[cowerd]

Do y'all remember where DDR showed up first? It was in the Xserve. Apple's professional server. It has all that high end stuff. I'd think we'd see the 970 appear there first befoe moving to desktop (or laptop) systems.

Why? Apple's Powermac line is the one that drives profits. Selling another 8000 Xserves doesn't save your ass from languishing. It will appear in Powermacs first.

[goMac]

Originally posted by rmendis:
What i wonder is if Apple will remove the Classic Environment from Mac OS X for the PPC 970. It is a 64-bit processor and Classic may not work there...well, even if it could, Apple might use it as an *excuse* to completely transition to Mac OS X?

Classic will run fine. The 970 will execute 32 bit code properly. OS 9 startup will not work, because when cold booting a OS the processor must be told to run in 32 bit mode. Obviously an update to OS X will include this process. OS X does not have to be re-written to be 64 bit in order to be run on the 970. All it needs is a 64 bit boot loader to run the rest of the OS in 32 bits. Obviously, Classic use TruBlueEnviroment which can run just fine in 32 bit mode on a 970.

[SalBaker]

Originally posted by Amorph:
My point exactly.

If you charge too much for what you offer, people will seek less-capable alternatives that are more reasonable.

Then why are we all still on Macs? PC's are less capable in our minds, and most on this forum thinks Apple's price point is still too high.

The "you get what you pay for" line only works if you actually are getting what you pay for.

That is why we are still on Macs.

Let's just agree to disagree. I think Apple HAS to position the 970 Macs as a "premium" super-computer to get press (and pro) attention. I hope you are right, and the new 970 Macs are competitive with PC's. But I don't think Apple can be another Compaq or Dell in the marketplace. They have to be the premium (but you get what you pay for) computer. Unfortunately for us, that means premium prices.

[Mark Tungston]

if apple became the "emachine" of the PC world, they'd go outta business

they have to make their computers competive. see what dell gets you at a 1000 and offer a mac with the same specs...2000 dollar dell and mac should be similar and etc

but at the highest level...Powermac level...they should go all out. offer a monster 970 that blows everybody else away

dual 970
2 gig ram
etc
for 3,500

[Amorph]

Originally posted by SalBaker:
Then why are we all still on Macs? PC's are less capable in our minds, and most on this forum thinks Apple's price point is still too high.

Because most Macs are still worth the premium. The exception, increasingly, is the PowerMac. It's not that they suck, as anyone who's read a thread started by a new PowerMac owner can see. It's that they've begun stagnating to the point where people are starting to consider alternatives. Keep them stagnant (i.e., on the G4), and people will start jumping ship. Not everyone, and not me, because I simply don't need the full capabilities of a PowerMac. But for people for whom time is money, it's important that the PowerMac maintain a performance advantage.

This isn't so much about what's happening now. It's about what I see happening, based on rumblings among professionals. What's happening now is they aren't buying.

Let's just agree to disagree. I think Apple HAS to position the 970 Macs as a "premium" super-computer to get press (and pro) attention. I hope you are right, and the new 970 Macs are competitive with PC's. But I don't think Apple can be another Compaq or Dell in the marketplace. They have to be the premium (but you get what you pay for) computer. Unfortunately for us, that means premium prices.

I'm going to have to disagree with your summary of the argument. Apple currently occupies a space between the likes of Dell and the "premium" market (Sun, IBM, SGI, etc.). All I've been saying is that I think it will continue to occupy that space. PowerMacs have always been sold at premium, but not workstation, prices - you spend more money than you would on a Dell, and you get better performance, better quality, etc. in return. So I expect the 970 at the PowerMac's price points. Maybe not the very latest round of prices, but something in the traditional spread. Sure, you might spend $2000 or $3500 or more on a professional Mac, the way professionals have for years, but you'll get what you paid for.

