"Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it's scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel's microprocessors," claims CNet.
Apple has used IBM's PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel's chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said.
The announcement is expected Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve Jobs is giving the keynote speech. The conference would be an appropriate venue: Changing the chips would require programmers to rewrite their software to take full advantage of the new processor.
Comment: Although Apple has considered moving to Intel chips before, the latest set of claims has been reported by publications such The Wall Street Journal. This time around, the idea was first floated by Paul Thurrott in his WinHEC blog on April 26. It remains unconfirmed.
Mac users might consider such a switch a sell-out, but it can hardly be worse than the U-turn Apple performed before, when switching to PowerPC chips supplied by the Evil Empire it had attacked in the 1984 and 1985 TV ads for the Mac.
