Mixed Reactions to Apple-Intel Marriage

After fighting hard for years against Intel powered PCs in the market, last week’s announcement by Steve Jobs of shifting to Intel chips has got mixed reactions from the customers as well as vendors.

Apple said it was making the move to x86 architecture chips because they offer more power and better efficiency.

The first Apple computers with Intel chips will be on the market next year. That is likely to be the Mac Mini, with the entire product line switching by the end of 2007.

By shifting to Intel, Apple would be able to offer higher clock speeds in its notebooks which has always been a concern for resellers.

Apple has always been a premium product, and don’t expect any major price reduction considering the thin margins company has been working on. There might be slight reduction but overall Apple would be trying to get the margins closer to what its competion(HP, Dell, Acer) is enjoying right now.

Though there is a feeling that it might lose out on sales in this transition period, while Intel powered Macs would be up for sale but as a customer there should be nothing to worry about. Technology is getting faster, cheaper and more easily available. Windows users wouldn’t have to dump their precious applications and old habits to take advantage of Apple’s snazzy applications, such as the iLife suite.