Apple - Push-Thread 2

Weiterhin gebe es Hürden für diejenigen, die einen Windows-Rechner an ihrem Arbeitsplatz haben und einen Mac zu Hause nutzen; AOL ist für Mac OS X noch nicht fertig und wertvolle Services so nicht nutzbar; negativ fällt Coates auf, das Pocket PCs nicht mit dem neuen System von Apple funktionieren. Man müsse weiterhin berücksichtigen, dass sich die Welt immer noch an Windows orientiere, Bill Gates den Weg zum Erfolg bahne und Mac-Anwender in eine Nische dränge. Diese Windows-Dominanz führe dazu, dass der Erfolg vieler Applikationen erst einmal an Windows getestet wird, bevor die Software auch für den Mac erhältlich ist.

Trotzdem: Nie habe es einen günstigeren Zeitpunkt gegeben, sich der Minderheit der Macianer mit ihren gut aussehenden Rechnern anzuschließen, so beschließt James Coates seine Kolumne. (ms)

 

9/30/00) and F01. As a result, Apple's stock climbed to a Class Period high of $64-1/8 in
early 9/00, when four top Apple officers sold 370,000 shares of their Apple stock for $22
million. Suddenly, just 20-25 trading days later, on 9/28/00, Apple shocked investors by
revealing a huge 4thQ F00 revenue and EPS shortfall due to very poor sales to its education
(K-12) market and poor consumer acceptance of its new personal computer products (some
of which had been late to market, had defects and lacked features which were essential for
market success), resulting in the accumulation of excessive inventories of finished goods in
Apple's distribution channel and Apple having to cancel component part orders and, thereby,
incur financial penalties. As rumors of Apple's troubles circulated prior to and then following Apple's shocking disclosure,
Apple's stock collapsed from $61-3/64 on 9/20/00 to $25-3/8 on 9/29/00, continuing to fall to as low as $17 and then to
$13-5/8, as investors absorbed the full impact of these shocking revelations, a stock decline that wiped out over $10 billion of
Apple's market capitalization in just a few days.

Plaintiff seeks to recover damages on behalf of class members and is represented by the law firm of Schiffrin & Barroway,
LLP, who has significant experience and expertise prosecuting class actions on behalf of investors and shareholders. For more
information on Schiffrin & Barroway, or to sign-up to participate in this action online, please visit www.sbclasslaw.com.

If you are a member of the class described above, you may, not later than December 15, 2001, move the Court to serve as
lead plaintiff of the class, if you so choose. In order to serve as lead plaintiff, however, you must meet certain legal
requirements.


Hans-Udo

 Similarly, many businesses have expressed concern that the purchase of XP will eventually require the
 adoption of Microsoft's upcoming subscription services -- costing these companies more for the same
 software they currently use with Windows 2000 (news - web sites).

 Because of those anticipated costs, businesses are likely to seek out alternative computing solutions
 that can handle the same demanding productivity requirements, while also continuing to work with
 existing Microsoft office documents.

 Only the Mac OS X can fill this role.

 Viva la Difference

 Until recently, users did not have much choice in the search to improve conditions. The classic
 Macintosh (news - web sites) operating system, up to MacOS 9, is easy to use and is capable of
 running most mainstream applications, but is just as crash prone as previous versions of Windows.

 Linux (news - web sites), while having proven itself as a superior server to what Microsoft offers, has
 yet to provide the same benefits on the desktop.

 Apple's MacOS X is the first legitimate all encompassing competitor to Windows for the corporate
 workplace. As a server, OS X is rock-solid and powerful -- after all, it's Unix (news - web sites).
 MacOS X offers the same reliability and power as Linux, FreeBSD, and other popular Unix-based
 server OSs.

 Exit Here

 On the desktop, OS X is not only easy to use, but also has nearly all the same productivity
 applications -- both native and through OS 9 compatibility -- that have been in use by many office
 employees using Microsoft software.

