[Ti] Re: IBM introduces new PowerPC processors

[Chris Olson]

On Jul 9, 2005, at 7:17 PM, Henry Kalir wrote:

> I wonder if the Chinese would be willing to pay the $7K for a 970 CPU 
> based machine..

Today, you can't buy an Intel or AMD based server that competes with 
the IBM BladeCenter/eServer line on any of price point, power, or 
scalability.  Period.  And servers are what power industry - not 
workstations and portables.  You own the server market, you'll 
eventually own the desktop market.

Leveno is the cheap commodity champion.  And yes, the Chinese have the 
money.  China's leaders have realized that for them to become an 
industrial giant and a major world player they need computer technology 
- good technology - and they need it cheap so that education can be 
enhanced and they can stay with the forefront of technology in other 
parts of the world.

Leveno is now the 3rd largest manufacturer of computers in the world, 
trailing only Dell and HP.  They're bigger than Apple.  Way bigger.

Take a look at the Mac x86 dev boxes.  I now have one to play with.  
It's a commodity PC - Intel manufactured motherboard, chipsets, 
graphics, ethernet, the whole 9 yards.  It boots Windows XP perfectly 
fine.  Except for one little problem; I can buy the same thing from 
Dell way cheaper than what Apple is going to charge extra for their 
fancy case.  Same thing applies to PowerBooks.

In the past the PowerBook was a good buy because you couldn't buy a 
Unix-powered PowerPC-based machine anywhere else for the same price.  
Once your PowerBook has nothing but an Intel Centrino in it, same as a 
Dell, it better be able to compete on price point.  But you say, "oh, 
the PowerBook comes with OS X".  Big deal.  The Dell will run linux 
just fine, and modern desktop linux systems are every bit as good as OS 
X.  It's still just Unix under the hood.

Apple has done well selling a product you couldn't get anywhere else, 
and charging a premium price for it.  They're a hardware company, not a 
software company.  Unfortunately, Apple isn't very good at being the 
cheap commodity champion, and computers aren't iPods.  If an 
Intel-based PowerBook is $100 more than a Dell or ThinkPad with the 
same stuff in it, I'll buy the cheaper one.  And so will millions of 
other consumers.  A fancy case with an Apple logo on it isn't going to 
cut it in the commodity PC business.
--
Chris