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I don't understand all of the negative reactions to this transition from some Apple zealots. IBM has been treating Apple as a low priority and hasn't delivered benchmarks as promised. Meanwhile, Apple has been preparing OSX secretly behind the scenes (since day 1) for a scenerio where they would need to switch to Intel.
If the OSX user experience is the same on PPC and Intel, why should the end-user really care, and why would any reasonable person threating dumping OSX due to such a transparent switch? I just don't get it.
Apple (Steve Jobs) says that they want to work with Intel to make the best computers and provide users with the best OS and computing experience possible. Intel has been going through some rough times, but they seem like they are extremely happy to have Apple as one of their customers. They may not be the biggest customer when compared to Dell, but they will certainly be one of, if not the most important customer. Why? Because while Dell is working on pumping out volume and commodity PCs, Apple's DNA is to innovate. Intel has similar DNA and could really use the partnership with Apple to push themselves and innovate, something that they haven't been doing much of lately.
I've been planning on 'switching' to OSX for a while, and this news does not deter me or give me hesitation at all. If anything, it will allow for a smoother transition as virtualization of my PC applications on OSX (using something like VMWare for OSX which will now be very likely) should now be possible with little to no performance hit due to emulation like Virtual PC.
Switchers will soon have one less reason to take the plunge once this transition takes place.
Brian
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