 MacOS X plays nicely with existing office networks since it can talk to Windows servers out of the
 box (via Samba) as well as connect to other machines via Appletalk and NFS.

 As companies grow more and more weary of the constant upgrades, patches, security concerns and
 reliability problems often associated with Windows, many may realize that MacOS X is the ideal exit
 point from Windows.

 Author's background: Michael Reynolds is a principal owner of a Web development company,
 studies martial arts and plays the cello. You can visit him on the web at http://michael.spinweb.net.


Hans-Udo

Das nun ein halbes Jahr alte Betriebssystem Mac OS X von Apple sei der erste umfassende und legitime Konkurrent zu Windows im Business-Bereich. Diese Ansicht vertritt Michael Reynolds bei osOpinion. Das alte Mac OS bis Version 9 sei nicht mehr ausbaufähig, und letztendlich genauso von Abstürzen geplagt gewesen wie ältere Windows-Versionen. Der Nachfolger OS X nun biete neben Stabilität nicht nur die sprichwörtlich einfache Bedienung seines Vorgängers für alle, sondern auch UNIX-Profis die Tools, die sie gewöhnt sind; die eingebaute Server-Funktion von Mac OS X sei extrem sicher und hohen Anforderungen gewachsen. Die für Windows-User gewohnten Produktiv-Applikationen gebe es in gleicher Form auch für Mac OS Classic und Mac OS X; die Konnektivität von OS X mit Windows-Servern via Samba und zu anderen Systemen mit AppleTalk und NFS sei gesichert.
Viele Firmen seien die Probleme mit zahlreichen Patches, Updates, mit Unzuverlässigkeiten und Sicherheitsproblemen langsam leid. Viele stellten nun fest, dass mit Mac OS X der ideale Zeitpunkt gekommen sei, die Windows-Plattform zu verlassen. (ms)

Mülheim (in) –  Motorola hat die Entwicklung seines neuen PowerPC-8500-Prozessors, auch G5 genannt, abgeschlossen. Das geht aus einem Bericht des Magazins „The Register“ hervor. Damit könnte Apple in den nächsten Monaten im Gigahertz-Rennen mit dem PC deutlich aufholen. Bisher hat Apple nur einen G4-Prozessor mit maximal 866 MHz im Angebot. Laut „The Register“ wird der neue G5-Prozessor auch mit Taktfrequenzen von 800, 1.000, .1200 und 1.400 MHz erhältlich sein. Technisch bietet die neue G5-CPU von Motorola eine von 7 auf 10 Stufen verlängerte Pipeline. Der Systembus wurde zudem auf 400 MHz gesteigert. Insgesamt besteht der neue 64-Bit-Prozessor aus 58 Millionen Transistoren. Zum Vergleich: Der Pentium 4 setzt sich aus 42 Millionen Transistoren zusammen. Damit die volle Performance des Prozessors genutzt werden kann, muss auch der Hauptspeicher eine schnelle Verarbeitung der Daten gewährleisten können. Nach Angaben von „The Register“ möchte Apple PC3200-DDR-RAM-Module für einen Bustakt von 400 MHz verwenden. Diese sollen allerdings erst im Jahr 2003 auf den Markt kommen. Demnach ist unklar, wann erste Apple-Rechner mit den neuen G5-Prozessoren erhältlich sein werden. Preise stehen ebenfalls noch nicht fest.

Quelle: www.chip.de

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Apple looks to future - post-Motorola? - PowerPC world

By Tony Smith
Posted: 22/10/2001 at 11:28 GMT

Apple is becoming increasingly irritated with its prime PowerPC provider, Motorola, to the extent that it talking to fellow PowerPC partner, IBM, about how the platform can continue to evolve without the chips-to-cellphones giant's participation, sources close to the Mac maker have claimed.

