Apple's last marriage

The hottest news in computer field these days is Apple's switch from IBM chips to Intel chips. So, next generation Apple computers would run on CISC chips. Why did Steve Jobs do that. Here is a news article about that.

Why the switch? Rau says that Intel can assure Apple a steady supply of chips for all of its products--including desktops, servers, and a range of notebooks. "And not just CPUs, but chip sets, Wi-Fi, and so on," Rau says. In contrast, IBM had been unable to meet Apple's demand for desktop chips, and neither IBM nor Freescale (another Apple chip supplier) had a comprehensive road map similar to Intel's. Further, IBM couldn't solve the PowerPC CPU's heat problems in order to create a PowerBook G5 notebook, and it couldn't help Jobs deliver a promised 3-GHz Power Mac. Rau says that the change to Intel should help to lower the prices for Macs. That, along with the prospect of a dual-boot Windows/Mac system, could help increase Apple's PC market share--which, according to IDC, currently hovers at about 3 percent. However, not all observers believe that abandoning IBM in favor of Intel is a smart decision for Apple. "Intel is not the 'de-facto leader in processor design' that it was a few years ago; in the recent past Intel has been out-innovated by both AMD (with a better approach to 64-bit computing) and IBM (with a better long-term strategy around multicore chips)," wrote Ovum Ltd. research director Gary Barnett in an e-mail message.

Whatever it is, there will be no clone Apple. Their hardware would be different from PC. I mean windows would run on that Apple machine but OS X won't run on normal clone PC. [link]