With Apple and IBM going their separate ways, the PowerPC has questionable future development.
It"s the end of the PowerPC as we know it. But most everyone feels fine. Just one day after Apple Computer Inc. said it would shift from IBM PowerPC to Intel Corp. Pentium chips, delivering what some might see as a huge blow to IBM, it"s business as usual in East Fishkill, N.Y., the de facto headquarters of Big Blue"s chip group.
Although IBM, Apple and Motorola Inc. all once worked together to create the PowerPC, it"s now quite clear that the companies have gone their separate ways, following Apple"s revelation on Monday that it will build Intel processor Macs, starting in 2006. For its part, Apple says that even though it will offer PowerPC-based Macs for some time, it needed more power-efficient chips and Intel was the logical choice to get them, despite the difficulties of porting software.