Monday, June 06, 2005

As expected, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced Monday during his keynote address at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2005 that his company is migrating to Intel microprocessors. The transition will take over two years, Jobs noted, with the first Intel-based Macs appearing in mid-2006.

While Jobs did answer many questions about the Intel migration, some questions remain. First, will Intel-based Macs be able to run Windows? Second, will standard PCs be able to run future versions of Mac OS X? And what about Leopard? Is that PowerPC only? Intel only? Or both? And finally, how will the company maintain sales momentum, over the next year especially, while Apple preps a coming generation of Intel-based Macs.

Whatever happens, this is an interesting time for the industry. No surprise, then, that Apple would be right in the middle of it.

On a personal note, I'd like to thank the many kind Apple fans that took time today to drop me a note congratulating me on getting the scoop on this story. I do appreciate it.