Just days after I wrote a column saying Apple will dump Intel and make Macintosh computers with its own ARM-based processors, along comes a Wall Street analyst saying no, Intel will be taking over from Samsung making the Apple-designed iPhone and iPod chips and Apple will even switch to x86 silicon for future iPads. Well, who is correct?
Maybe both, maybe neither, but here’s what I think is happening.
Apple is dependent on Samsung for making most of its Cupertino-designed chips, yet Apple has grown to hate Samsung over time, seeing the Korean company as an intellectual property thief. So Apple wants out of the relationship, this much is clear to everyone.
I heard from dozens of readers this morning about a message IBM sent to its current employees concerning their 401K plan — changing it from a contribution in every paycheck to a single contribution at the end of the year. Of course if you are laid off that means no annual contribution, less retirement savings, but a real bonus to the company. This, in itself, isn’t worth a column. It’s just Scrooge IBM being more Scrooge-like in search of that 2015 earnings target. What is worth a column is putting this news in the context of IBM having failed its recent internal security audit, which should concern IBM customers.
Remember Napster? Not the paid streaming music service sold last year to Rhapsody, but the original peer-to-peer music sharing service that was hugely popular from 1999-2001 when it went down in a legal ball of flames over copyright infringement. Well something Napster-like is emerging from 
Paul Otellini this week resigned his position as CEO of Intel as I’m sure you’ve already heard or read. Analysts and pundits are weighing-in on the matter, generally attributing Otellini’s failure to Intel’s late and flawed effort to gain traction in the mobile processor space. While I tend to agree with this assessment, it doesn’t go far enough to explain Otellini’s fall, which is not only his fault but also the fault of Intel’s board of directors. Yes, Otellini was forced out by the board, but the better action would have been for the board to have fired itself, too.