There’s a lot of rumbling in the Mac world today thanks to a Wall Street Journal article reporting rumors of Apple talking to Intel about using their chips.
Apple Computer Inc. has been in talks that could lead to a decision soon to use Intel Corp. chips in its Macintosh computer line, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
The report, citing two industry executives with knowledge of recent discussions between the companies, said Apple will agree to use Intel chips.
Neither company would confirm the report and an Apple spokeswoman told the Journal she would characterize it as “rumor and speculation.”
This, of course, has led to the usual fooferal about whether Apple may be looking at either moving away from the Power PC chip and onto X86 chips, or possibly simply releasing a version of Mac OS X for Intel processors.
Personally, I think a few of the Slashdot crowd have a better grasp of what’s probably going on here.
/ASCII: My guess is they really are planning on using Intel chips – just not processors. Remember, Intel produces wireless chips, Flash memory, Ethernet chips, and Salt and Vinegar chips.
Halo1: The gigabit ethernet chip in my old G4/400 in fact is an Intel chip.
arloguthrie: Most notably, the XServe Raid runs on an Intel processor. There are tons of reasons Apple would be meeting with Intel. One day, perhaps “the news” will actually be news and not gossip based on “a friend-of-a-friend told me…”
(via /. and many other sites this morning…)