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Re: MacTel [message #44302 is a reply to message #44301]

Tue, 07 June 2005 11:02

Rick Towler
Messages: 821
Registered: August 1998

Senior Member

Ken Mankoff wrote:

> I've just heard that Mac will be moving from PPC to x86 chips in the
> next few years. I'm not sure what this means for IDL on Mac. Any
> thoughts from RSI or anyone else?

Are you Mac guys making room for the water-cooled MacTel behemoths that
will grace your desk? I kid, sort of. I read that Apple will start
with the Pentium M's which are much cooler. And now that Intel has all
but scuppered IPF (Itanic) and moved much of these engineers back to x86
Intel is moving beyond the netbust debacle and delivering the processors
Apple wants.

The traditional Intel-Microsoft-Dell triumvirate is breaking down and
there are many reasons for Intel to invest heavily in OS X. Microsoft
has stumbled with longhorn and the hardware makers are looking for the
software that will entice (force) users to upgrade. Maybe they will
invest in developing drivers? And then there are the legions of Windows
users looking for a reason to defect...

But this doesn't really change the landscape, does it? I mean, without
program W running on OS X user Y won't give up his windoZe. And with
Dell and Microsoft bringing AMD into the love fest I see no end in the
ability of Dell to deliver perfectly adequate if lifeless PC's to the
undiscriminating masses at commodity prices. The wildcard will be
Lenovo but even if they cut the bottom out from under Dell it is hard to
say how this will better position Apple in the market.

As far as IDL on OS X is concerned it's hard to say (this is
comp.lang.idl-pvwave, isn't it?) The next 18-24 months will be
difficult as Apple transitions. I don't think anyone is going to run
IDL using the binary translation layer so what does RSI do? We know they
are reticent to support IDL on the OS X PPC architecture. Now are they
going to support both? I think we can only hope that the claims that
most applications can be recompiled in a few hours with just "minor
tweaks" are true.

You have to wonder what the Macatistas are thinking. Some of the cachet
of the Mac platform was it's mysterious RISC based PPC architecture.
Now you guys will be so ordinary. :) And <gasp> what if you could walk
into your local apple store and buy a copy of OS X to run on your home
built x86 PC? Then how would you discern yourself from the slobbering
masses? You say it won't happen... And they said OS X would never run
on x86 too.

Apple has ~18 months until Microsoft delivers Longhorn. 18 months to
convince developers to "switch" to yet another platform. 18 months to
convince users to "switch" to an arguably better OS. 18 months. It's a
fine day in the soap opera that is the industry.

And Mac IDL users hold their breath.

-r

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[Message index]

		Re: MacTel By: Michael Wallace on Tue, 07 June 2005 12:52
		Re: MacTel By: Michael Wallace on Tue, 07 June 2005 12:50
		Re: MacTel By: Rick Towler on Tue, 07 June 2005 12:44
		Re: MacTel By: btt on Tue, 07 June 2005 11:10
		Re: MacTel By: Rick Towler on Tue, 07 June 2005 11:02
		Re: MacTel By: K. Bowman on Tue, 07 June 2005 13:04

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