Monday, October 10, 2005

Did Apple Plan the Intel switch with the release of the G5?


A G5 Power Mac


Take look at the G5, it "conforms" to Intel's BTX specification. I never noticed this before but after spending some quality time with a Dual 1.8Ghz G5 at University today I noticed it. Steve Jobs did say OSX86 had been around since about 2001, so was the G5 chassis simply a Cross platform stepping stone. Will they sell upgrade kits so G5 owners can just switch "up" to intel boxes. We hear analysts say all the time that Apple is a Hardware company, well is the G5 their way of working their way into the tradition PC market?
G5's are fully upgrade, just like PC's. Sure the mounting holes are in different places, but anyone compared them to a BTX board? Plus, custom parts limits the suppliers to Apple only. The first Mac-Intel's, were in G5 "enclosures" was this just for convenience or was it the plan all along? Say what you will, but I think Apple had us "hood winked" for years while it made it's Huge switch. It saw Intel Ramping up speeds in it's chips, and thought hey that should be us.

A BTX PC


That classic phrase of a "3GHz Power Mac" seems to fit in perfectly to this conversation, Jobs always knew that Apple would have to change to survive. He would have made the change earlier but having only, a relatively short time before switched platforms, he couldn't do it again so soon, for fear that the company turn into a laughing stock.
The key topic on my lips at least, is will apple start selling parts Wholesale and allow users to build their own Mac? Cause I would take the trip, it would be joy. A choice of enclosures, and boards, and the rest is pretty much PC stuff. They could even employ a Licensing model(Like the "Made for Ipod" scheme) and pull in millions.
Discuss...

Thanks for Reading

Related Links
OSX86 Project
Andanatech article on the BTX Form factor
Apple's Power mac site

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Coincidence.