Quote:
There wouldn't be anything stopping them from keeping PPC machines in the lineup if they worked out to be better for server or workstation class machines.
Matthew
Actually, I think there would be several things stopping them from doing so. For one thing, nobody wants to support two disparate platforms if they don't have to, even if there is a good structure for creating so-called universal binaries. It's just not good practice. Second, those who wish to write code optimized for Altivec or SSE will need to use some kind of meta-layer which sits on top of the two, which will surely negate some of the performance advantages. This is rather sketchy to me, because SSE has become a defacto standard, and Altivec had just been establishing itself. On the other hand, objective comments from those more informed than me say that AltiVec istruly superior to SSE, but if the long-term direction is to go towards Intel, that's pretty moot.
The other thing is less technical... Apple has said that, for them, Intel is the future. Any straddling of the fence beyond the 2 year transition period that's already been outlined would be a sign of indecision and weakness on Apple's part. For a company that's trying to push their market share up, any sign of weakness is bad news. The cutting edge Apple hardware is starting to pale in comparison to the fastest Wintel boxes, to the point where even the benefits of the superior OS start to disappear. This is Apple's way of getting over the hump, and keeping PPC support around beyond the current hardware generation would be a bad idea on many levels.
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