Saturday, June 04, 2005

Apple Computer Inc. is expected to announce Monday that it will begin shifting its Macintosh computer line next year to Intel Corp. chips, people familiar with the situation said.

The move is a major change in strategy by Apple, a high-profile win for Intel, and a potential blow to International Business Machines Corp. and Freescale Semiconductor Inc., suppliers of the PowerPC chips that Apple has long used in its Macintosh systems.

Steve Jobs, Apple's chief-executive and co-founder, is expected to explain the shift Monday during a keynote speech to attendees at the company's annual conference for software developers in San Francisco, the people familiar with the situation said.

Apple had been a particularly high-profile customer for IBM. But the big computer maker has recently had success in convincing Microsoft, Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. to use PowerPC technology in their next-generation video machines, a business that is expected to dwarf sales for Apple's hardware over the next few years.

Apple last quarter sold 43% more Macs than it did in the year-earlier quarter, quadruple the pace of the industry as a whole. But the company had just 2.3% of new world-wide PC sales in the first three months of the year from 2% the prior quarter. Windows PCs account for the vast majority of the rest of the market.