What if Apple bought IBM...?

Neptune · Dec 12, 2007

Apple would continue the development of the G5 chip/PowerPC architecture and perhaps would've made an iBook/PowerBook G5 (underclock the G5 processor). The Power6 processor (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070521-ibms-power6-flies-the-coop-at-4-7ghz.html) would be a G7 and would be introduced in the PowerMacs at MacWorld 2008. Apple perhaps in some way would make the G7 "cool enough" to be in a notebook (extreme underclocking) and we would see those G7s in the PowerBook G4s by February and iBook G4s by April/May 2008. What do you think would've happened if Apple stayed with IBM or bought iBM?

tacsniper · Dec 12, 2007

What if I become the CEO of Apple? You think I will give all the members on here a free Mac of their choice?..... answer... maybe yes, if I ever become the CEO and I still remember this post.... maybe no, 'cuz I will never become the CEO.... so in conclusion, who knows?

bryphotoguy · Dec 12, 2007

Not sure why someone would put a processor in a computer and under-clock it because it ran too hot. Seems sort of wasteful.
Intel was able to keep up with the demand and volume Apple needed when it came to building fast, reliable processors. As a bonus, they can reach a whole new market with the advent of BootCamp.
To me, Intel and Apple fit a lot better.

jonnyd · Dec 12, 2007

Wasn't there a joke about this?

Q. What do you get if you cross Apple with IBM?

A. IBM.

Kash · Dec 12, 2007

bryphotoguy said:
Not sure why someone would put a processor in a computer and under-clock it because it ran too hot. Seems sort of wasteful.
Intel was able to keep up with the demand and volume Apple needed when it came to building fast, reliable processors. As a bonus, they can reach a whole new market with the advent of BootCamp.
To me, Intel and Apple fit a lot better.

Agreed. Going with Intel was a great move for Apple. The option to run Windows on a Mac drove a lot of the huge sales the company has seen the past year.

And underclocking a chip just to fit it into a laptop is a pretty dumb idea when you could just design a better chip like Intel did with its Conroe line.

thedood · Dec 12, 2007

Kash said:
Agreed. Going with Intel was a great move for Apple. The option to run Windows on a Mac drove a lot of the huge sales the company has seen the past year.

And underclocking a chip just to fit it into a laptop is a pretty dumb idea when you could just design a better chip like Intel did with its Conroe line.

Agreed. More importantly, so did Steve Jobs, which is why the Mac is now powered with Intel.

mac57 · Dec 12, 2007

Nonetheless, all I can say is "wow" - 4.7 GHz, 2x the performance of my G5... I *want* one!

ki99 · Dec 13, 2007

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

mac57 · Dec 13, 2007

ki99 said:
what if microsoft owned apple?
...oh ...wait.

You appear to be suggesting that this is true. Surely you jest?

stevenyc · Dec 13, 2007

Kash said:
Going with Intel was a great move for Apple.

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

baggss · Dec 13, 2007

ki99 said:
what if microsoft owned apple?
...oh ...wait.

I'm curious as to what you mean by that too....

Please tell me you're not referring to the 1996 deal where MS invested some money (as part of patent settlements out of court which MS would have lost) and purchased non-voting shares of Apple Stock. They sold those shares some time back and never owned a controlling stake in Apple no matter what the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" might lead you to believe.

Or are you thinking of something else?

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

Yep. In many ways the PPC architecture is still better than Intel's X86 but it was not being developed in such a way that it could be marketed by Apple. The push for IBM was not in desktops but in embedded computing. As such Apple had a hard time selling the PPC when it was compared to the X86, partly due to Intel's "Mhz Myth" (that many still buy into today) and partly due to IBMs priorities. Since perception is 98% of reality in the public mind, the move to Intel was a smart.

mathogre · Dec 13, 2007

jonnyd said:
Q. What do you get if you cross Apple with IBM?

a) A mainframe in every home that comes with stickers for your car

b) Beautiful laptop computers that require the use of JCL (Job Control Language). Here's how you copy a file!

Code:

//IS198CPY JOB (IS198T30500),'COPY JOB',CLASS=L,MSGCLASS=X
//COPY01   EXEC PGM=IEBGENER
//SYSPRINT DD  SYSOUT=*
//SYSUT1   DD  DSN=OLDFILE,DISP=SHR
//SYSUT2   DD  DSN=NEWFILE,
//           DISP=(NEW,CATLG,DELETE),
//           SPACE=(CYL,(40,5),RLSE),
//           DCB=(LRECL=115,BLKSIZE=1150)
//SYSIN    DD  DUMMY

mac57 · Dec 13, 2007

Excellent MO, just excellent! A true ROFL moment!

technologist · Dec 13, 2007

mathogre said:
a) A mainframe in every home that comes with stickers for your car

b) Beautiful laptop computers that require the use of JCL (Job Control Language). ...

c) You will not be able to buy a new iMac; you just buy a iMac Service Agreement. A team of consultants will deliver your new iMac, set it up, and run it for you. For this, you will pay $800 a month.

rman · Dec 13, 2007

mathogre said:
a) A mainframe in every home that comes with stickers for your car

b) Beautiful laptop computers that require the use of JCL (Job Control Language). Here's how you copy a file!

Code:

//IS198CPY JOB (IS198T30500),'COPY JOB',CLASS=L,MSGCLASS=X //COPY01 EXEC PGM=IEBGENER //SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=* //SYSUT1 DD DSN=OLDFILE,DISP=SHR //SYSUT2 DD DSN=NEWFILE, // DISP=(NEW,CATLG,DELETE), // SPACE=(CYL,(40,5),RLSE), // DCB=(LRECL=115,BLKSIZE=1150) //SYSIN DD DUMMY

I had forgotten about jcl code. Use to work with that back in the day.

baggss · Dec 13, 2007

+Rep for MO!

PapaNoHair · Dec 13, 2007

Well......in my opinion their new logo would be "IBMac"

Zoolook · Dec 13, 2007

I think the power of the G5 processor was grossly over-stated by both IBM and Apple. Jobs compared it to the 1st Gen Pentium 4, which was a pretty poor processor, but never compared it to the AMD64, out at the same time. Why? Because in almost every 64-bit benchmark, it lost, by a lot - in fact an Anadtech roundup shows the G5, Xeon and Opteron 250 (1st AMD64 CPU) compared on Linux and the G5 came last in every benchmark.

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.

I am no Intel fanboy, I used AMD chips for the last 6 years of my PC days, but you have to give them credit in the Laptop market. Their chips have been great for years. Pentium M and Centrino were great for battery life, and were a lot faster, clock for clock, than the P4 ever was.

rman · Dec 13, 2007

PapaNoHair said:
Well......in my opinion their new logo would be "IBMac"

So would IBM mean I Buy Mac?

jonnyd · Dec 13, 2007

baggss said:
I'm curious as to what you mean by that too....

Please tell me you're not referring to the 1996 deal where MS invested some money (as part of patent settlements out of court which MS would have lost) and purchased non-voting shares of Apple Stock. They sold those shares some time back and never owned a controlling stake in Apple no matter what the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" might lead you to believe.

Or are you thinking of something else?

I think he meant 'pwned'.