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Apple's Intel Choice Reflects Mobile-Computing Trend
By Jason Lopez

June 8, 2005 10:02AM

For Apple to remain seriously competitive, it must address the battery issue for its laptops and for mobile wireless devices the firm is currently dreaming up. It is a serious subject at a company that wants to be first in the market.

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Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen took the stage on Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference and said his company owed its existence to Apple. Then, in his closing remarks, he quipped about Apple's decision to go with Intel

chips and said "What took you so long?"

Curiously, the answer was in the news that morning. The research firm Current Analysis issued a report that notebooks had outsold desktop computers in May, the first time that has happened on a monthly basis.

According to the research firm, computers made up 53.3 percent of the personal computer market, outpacing desktop PCs.

Sweet Spot

Apple saw little need to change its third-party chip vendor until mobile wireless computing started to catch on.

Apple's laptops have about 3 hours of battery life. Intel's Pentium M, as part of the Centrino platform, exceeds Apple's performance and has registered as much as 7 hours worth of battery power .

With IBM lacking the organizational focus to keep up with Intel in the power-consumption arena, Apple might have had no choice but to migrate. "When you're talking about mobile computing you're talking about the sweet spot of the industry," said IDC's Shane Rau.

Rau foresees Apple adopting most of the Centrino package. "Yes, Apple will have Pentium M and therefore an Intel core logic solution, but the Wi-Fi? I'm not so sure."

Apple is expected to go with best of breed while Intel is considered behind the curve in the move to the latest wireless standard of 802.11n.

A Job for Jobs

Rau's projections through 2010 recognize wireless connectivity as an increasingly important facet of the PC industry.

"A mobile notebook used to mean one big heavy honkin" notebook," he mused. "Now you've got ultraportables and there's talk of micro PCs that could be the missing link between PDAs and ultraportable computers."

"I can see wireless connectivity and ultra-low-voltage processors as enabling new form factors." Sounds like a job for Jobs. Apple's CEO told developers on Monday the firm could hatch some amazing products with the switch to Intel.

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