Yesterday, AMD announced a bold new strategy to try and educate the public on the dangers of shopping for size and not quality. Apple's footsteps are getting crowded what with DELL, Sony and now AMD all doing what Apple did first, wait is there room for Intel in there anywhere.
As most of us heard this week, Intel has asked all PC makers to discontinue serial ports and floppy drives. What does this mean? It means that Apple once again was a pioneer in the computing industry. Since Apple forced Mac users to not require a floppy anymore, there hasn't been much of a fall out since. Here at the office, we can't remember the last time we used a floppy. However, mainstream PC users will not be as cooperative as most Mac users. There should be more fallout from this than can be imagined. Most PC users claim they cannot use a Mac mainly because it does not have a floppy. Now they will be forced to use other means to transfer files suck as ZIP disks and email attachments. Oh the humanity.
As for AMD, their new marketing strategy seems to be a good one. Weather it will increase their market share is unknown. They will probably have to spend more money than they have educating the public on the megahertz myth. There is nothing more they can do. Store owners are going to try to push the Pentium chips as better cause a) they are faster and b) they are more expensive and bigger is better. A storeowner can make more commission off a Pentium chip than an AMD chip. If you want to read this story take a look here. As for Apple, the rumor mills are dry. Apple has done a great job keeping new announcements quiet. Their financial success relies on it. Stock prices can plummet or skyrocket depending on what the rumor is and if they deliver on it.
Speaking of rumors, the flat panel imac is surfacing again. Most people on the front lines have been setting their sites on the G5 and TiBook updates and OSX PUMA (or Jaguar) but we here at the bottom are still looking at the imac. We love this machine and cannot wait for its rebirth as a full on flat panel computer. New rumors are arising that the imac will be a modular system in which you could buy an imac that is a box like machine that has a mount for either a 15 or a 17-inch flat panel monitor. These rumors have in no way been confirmed (are they ever?) but this throws a new card into the pile of rumors already surfacing about this machine.
There is also the possibility that there is no modular machine and what is really happening is that Apple is going to release a base flat screen imac at a low price that will have a 15 inch LCD screen and the imacSE will have the possibility of a 17 inch flat panel and other goodies added on. Pictures as soon as someone invents new ones!
There is also the other rumor that the flat screen is detachable and turns into some sort of tablet running a wireless connection to the base station. This would satisfy the modular imac rumor as you could pick and purchase the size of flat panel that you want. This flat panel would run a modified version of Wacom tablet software and an associated pen or pointing device would also be provided to act as a navigation tool. Far fetched it is, if this rumor were true, it would turn the computing world on its ear.
What do you think?
AG