[Eug]

Originally posted by Mark Tungston:
if apple became the "emachine" of the PC world, they'd go outta business

they have to make their computers competive. see what dell gets you at a 1000 and offer a mac with the same specs...2000 dollar dell and mac should be similar and etc

but at the highest level...Powermac level...they should go all out. offer a monster 970 that blows everybody else away

dual 970
2 gig ram
etc
for 3,500

The ironic part is that an eMachine will be comparative in performance to a PowerMac. Sure, the eMachine will still be junk, but nonetheless it's a sobering piece of info to know that an uber-expensive PowerMac performs so poorly. OTOH, for the price range (and similar parts) a high-end dell will blow the PowerMac out of the water for most things in terms of performance. The only things saving the PowerMac line right now are the software and OS, as well customer loyalty. If the PowerMac further stagnates, more people will simply jump ship, as others have said.

Whereas I would have thought that the 970 would first make its appearance in the Xserve, the arguments that the 970 should appear first in the PowerMacs (or simultaneously in the PowerMacs and Xserve) are fairly compelling.

Dual vs. single is a different question. I fully expect the high end machines to be dual, but the lower end ones to be single, like it is now.

[cowerd]

While some feel that the next round of Powermacs (if they 970s) will be "premium price workstations", lets try to look at things another way--Apple is "forcing" a move from OS9 to OSX and many people making the move feel little loyalty to Apple as a result of this. If Apple moves the 970's to workstation price points ($4000-$7000) they might find that many long-time users will be buying Wintel. There's a huge cost associated with moving to OSX (in time, training, software and hardware), and you can buy a lot of software upgrades/sidegrades and training with the difference between a Wintel machine and a upcoming Powermac at workstation prices.

[rmendis]

Originally posted by cowerd:
If Apple moves the 970's to workstation price points ($4000-$7000) they might find that many long-time users will be buying Wintel.

There is no reason to think that Apple will abandon it's mid to high end user base.

In fact i expect that this year we shall see Apple introduce aggressive configurations of iMacs, iBooks and even it's Pro lines. CFO Fred Andersen has recently stated publicly that Apple's goals are now to increase market share and grow revenue over that of high margins. The typical way to do that is with more aggressively priced machines.

However, this is not to say that Apple may not persue the high end or even expand it. I believe with the next incarnation, Apple will make the PowerMac line a more 'scalable' platform. In fact I would even go as far as suggesting that Apple produce a mini-tower PowerMac G5 (2-3 slot machine) while at the same time expand (maybe in second rev. 970s) to 4-way SMP workstation class machines at the high end.

The key technologies for allowing such a scalable system is of course HyperTransport. Note that the the 6.4Gb/s bus that they speak of is in fact a HyperTransport derived interconnect.

These HyperTransport based motherboards can be easily scaled to include additional PCI slots and even additional processors all on the same daisy chained bus architecture.

So don't worry there will be an inexpensive entry-level PowerMac G5

[SalBaker]

As a user, I want the first 970's to be dirt-cheap. As a marketing-type, and someone who cares about Apple's future, I hope Apple launches 1 (one) high-end 970 Mac.

Historically, these forums are full of posts saying. "Steve lied, Steve exaggerated." But how many computer companies get press when they launch their latest machines?

For Rev-one only, Apple should sell speed-bumped G4's in the mid to lower end. But the new 64-bit (press-worthy) G5, 970, whatever, should be a single high-end model. No, not a $4-7K work station, but a $3+K pro computer.

Right now you are formulating your heated response to me. Good! That is what will happen in the press when Steve hypes the worlds first 64-bit home computer. Anti-Mac sites and columnists will go nuts, but this time Apple will have real benchmarks to prove their claim. This is how press-buzz works.

I bid against other ad agencies all the time. When all things are essentially equal, the client (usually) goes for the higher bid because they feel they will get something more for the premium price. This drives me nuts! But Apple's pro users like thinking a Lexus is better than a Camry, even if they are based on the same platform.

Apple has a cache that has worked for them. They need to capitalize on it when they really have the superior (speed-wise) product. A cheap economy BMW would work for a while, but it would eventually destroy the brand image.

[DrBoar]

Your idea about starting with 970 only in the very high end only make sense if the the supply is very constraned and will continue to be constrained for the life cycle do that line, say six months or so.

I have a hard time beliving that to be the case. IBM first talked about initailly up to 1.8 GHz now they have increased that to up to 2.5 GHz and they will show a prototype next week.

