On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 07:11:35 GMT, Roedy Green
<my_email_is_posted_on_my_website@munged.invalid> wrote, quoted or
indirectly quoted someone who said :

I suppose though it all goes well there will eventually three choices
of OS on your PC.

Is Apple planning on becoming primarily an OS company?

He claimed that we would see the first new machines by the next WWDC,
and would have a complete transition by the end of 2007.

Doubtful.  It appears that they intend to continue shipping
Apple-branded hardware, but running Intel chips.

As far as tackling Windows head on, there has been one benefit.  
Formerly, if I claimed performance differences between OS X and Windows
or Linux, the bug would often be ignored.  They now are getting
attention, as the exact same machine can run both Linux and Windows, as
well as the MacOS.

I know the Java group has gotten some performance pressure in areas
where their JDK was slower than the Sun one on the same hardware.

Yeah, but it was getting kinda clear that IBM was having trouble
producing appropriate portable chips.  G5s are speedy, but very hot.  
With the current Powerbook is getting long in the tooth, and with the
competition getting longer battery life, they had to do something.

I will miss altivec - here is to hoping that SSE4, or whatever they call
it come the day, will learn from what altivec did right.

Whether that justifies the expense of a switch is a different argument.

Scott