What if Apple bought IBM...?

stevenyc said:

Didn't Apple fans bash Intel back in the day?

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Actually it was Apple themselves who bashed Intel at a Keynote - where a Pentium III processor was torched.

Here is the ad where Apple (jokingly) apologized for doing such a thing.
http://pulsar.esm.psu.edu/Faculty/Gray/graphics/movies/toasted.mov

Intel CEO Paul Otellini made reference (jokingly) at the Keynote where Jobs announced Apple was switching to Intel. If you missed it, a good laugh was had by all.

Zoolook said:

IBM really have little interest in developing the PPC. The Xbox360 uses 3 of them, and the Wii uses one too. IBM are pursuing Cell and other technologies, but the Notebook market owned by Apple was too small to make it worth investing a lot of money in a low powered CPU.

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You've just made two classic errors, firstly you contradicted yourself as the first sentence is immediately countered by the following two! Secondly IBM never produced the laptop/notebook processors for Apple!

The real reason behind Apples move away from PowerPC chips was simple enonomics, Intel were willing to provide Apple with cheap chips whereas IBM and Freescale (Motorola) were not.

IBM had no need for Apples business when it was gearing up to provide the chips for ALL of the words games consoles (talk about a monopoly!) at the same time, Apple was always a tiny percentage of IBMs business, i.e probably less than one percent.

The funny thing is that anyone could seriously suggest that Apple could "buy IBM", they are an order of magnitude apart at least.

Amen-Moses

Amen-Moses said:

You've just made two classic errors, firstly you contradicted yourself as the first sentence is immediately countered by the following two! Secondly IBM never produced the laptop/notebook processors for Apple!

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So the G3 and G4 processors in the iBooks and Powerbooks were just undervolted and underclocked desktop chips? Interesting, I figured they were actual mobile versions of the desktop variations.

Kash said:

So the G3 and G4 processors in the iBooks and Powerbooks were just undervolted and underclocked desktop chips? Interesting, I figured they were actual mobile versions of the desktop variations.

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I believe what he is trying to say is that Motorola made the chips for the laptops, not IBM.

Amen-Moses said:

You've just made two classic errors, firstly you contradicted yourself as the first sentence is immediately countered by the following two! Secondly IBM never produced the laptop/notebook processors for Apple!

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I beg your pardon?

On the second point, I never said that IBM produced the chips for Apple's notebooks, I said it was not economically viable to invest money into R&D for chips designed for notebooks - IBM was the major investor in these technologies. You made a typical forum move of telling someone what they said (which was not the case) and then pulling it apart.

On your first point, I don't see it as a contradiction, although I didn't finish what I set out to say (the joys of posting from work) I admit. Just because a current technology is selling well, in a one-off product like a console, doesn't mean that you'd want to develop that technology. In fact, consoles very rarely (if ever) use generationally developed technology, so it'd be foolish to do so.

The Cell is a different matter, because it is the future of IBM Blade Servers and a scalable technology they see as being key in media dominated devices. It'll be interesting to see how it does in the next 5 years.

IBM had no need for Apples business when it was gearing up to provide the chips for ALL of the words games consoles (talk about a monopoly!) at the same time, Apple was always a tiny percentage of IBMs business, i.e probably less than one percent.

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Which is exactly what I said in my 1st paragraph, albeit not very clearly. I completely agree

Kash said:

So the G3 and G4 processors in the iBooks and Powerbooks were just undervolted and underclocked desktop chips? Interesting, I figured they were actual mobile versions of the desktop variations.

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No the desktop chips were just cut down Power chips, the mobile chips came from a completely different company, Motorola as already pointed out, with a completely different design.

Freescale (nee Motorola) are still developing the mobile chips and no doubt would have been quite happy selling them to Apple, just not as cheaply as Intel are willing to sell at.

Amen-Moses

Zoolook said:

I beg your pardon?

On the second point, I never said that IBM produced the chips for Apple's notebooks, I said it was not economically viable to invest money into R&D for chips designed for notebooks - IBM was the major investor in these technologies. You made a typical forum move of telling someone what they said (which was not the case) and then pulling it apart.

On your first point, I don't see it as a contradiction, although I didn't finish what I set out to say (the joys of posting from work) I admit. Just because a current technology is selling well, in a one-off product like a console, doesn't mean that you'd want to develop that technology. In fact, consoles very rarely (if ever) use generationally developed technology, so it'd be foolish to do so.

The Cell is a different matter, because it is the future of IBM Blade Servers and a scalable technology they see as being key in media dominated devices. It'll be interesting to see how it does in the next 5 years.