How fast does the 970 need to run for Apple to be useful?
To get SPEC 2000 parity with the current top of the line 1.42 GHz G4 a IBM 970 will have to reach 320 MHz for the floating point calculations while for the ingtegers the blistering speed of 620 MHz is needed. So if the SPEC makrs is resonably valid replacing the current dual 1.42 with a single 1.2 970 and then having either single 1.4 and 1.6 or duals would be a tremendous boost. At 1/2 or 2/3 of top speed the yields should be very good. I assume tha Intel now have quite good yields for P4 in the 1.5 to 2.0 GHz range...

Even if IBM would keep the CPUs above 2 GHz for their own servers the 1.4-2.0 Ghz range would be a tremondous boost to Apple.

Having a new 970 top of the line tower and keeping the other G4 towers would be worse than having tried to sell the G3 B&W tower as top of the line with the nice case design, the fast 128 card, 100 Mhz bus, USB FW and having the beige old towers as mid and low range towers, with inferior case, slower bus, slower card no USB no FW....

The B&W that was their best ever was best for two reasons.

1. It was a true generation shift were even the low end was superior to the previous top of the line model , in speed and features and design.

2. The whole box was very competetive with the current PC boxes, bus speed, graphical card, CPU speed, features.

Having some G4 mid and low range will be selling like very stale and cold cakes, not " as good" as they sell now.

Even if Motorola suddenly would offer 2 GHz G4s Apple would be better of selling 970s and pass those G4 by.

if you look at at the 970 die size and transistor number they are sligtly bigger than a G4 but smalller and less complex than a P4 so there appear to be no intrinsic reason why it should be more expensive than these to manufacture.

[SalBaker]

The vast majority of "pro" users are not techies. We have a very competitive 30-person design department where I work. There is one computer guru among the whole bunch. The rest are graphic designers with graduate degrees (in design.)

Every 2 years I sell my Macs and buy a new one, and I always sell them to a designer at work who wants it for home. They only ask me how old the computer is, and will it run Photoshop well. For them a 2-year old Mac is a pretty current machine. They are totally oblivious to the rumors and predictions we all talk about. They only know that each new Mac is faster than the one before.

A close friend's wife is a free-lance designer doing catalog work. She just bought the previous mirrored-door tower from an on line retailer 2 weeks after the new G4's were announced. I asked which model she bought, she said "the best one." No one told her new faster/cheaper Macs were shipping, and still wouldn't know if I didn't tell her. If she bought a new 970, it would be because it was "the best one" at the time she wanted to purchase.

People on these boards know the intricate details of different processors, but for most 8-hour-a-day designers the PowerMac line-up consists of low, medium, and high-end.

Oh well, Apple will do whatever they want to do anyway.

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by SalBaker:
A close friend's wife is a free-lance designer doing catalog work. She just bought the previous mirrored-door tower from an on line retailer 2 weeks after the new G4's were announced. I asked which model she bought, she said "the best one." No one told her new faster/cheaper Macs were shipping, and still wouldn't know if I didn't tell her. If she bought a new 970, it would be because it was "the best one" at the time she wanted to purchase.

People on these boards know the intricate details of different processors, but for most 8-hour-a-day designers the PowerMac line-up consists of low, medium, and high-end.

I kinda see what you're saying: ignorance is bliss. But this argument doesn't really mean much, cuz that same customer would buy a Mac filled with whipped cream, if the salesperson told them it did PS well. Marketing a product assumes some degree of knowledge of, or at least interest in, the differences between items.
"There's one born every minute", but there's no need to market towards them, because they'll buy anyway. It's the people that invest (even just slightly) their time and attention to making a decision that need to be swayed.
I have no idea whether the 970 will be dual. I personally hope they are, even across the board if possible. This business of putting the 970 up on a pedestal just above the grasp of most consumers is bunk. The uneducated (ill-informed) will either buy it or not, depending on if they have the money, period. The people who do have a clue will see this for what it is: showmanship. It would be nice to think that Apple are above that, but this has not always been the case. They seem to have been better lately, but you never know.