Introduction

The question whether or not the new Power Macintosh G5 really is the “worlds most powerful personal computer” as Apples’ marketing claims is a moot point. Whatever the real-world performance of the machine will be when it finally ships, it will have done one rather essential thing: bring the Macintosh platform up to par again with its Windows counterparts, and give it renewed credibility as a hardware platform to be reckoned with.

But beyond the issue of pure hardware speed (which is essential to some market segments but much less to others), the question of the new processing architecture is more far-reaching: is Apple capable of holding its own in terms of hardware evolution? And if it does, where does the company fit in with other desktop platforms out there?

Right now, the situation is somewhat muddled. A good example is AliasWavefront's’ 3D modeling and rendering software Maya: Maya Complete works on MacOS X. Maya Unlimited, (the high-end version of the software generally used for production), only supports Windows, Irix and Linux. Why? Simple: so far, lack of horsepower. When it comes to setting up 3D production environments, the Macintosh platform still is the poor relative (although Mac OS X has made a lot to increase its credibility in these markets.)

The other interesting example a servers: Apple’s own XServe architecture has been quite widely acclaimed for its robustness and ease of use, but has been a hit mainly with business which already have adopted Macintosh Servers. What is lacking, again, is an appropriate, scalable hardware platform. And that’s where the PowerPC 970 (a.k.a G5) processor from IBM fits in nicely: server applications are what it was built for.

The future of 64-bit processing

A lot of all this really revolves around the future of 64-bit computing outside of some high-end niches and workstation-class applications. Apple is betting it’s future on a strong emergence of 64-bit architectures for general computing. If the company is right, than the Macintosh may really have leapfrogged the competition, particularly in terms of transition from existing environments.

In principle, the G5 processor allows 32-bit applications to run natively, without taking a performance hit linked to emulation. By comparison, Intel’s 64-bit Itanium processor can run 32-bit applications only in emulation mode, and thus more slowly than on a Pentium platform. This in turn limits the processors’ usefulness in desktop environments which rely heavily on existing software applications.

With the recent announcements, Apple has tied it’s fortunes very closely to these questions. And it could well be the case that Apple will be the company which brings 64-bit computing to the mainstream.

Inspiring the market

All analysts seem to agree: Apple needs to grow its market share if it is to remain credible in the long term. I would like to add one point: the company needs to achieve this with other software and hardware vendors before it can hope to grow significantly beyond the current Macintosh users.

With the Power Macintosh G5, the company is getting one step closer to providing a true entry level workstation. The problem is, however, that this needs to be reflected by third party developments. We need true workstation class video cards for 3D modeling and rendering. We need the full array of high end programs and utilities which are indispensable in these environments. It is nice to have Maya running on MacOS X (and the program seems to be doing very well on this platform). But what about programs such as Avid’s Softimage XSI, which supports Windows, Linux and Irix? Or Discreet’s 3D Studio Max, which is market leader on high-end Windows platforms (after all, Discreet already supports the Macintosh platform with some of its video editing products). And what about high-end CAD packages?

Conclusion

There is no doubt that Apple will sell a lot of these new machines. Macintosh enthusiasts will be very happy to have something to show off, and the Power Macintosh G5 should at any rate be the Photoshop Dream Machine, especially if Adobe recompiles the program to support the 64-bit architecture.

Strategically speaking, the switch to the IBM-supplied G5 processor was an essential step for Apple, and at the very least it should provide a desperately needed speed-boost to the Macintosh platform. It remains to be seen how the full technology potential of this hardware architecture will inspire the industry…

June 25, 2003

©2003 Pfeiffer Consulting

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