Any reverse switchers here?

[iDavid]

I am a big-time switcher

I used Mac from the beginning and loved them. I was a teacher in California at the time, so we had them at work also.

Power and cost got to be a MAJOR issue when upgrading, so I went the PC route. Mac were starting to go OSX, so I figure I might as well learn XP instead.

Hardware conflicts are a bit much on the PC, but I had the same problems with my iMac and its video card.

If you do your homeowork and get a proper PC it is fantastic!

I don't use many free plugs, but Voxengo, Rhino, and some other top end stuff are PC only.

I know have PC's at work and going back and forthe is a breeze.

Windows is odd to use compared to Mac OS, but not bad. Once your in your app it doesn't really make a difference.

I don't think Mac or PC matters so what, it is the app you are using and the power of the system. I use SX-3 (soon) and Tracktion. (Great Stuff)

I'm waiting on a quiet case to finish updating my PC, the PC had been damaged in transit, but it took me a lot of time to figure that out. It will have four hard dirves, two gigs of RAM, and a 64-bit processor, and it is still cheaper than a Mac (well I think it it anyway )

[egbert]

Apple will never use x86 chips, the things are designed for windows, nobody who wants to survive in the computer world goes toe to toe with Microsoft, especially when they already have the advantage of x86 market share.

x86 processors run Linux and Unix amongst other OSs. A majority of web servers run Apache on Linux for example. Linux will inevitably progress to the desktop in time - Fortune 500 companies and whole national bureaucracies have done it already. Intel could in the future do without MS - its definitely possible but I would have to agree that it is not likely anytime soon.

AMD sell their processors to Sun so why wouldn't they sell them to Apple? They already licence their Hypertransport technology to Apple in any case. AMD would love a contract for several million more Opterons.

Think of it this way, Microsoft already demand things of Intel and AMD, how could those companies survive if Microsoft abandoned them? Basically AMD/Intel have NO incentive to make chips for Apple, it would be like taking a gun and blowing your own head off.

The incentive is simple - money.

The relationship between Intel/AMD and MS is one of mutual dependence with MS arguably more dependent on the hardware people than vice versa.

The only manufacturer who can generate the volume of processors needed to satisfy the market is Intel. AMD has a fraction of Intel's Fab capacity. Intel actually writes a lot of the better code in MS OSs - the hardware interface stuff etc.

Are you serious in thinking MS which has made its bucks through its de facto OS monopoly on the desktop can afford to piss off Intel and go it alone - buy Transmeta or AMD and be a one stop shop? It will never happen.

If they can't pull out of the relationship they can't dictate the terms. It is true that there has been some argy bargy between Intel and MS in the past - MS pressured Intel into abandoning ideas of putting DSP capabilities into their hardware in the 90's for example. MS plays both sides of the street though as all the x86-64 stuff clearly shows - MS made Intel adopt/clone AMD's new architecture extensions despite the fact that it potentially cruels their longterm plans to bring 64 bit Itanium to the desktop. That one can't have gone down easy

[machinesworking]

If they can't pull out of the relationship they can't dictate the terms. It is true that there has been some argy bargy between Intel and MS in the past - MS pressured Intel into abandoning ideas of putting DSP capabilities into their hardware in the 90's for example. MS plays both sides of the street though as all the x86-64 stuff clearly shows - MS made Intel adopt/clone AMD's new architecture extensions despite the fact that it potentially cruels their longterm plans to bring 64 bit Itanium to the desktop. That one can't have gone down easy

Wait a second there cowboy, read through your own post slowly, how is "MS made Intel adopt/clone AMD's new architecture extensions....." not dictating the terms!

Bill Gates also owns about 100 million dollars worth of shares in Apple, it was some sort of typical BG deal as a settlement for GUI theft on Microsoft's part. The story goes that BG basically told Jobs that if they wanted the money it would have to come in the form of stock shares, or MS would discontinue Office for mac. I don't believe for a second that BG wouldn't sell off that stock if he thought it could be used to cripple Apple at a particular juncture, namely if they were to go after coveted MS territory, Intel/AMD.

Steve Jobs is a longtime buddy of the president of Intel. Why wouldn't they leverage that to their advantage? What prevented them from at least designing a chip on the lines of the G5? I don't think the mac crowd could handle complete OS rewrite, and the app manufacturers would probably jump ship as well.

Seriously, Linex is cool, but it doesn't have the sort of apps written for it that mac does, it was coded for PC first, and it's almost impossible to attack, MS is trying though.

I really don't see MS going anywhere, they have about the largest cash surplus to back up their dominace of any corporation out there.

The last point is this, the chips themselves are so different that there's no way that OSX would run as fast on a x86 chip, and not nearly as fast as Windows.

Hey soulkraka!

[egbert]

If they can't pull out of the relationship they can't dictate the terms. It is true that there has been some argy bargy between Intel and MS in the past - MS pressured Intel into abandoning ideas of putting DSP capabilities into their hardware in the 90's for example. MS plays both sides of the street though as all the x86-64 stuff clearly shows - MS made Intel adopt/clone AMD's new architecture extensions despite the fact that it potentially cruels their longterm plans to bring 64 bit Itanium to the desktop. That one can't have gone down easy

Wait a second there cowboy, read through your own post slowly, how is "MS made Intel adopt/clone AMD's new architecture extensions....." not dictating the terms!

LOL - Well the situation was reportedly that MS declined to duplicate the work they had done on supporting AMD's x86-64 - they wouldn't support 2 different 64 bit extensions to Windows on x86 so Intel had to emulate AMD's published specs if they wanted to have 64 bit Windows support and that's what they have done.

MS aren't exactly controlling Intel - just saying what they will contribute. In this case MS had done the work to enable AMD's 64 bit on x86 innovations. AMD led it seems and MS followed and Intel eventually caved and followed AMD too. Windoes NT has long supported 64 bit hardware (MIPS, Alpha and more recently Itanium).

The main point is that hardware and software vendors are partners in the PC biz - you won't sell one without the other. "Intel giveth and MS taketh away" is one popular take on the form this collaboration takes.

Bill Gates also owns about 100 million dollars worth of shares in Apple

He bought them late last century and sold them quite a while ago as I understand it.

Steve Jobs is a longtime buddy of the president of Intel. Why wouldn't they leverage that to their advantage? What prevented them from at least designing a chip on the lines of the G5?

Hmm ... I wonder what the patent lawyers would make of that