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I surely hope that this is one of the outcomes of Apple and Amazon's ARM push. Perhaps Intel will realize that's it is better to have competition on its own arc

I surely hope that this is one of the outcomes of Apple and Amazon's ARM push. Perhaps Intel will realize that's it is better to have competition on its own architecture than complete ecosystems moving to foreign architectures. One could well argue that ARM/RISC is more elegant. But x86_64 besides backwards compatibility has the large benefit that it is an open platform when it comes to operating systems. Moving to ARM will be an excuse for many vendors to lock bootloaders to their blessed software (such as the iOS/Android ecosystems).

klelatti 6y ago
Sorry, not going to happen. Why would Intel add more competitors into a market where it has a duopoly?
- danieldk 6y ago
  Which scenario is better for Intel? - The server and desktop markets move to ARM. The AArch64 instruction set becomes the default that people develop and deploy on. Optimizing for x86_64 CPUs becomes an afterthought. Intel only sells CPUs to organizations that have legacy systems somewhere that cannot be emulated. Intel has to enter the highly commoditized ARM market to stay competitive. - The server and desktop markets largely stay on x86_64 as a result of Intel licensing x86_64 to three other vendors, increasing competition. The market is not commoditized, because Intel can decide who they license x86_86 to and also control extension to the instruction set. They lose market share due to the increased competition. But they can compete on their own architecture that they control. Of course, these are extremes. But given that the current fastest supercomputer uses ARM and Apple showed that ARM is fit for the desktop, I am pretty sure that Intel is (or should be) worried about the first scenario.
  - klelatti 6y ago
    The one thing that Intel has at the moment is x86 and the historic effort that has gone into generating and optimising code for the x86 instruction set. Sharing that with three other vendors (think three other AMDs all competing with Intel) would catastrophically undermine their CPU business. In any event it's too late. They maybe had an chance of fending off Arm a few years ago - by the time any licensing now kicks in Arm will have established itself in the server / PC market. So the only sensible strategy for Intel is to make the most of x86 whilst they can.
  - bertjk 6y ago
    I don't see the point. None of them except possibly Intel themselves would have the economies of scale to put the next M1-challenging super x86_64 iteration on a bleeding edge process node, which would be required if one actually wanted to challenge M1. Also have we forgotten that there actually is a third x86 vendor? Via / Centaur's existence and dormancy suggests that having more x86_64 licensees out floating around won't really make much of a difference.
  - vimy 6y ago
    Afaik there are currently 4 x86 manufacturers. Intel, AMD, Via and I can’t remember the fourth one.
mbreese 6y ago
> open platform when it comes to operating systems. That’s not a feature of x86 itself. That’s just how the computers themselves are assembled. X86 machines could be just as locked down as Apple machines, if the vendor wanted them to be (and Microsoft tried!). ARM builds for multiple OSs exist, including multiple Linux distributions and Windows.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  Apple Silicon Macs are not locked down. They have full support for booting other OSes.
  - mbreese 6y ago
    I'm hopeful. I think it still remains to be seen if this is practically possible and not just theoretically possible. But I'm hopeful that it will be the case. Not only is it a good thing for the Linux world to have multiple architectures/more hardware to work with, but I think it would also be good for Apple to show that they are more open with their computers than phones, for example. When it comes down to it, Apple is still (largely) a hardware company. If someone wants to buy a Mac to put Linux on it, they still sold a Mac. And I think that having the Linux community testing their hardware would do nothing but make their hardware stronger.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    “We’re not direct booting an alternate operating system,” says Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. “Purely virtualization is the route. These hypervisors can be very efficient, so the need to direct boot shouldn’t really be the concern.” https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/24/21302213/apple-silicon-mac-arm-windows-support-boot-camp https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/24/21302213/apple-silicon-ma...
    - user-the-name 6y ago
      Doesn't really matter what he said five months ago, the actual computers out now support booting multiple OSes. (In PRACTICE, you probably want to virtualise instead, because of a lack of support for the hardware.)

klelatti 6y ago

Sorry, not going to happen. Why would Intel add more competitors into a market where it has a duopoly?

danieldk 6y ago
Which scenario is better for Intel? - The server and desktop markets move to ARM. The AArch64 instruction set becomes the default that people develop and deploy on. Optimizing for x86_64 CPUs becomes an afterthought. Intel only sells CPUs to organizations that have legacy systems somewhere that cannot be emulated. Intel has to enter the highly commoditized ARM market to stay competitive. - The server and desktop markets largely stay on x86_64 as a result of Intel licensing x86_64 to three other vendors, increasing competition. The market is not commoditized, because Intel can decide who they license x86_86 to and also control extension to the instruction set. They lose market share due to the increased competition. But they can compete on their own architecture that they control. Of course, these are extremes. But given that the current fastest supercomputer uses ARM and Apple showed that ARM is fit for the desktop, I am pretty sure that Intel is (or should be) worried about the first scenario.
- klelatti 6y ago
  The one thing that Intel has at the moment is x86 and the historic effort that has gone into generating and optimising code for the x86 instruction set. Sharing that with three other vendors (think three other AMDs all competing with Intel) would catastrophically undermine their CPU business. In any event it's too late. They maybe had an chance of fending off Arm a few years ago - by the time any licensing now kicks in Arm will have established itself in the server / PC market. So the only sensible strategy for Intel is to make the most of x86 whilst they can.
- bertjk 6y ago
  I don't see the point. None of them except possibly Intel themselves would have the economies of scale to put the next M1-challenging super x86_64 iteration on a bleeding edge process node, which would be required if one actually wanted to challenge M1. Also have we forgotten that there actually is a third x86 vendor? Via / Centaur's existence and dormancy suggests that having more x86_64 licensees out floating around won't really make much of a difference.
- vimy 6y ago
  Afaik there are currently 4 x86 manufacturers. Intel, AMD, Via and I can’t remember the fourth one.

mbreese 6y ago

> open platform when it comes to operating systems. That’s not a feature of x86 itself. That’s just how the computers themselves are assembled. X86 machines could be just as locked down as Apple machines, if the vendor wanted them to be (and Microsoft tried!). ARM builds for multiple OSs exist, including multiple Linux distributions and Windows.

user-the-name 6y ago
Apple Silicon Macs are not locked down. They have full support for booting other OSes.
- mbreese 6y ago
  I'm hopeful. I think it still remains to be seen if this is practically possible and not just theoretically possible. But I'm hopeful that it will be the case. Not only is it a good thing for the Linux world to have multiple architectures/more hardware to work with, but I think it would also be good for Apple to show that they are more open with their computers than phones, for example. When it comes down to it, Apple is still (largely) a hardware company. If someone wants to buy a Mac to put Linux on it, they still sold a Mac. And I think that having the Linux community testing their hardware would do nothing but make their hardware stronger.
- michaelt 6y ago
  “We’re not direct booting an alternate operating system,” says Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. “Purely virtualization is the route. These hypervisors can be very efficient, so the need to direct boot shouldn’t really be the concern.” https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/24/21302213/apple-silicon-mac-arm-windows-support-boot-camp https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/24/21302213/apple-silicon-ma...
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    Doesn't really matter what he said five months ago, the actual computers out now support booting multiple OSes. (In PRACTICE, you probably want to virtualise instead, because of a lack of support for the hardware.)