There have been tons of rumors and speculation about Apple switching to Intel processors. Well it appears to have become a reality, and it’s a real blow to IBM. But what does it do for Apple? Well, for one it probably lowers costs, that is one of the primary reasons why Apple would make a switch like this. But I think it also opens up the potential for other markets, and this is something Apple doesn’t seem to be discussing atthe moment.
The transition to the new Intel chips will not be immediete. In fact, it will take up to a year because apple will need to port all of its code base to the x86 chip architecture. They have already been doing some of this, but have never released any code to the public. And here’s where I think the new market is. Once OS X is ported to an x86 architecture, what’s to stop apple from selling its OS to the PC market, in direct competition to microsoft? In my opinion, nothing. And I for one would love the opportunity to have a PC running OS X. I just don’t want to pay Apple’s hardware tax. I think great diversity in the operating system world is a good thing for innovation. If Apple enters this market it will make it the third major OS available to PCs, next to Linux and Windows. Looks like the future could get pretty interesting…