We can't say we're entirely surprised. Like a marriage, the PowerPC alliance has seen its fair share of fights between partners, threats of divorce and, ultimately, reconcilliation. Steve Jobs' decision to can Apple's clone programme didn't go down to well with Mac OS licensees Motorola and IBM, and those two later fell out over how the processor should be extended beyond the G3: Motorola wanted to leap ahead with the G4 and its vector processing technology, AltiVec, while IBM believed that there was still plenty of mileage to be made out of the G3 architecture.

G3 vs G4
With hindsight, IBM was probably right. It has at least announced a 1GHz G3-class processor, and while Apple and Motorola sources claim the upcoming G5 goes like the proverbial off a shovel, the G4 has largely failed to provide the significant performance lead over the G3 that both companies promised. Yes, clock-for-clock, the G4 is faster and does provide higher clock speeds than the G3 too, but the real booster, its AltiVec engine, hasn't exactly inspired all those third-party Mac programmers out there to use it in their own apps.

"The G4 delivers superior performance in vector operations to its Intel counterparts, but it stacks up very poorly in terms of integer and floating point performance scores when stacked up against the P4," claims our Apple source. "This is because several key design improvements in the G4 that were proposed did not make it into the final product, which is what explains insignificant [real-world] performance advantages of the G4 over the G3 in non-AltiVec applications. The G5 will end this nonsense: in many tasks, there have been fourfold increases in integer and floating point performance."

But though it shows plenty of promise, the G5 remains unnannounced, with no official release schedule, and its Q1 2002 ship date remains tentative at best.

To all intents and purposes, then, the G4 can be regarded as little more than a faster G3. It should have been much more and the fact that it hasn't been must largely be down to Motorola. The bug in the original PowerPC 7400 that prevented it running efficiently above 500MHz arguably forced it to redesign the chip from the ground up in order to deliver higher clock speeds. That's what it did with the 7450, the second-generation 'G4 Plus'.

It's currently doing the same with the 7460, the third-generation G4-class CPU - codenamed Apollo - which will take the G4 to 1GHz and beyond. Why? Because, we hear, the 7450 won't run at over 900MHz, just as the 7400 couldn't exceed 500MHz.

Apple vs Motorola
Apple's current processor strategy is tied to Motorola's ability to get ever faster desktop processors to market. Given Motorola's record, it's no wonder Apple might be feeling frustrated. Megahertz Myth comments are all very well, but the bottom line (for now, at least - we've yet to see how AMD's new naming scheme tunes buyers into new performance metrics) is that it needs higher and higher clock speeds to avoid appearing to have been left way behind by the x86 world.

Who's in charge here?
To be fair to Motorola, its focus is directed toward other markets and Apple is only one of many, many PowerPC customers. Cisco, for instance, has committed itself to using the 7450 in next-generation routers. If the networking market picks up and begins to approach its size last year, Cisco could well become a bigger customer than Apple (assuming it isn't already). And at least Cisco won't constantly whine about not keeping up with Intel et al and won't impose unrealistic deadlines - something, we hear, Apple does rather a lot.

Essentially, both Motorola and Apple each want to define the pace and method by which PowerPC platform should evolve, and each wants to do so according to their own markets - the broad embedded arena for Motorola, or the narrow high-end desktop for Apple. These viewpoints aren't mutually exclusive, but they do bring very different priorities.

Buying PowerPC
The logical move for Apple, then, is to take on the development of high-end PowerPCs itself - to steer the evolution of the platform in the direction that will best serve its desktop and notebook sales.

We've been hearing for some time suggestions that Apple might well pursue just such a course by buying Motorola's PowerPC assets. As we've seen, that would bring Apple considerable freedom of movement, but the downside is both the upfront cost and the ongoing expense of running a processor developent programme. That's a very expensive business, even if you're a fabless - ie. you don't physically make the chips yourself - chip company. Sun continues to develop its own processors, as does IBM, but both Compaq and Hewlett-Packard (even if they don't merge) have been chosen to end the development of their own Risc processors - Alpha and PA-Risc, respectively - and buy Intel's Itanium instead.

