxpiazza
87 months ago
everything i hear about the cell is terrible... how the xbox360* processing is lightyears ahead of the tech specs and performance that the cell brings to gaming, and now jobs saying that it will be even worse than the PPC... the cell sure isn't getting much good press.

and i'm sure Jobs dumping on the PPC is really going to make anyone want to buy a PPC mac in the next 18-24 months....
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ZLurker
87 months ago
Anyone care to enlighten us that don't subscribe to the post?
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iJaz
87 months ago

i believe it was steve jobs.

He just said it was not power effective.
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wildmac
87 months ago
IBM didn't fee like discounting the underperforming chips now that they had the Xbox deal.

Apple (and we!) wanted the faster and non-melting chips.

IBM was really surprised?.... They didn't have a clue?... If so, then thats really shows the core of the problem. IBM was comfortable enough with what they had with Apple that they didn't have a clue. They didn't see that the Powerbooks sucked, and that people were not buying them, which hurt Apple.

And we wonder why IBM has been trending downwards all these years?
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