Which is exactly what I said in my 1st paragraph, albeit not very clearly. I completely agree

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Firstly the chips were not designed for notebooks they are standard off the shelf processors from Freescale and are used in hundreds of different devices.

Secondly IBM had very little to do with the R&D of the processors used in Apple mobile computers.

Thirdly the Cell processor IS the development of the PPC architecture which IBM are still improving.

Apple could easily have used Cell processors in a next generation of desktop machines and judging by the performance of the PS3 (which if you noticed is now dominating the charts in the distributed processing projects) would have made for some pretty impressive machines.

Similarly they could have used Freescale processors in the mobile machines.

Amen-Moses

ki99 said:

what if microsoft owned apple?
...oh ...wait.

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There is a joke that Apple isn't in fact an independent company. Its the R&D arm of Microsoft. Where else would Microsoft get all their ideas for Vista?

Amen-Moses said:

Firstly the chips were not designed for notebooks they are standard off the shelf processors from Freescale and are used in hundreds of different devices.

Secondly IBM had very little to do with the R&D of the processors used in Apple mobile computers.

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Sorry, but this is not entirely correct.

"IBM continued developing the 750 line and introduced 750CX (codename Sidewinder) in 2000 with 256 KiB on-die L2 cache; this increased performance while reducing power consumption and complexity. At 400 MHz, it drew under 4 W. The 750CX had 20 million transistors including its L2 cache. It had a die size of 43 mm² through a 0.18 μm copper process. 750CX was only used in one iMac and iBook revision."
Source

So IBM did customise the chips for Apple back in the day.

As for the G4 and G5... Well Apple fell out with Motorola in 1999 and turned to IBM for help in developing the G4.

"IBM, the third member of the AIM alliance, did design the chip together with Motorola in its Somerset design center, but chose not to manufacture it"

and

"The 970 family was created through a collaboration between IBM and Apple[1][2]. The project went under the codename GP-UL or Giga Processor Ultra Light, where Giga Processor was the codename for the POWER4 from which the core was derived."

I am sorry to throw so many Wiki quotes at you, but your assertions that these CPUs were not designed specifically for either Apple or Notebooks (in the case of the G3) are simply not the case.

Apple could easily have used Cell processors in a next generation of desktop machines and judging by the performance of the PS3 (which if you noticed is now dominating the charts in the distributed processing projects) would have made for some pretty impressive machines.

Amen-Moses

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The Cell doesn't actually make a very good general purpose CPU, AFAIK, although it seems to do some tasks exceptionally well. I'm a big fan of the Cell, but the consensus seems to be that it would not make a great CPU for home computers.

louishen said:

There is a joke that Apple isn't in fact an independent company. Its the R&D arm of Microsoft. Where else would Microsoft get all their ideas for Vista?

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LOL!!

Zoolook said:

I am sorry to throw so many Wiki quotes at you, but your assertions that these CPUs were not designed specifically for either Apple or Notebooks (in the case of the G3) are simply not the case.

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You can throw all the quotes you want but it doesn't change the facts, IBM produced the desktop chips and Motorola produced the mobile chips. All the partners were involved in the development of the PPC architecture (after all that's what a partnership means) and Apple being a partner meant they had input in driving the design but the chips were all off-the-shelf components. The G3, G4 and G5 names were just that, names, they weren't special chips only made for Apple!

The Cell IS a PPC chip! It also happens to have a bunch of coprocessors to use as it sees fit but the architecture of the main CPU itself is PPC and is just as general purpose as any other PPC. In fact a Quad Cell PowerMac would be a beast in general processing and absolutely awesome in specialist uses where the extra coprocessors could be used. Such a machine would be like having a render farm on your desk!

Amen-Moses

PinkLemonade said:

I'd rather Apple still use PPC. It set the Mac apart, and now it seems they're just becoming PC clones.

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PowerPC is what set Apple apart from the rest of the industry.
Intel Macs are still Macs, just different insides.
Also, what if Microsoft and the rest of the PC industry moved to the PowerPC architecture while Macs are the only ones at x86 architecture? Will that make Macs "unique" again as they were with the PowerPC architecture and the PCs having x86 architecture?

back to what if apple bought IBM?

Why would they want to, and why would they want to keep PPC chips

The move to intel was smart - Intel were pleased and Apple could sell machines as fast as any PC and users could run windows at native speeds at last.

Buying IBM might buy some qudos for Apple in the corporate world, but that doesn't alter the fact that all corporate IT departments are not usually staffed by IT experts - your so called IT worker normally knows about one operating system - Microsoft's.

Also Apple would inherit a company with a very conservative mindset and a history of being left behind, while Apple has a culture of innovation and being a leader in the technology industry.

Apple doesn't need IBM, it seems to be do very nicely by itself - and long may that be so.