Apple expected to announce shift to Intel chips

IDG News Service - Apple Computer Inc. will announce Monday that it intends to transition its computers to Intel Corp.'s architecture over the next few years, according to several published reports.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to make the announcement during his keynote speech at the company's Worldwide Developer's Conference, which begins on Monday in San Francisco, according to reports over the weekend by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and several other media outlets.

Apple plans to begin the shift with low-end PCs in mid-2006 and continue to high-end PCs in mid-2007, CNet's News.com reported, quoting unnamed sources.

Intel declined comment on the reports, and Apple and IBM couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

First reports of a possible deal surfaced in The Wall Street Journal two weeks ago (see story). Asked last week at the Computex trade show in Taipei about a deal with Apple, Anand Chandrasekher, vice president and general manager of Intel's Mobile Platforms Group, said the company has long pursued a deal with Apple.

"We always talk to Apple," he said. "Apple is a design win that we've coveted for 20 years, and we continue to covet them as a design win. We will never give up on Apple."

Should the reports prove true, it would represent a major shift for Apple, which has been building computers based on the IBM PowerPC architecture since the mid-1990s. It would also be a further shift in the processor industry that has recently seen Microsoft Corp. break with Intel in the game-console sector and choose PowerPC for its Xbox 360 console that will be launched later this year.

Ever since the initial report in The Wall Street Journal, online message boards have been abuzz with discussion of what such a deal could mean for Apple. Many comments have been negative, with speculation about the possibility of software incompatibility between the two platforms and questions about what Apple has to gain from such a move.
Another sizable batch of comments can be summed up as "I'll believe it when I see it."

The industry should know later Monday as Jobs takes to the stage of the Moscone Convention Center and delivers his speech.