One alternative we've suggested before would be for Apple to form a closer partnership with IBM and together buy Motorola out. Apple benefits because it takes tighter control of PowerPC development than it has now and shares the risk and cost with IBM. IBM wins because it acquires technology it currently has to license off Motorola. It also gains marketshare and the customers that go with it. Unlike Apple, it has the resources to sell high-end PowerPCs to a broad, embedded customer base.

All this has to be seen in the context a sale of Motorola's chip division, the Semiconductor Products Sector, something the company has threatened to do should the operation fail to improve its financial position.

Bringing in Big Blue
Our Apple sources suggest that Steve Jobs has indeed discussed the matter with IBM chief Lou Gerstner, though lacking Jobs' diary, it's impossible to confirm this. It would hard to imagine that the two have not conversed on the subject, however. At the very least, we believe Apple has discussed signing IBM as a second source of G5 processors, just as, in late 1999, it brought Big Blue on board to produce G4 CPUs after it emerged Motorola was having problems making enough of them. Apple's move came after the G4's infamous '500MHz' bug, which force the company to reduce the clock speeds at which it had begun shipping its Power Mac G4 desktop line.

Contractual issues may make it harder for Apple to bring IBM on board as a G5 supplier, but past history has shown that it may have to. It may also look for alternative suppliers, such as TSMC, the world's largest chip foundry.

Our source's comments suggests that these are indeed the lines on which senior Apple figures are thinking, though it should be pointed out that it could equally simply be what the lower orders think what their bosses are up to. We'd happily take Jon Rubenstein's call to put us in the picture...

And if Motorola delivers the G5 on time and with the requisite level of performance, such contingencies may prove academic while the two companies continue to co-operate as before.

Exit PowerPC, Stage Left?
But what if it all goes horribly wrong? Mac OS X does, thankfully, provide Apple with a much more straightforward PowerPC Exit Strategy, though as our source notes, only if it's willing to drop Classic compatibility and Mac OS 9. Native OS X apps could be modified for a new architecture and recompiled relatively easily, but that's not the case with older software.

But shifting to, say, second-generation Itanium (aka McKinley) or Sun's UltraSparc III - both platforms suggested by our source and certainly the most likely alternatives - would require a significant effort to smooth the path for developers who have already had to go through one major transition (to OS X) as it is.

We can only see Apple making such a move if it had literally no other choice, such has been its investment - in money and intellectual capital - on PowerPC. That won't stop it exploring the potential of such platforms, and its important not to mistake experimental systems never intended to go beyond the lab for a strategic change of direction.

The bottom line is that everything hangs on the G5. Relations between Apple and Motorola may be strained, but that's no reason to assume that their differences are irreconcilable. But Apple would do well to make some contingency plans and, if our source is correct, it's wisely doing just that.

The marriage has, after all, been through more rocky times before. ®


Quelle: www.theregister.co.uk

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Hier die Spekulation bezüglich eines Kaufs der Power-PC-Sparte seitens Apples:
www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/20038.html

Und hier die zwei Stories, die sich mit der Geschwindigkeit der G5-Prozessoren befassen:
www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/22381.html
www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/22328.html

Ebenfalls aus gesicherten, Apple-nahen US-Quellen war zu erfahren, dass Apples MP3-Player mit Festplatte iPod keine Eintagsfliege bleiben wird, denn in Cupertino arbeitet man fleißig an weiteren "Digital-Lifestyle-Devices": Die Entwicklung geht in Richtung Organizer. Unter anderem soll Apple in San Francisco neue Software für den mit einer 5 Gigabyte-Festplatte und einem Display in Handygröße bestückten iPod vorstellen, die Termine und Adressen auf den MP3-Player bringt. Eingegeben werden diese auf dem Mac und anschließend übertragen, etwa beim Aufladen des Akkus über die FireWire-Schnittstelle des Rechners. Die Navigation könnte dann ähnlich wie bei einem Handy über das Bedienrad des iPod erfolgen. (jes/c't)


Q: www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jes-07.12.01-000/