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Motorola, Shmotorola! (11/30/00)
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Speaking of mainstays on the Mac rumors scene, the granddaddy of the rumorological web has been kicking out some pretty thought-provoking stuff lately. Just yesterday we were huddled around the water cooler talking about that alleged "faster G4 release schedule" (well, that and Joyce's brain tumor on Buffy-- it's so sad!), and then Mac OS Rumors goes ahead and tops itself with these whispers of new PowerPC partners. Now that's fodder for a lunch discussion or two, right? Imagine Apple being free of Motorola's glacial grip.
Don't get too excited, though, because after all, it's just a rumor-- and the rumor just claims that "internal Apple documents" reveal that Steve's been giving his Reality Distortion Field a workout as he attempts to persuade Motorola and IBM to "support a program that would encourage new companies to join the alliance." The thrust here is that if Steve gets his way, then eventually there would be new companies developing and manufacturing PowerPC chips. In theory, more suppliers and competitive development would mean great things in store for Apple. But really, what are the odds that IBM and Motorola are going to say, "hey, sure, let's invite other companies to come in, take our intellectual property, produce competing chips, and deflate our own processor sales"? We doubt there's enough RDF in the universe.
In fact, even if Steve does somehow manage to get the other AIM partners to admit new members, for the short term, Apple's still tied to Motorola for its G4 processors since it's bet the bank on the company's Altivec technology (known in more swirly marketing terms as the "Velocity Engine"). And that's not the only reason why Apple's alleged scheme may not help the company much; for a healthy dose of skepticism and perspective, we recommend The Register's take on the idea. But even if you come to the conclusion that the whole scenario's bonkers, isn't it nice to take a moment and fantasize about a world in which we aren't sitting around for a year waiting for Motorola to do something clever? Mmmmm... it's like a balmy tropical vacation...
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SceneLink (2712)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 11/30/00 episode: November 30, 2000: The Naked Mole Rat is back-- and he bears tales of Mac OS X's long-awaited release. Meanwhile, rumor has it that Apple's trying to enlist new PowerPC partners, and poor Intel takes another beatdown as Pentium 4 systems are recalled due to heat and performance problems...
Other scenes from that episode: 2711: OS X: Waiting For The Man (11/30/00) Well, smack us with a rebar and call us an ambulance-- just when we had all but given up hope of this shindig dying a sad, lingering death, the Naked Mole Rat has finally arrived fashionably late! His latest appearance comes a solid month and a half after the last one, and that one occurred a month and a half after its predecessor, so either the Artist Formerly Known As The Knife is slowing down in his old age, or he's just on some kind of bizarre psychological and/or drug-induced six-week cycle... 2713: Do You Recall The Recall? (11/30/00) And you thought the PowerPC had problems! Well, okay, you're right-- the PowerPC does have problems, but that's not really directly germane to the point we're trying to make. What we're trying to imply is that something or someone else has bigger problems even than those of the manufacturers and purchasers of the PowerPC, so that by comparison, the PowerPC's problems are, hyperbolically speaking, practically nonexistent...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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