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Portable Market Windfall (5/20/98)
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It looks like Apple can enjoy its uncontested performance lead in the laptop market for quite a while, now. O'Grady's PowerPage mentions a TechWeb article about how Intel has cancelled the mobile version of its upcoming Katmai processor. That means the fastest Wintel laptops will continue to run on the mobile version of the Pentium II-- which is slower than the desktop version of that processor, and significantly slower than the G3-- until the mobile Coppermine chip is ready. Coppermine is scheduled for release in September of next year.
What that means, of course, is that even if PowerPC development stopped today and Apple continued to sell the existing PowerBook G3's for the next sixteen months, nothing in the Wintel laptop world will be able to touch them for pure performance. Of course, PowerPC development does continue, and Apple's readying a 400 MHz PowerBook G3 for release shortly. Beyond that, we expect to see 500 MHz G3 PowerBooks, perhaps with copper technology, possibly as early as a year from now. Apple once commanded the laptop market with the PowerBook; now it seems that they're poised to do it again.
Intel also has a low-cost mobile chip variant, called Dixon, slated for release this fall or winter, which is based on the Celeron processor. We don't know how Dixon will compare in performance to the existing G3's, but we're pretty sure the G3's will win hands down. The price, however, may be a different matter; the Dixon appears to be headed for cheap laptops that may appeal to students and home users. Can Apple's consumer portable (rumored to be based on the eMate form factor and expected in early 1999) prevail?
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SceneLink (722)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/20/98 episode: May 20, 1998: Microsoft's words come back to haunt them, as the Justice Department waves old memos and email messages in their face. Meanwhile, Intel cancels development on what was supposed to be its next laptop processor, while the PowerBook G3 continues to win converts...
Other scenes from that episode: 721: "Can We Take That Back?" (5/20/98) Yikes! We bet Microsoft is wishing that all intra-office correspondence had been communicated telepathically in the past several years. The Justice Department's antitrust case, filed last Monday, alleges that the software giant undertook to eliminate its competition in the internet browser market by piggybacking on its virtual monopoly in the desktop OS market... 723: Spreading the Gospel (5/20/98) Speaking of PowerBooks, we continue to mess with a PowerBook G3/233, and it continues to impress the heck out of us. More importantly, though, it continues to impress PC users-- at least, in our experience...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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