Re: Market research for new PowerPC system

[Konstantinos Margaritis <markos@codex.gr>]

On Sep 26, 2009, at 8:58 PM, Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
>
> Ok, just a short comment. In principle I like diversity,  
> competition, etc.
> And it was somewhat sad when Apple abandoned ppc. But honestly - why
> should I be buying a ppc desktop system? If we restrict our  
> comparison to
> Linux, because that's what I'm using, what advantages would a ppc  
> system
> give me over a comparable in price ix86 system? This is not meant
> negatively, I just have not followed recent ppc CPUs from the  
> "desktop"
> range, so, this is a real honest question. Would such a system provide
> more MIPS per Watt at the same price? Or more periferals? Or some  
> specific
> hardware blocks unavailable or unsupported om ix86?

Ok, I remember a few years back when we had Alpha, MIPS, x86, SPARC,
PowerPC, etc all viable platforms to use and work on. Now it's only  
x86. I'm sorry,
I just don't like it. I cannot answer your question, no more than I  
can answer why
a car lover buys an old Jaguar antique for the price he could buy a  
new Audi S8
for example. Well, ok the analogy is not exactly the same, but you get  
the point.
If not, well, the ppc board would just lessen the current gap between  
x86/ppc in
favour of the -admittedly very small- ppc desktop/hobbyist market.  
Nevertheless,
I'm pretty sure the system would find itself in many ppc developers'  
desks, just
because they can't really buy something *new* with those specs, at  
this price range.
Ok, perhaps I will fail and just add my name to the list of failed  
hardware projects.
Perhaps not. I really don't know if I can convince you if you don't  
want to be convinced.
Deliver a super ppc system that beats all x86 systems at the same or  
better price? No,
I'm sorry I cannot do that, and I never implied I could. Only IBM/ 
Freescale could do that
and even then the game would not be in their favour.

Regards

Konstantinos