mutual aid...

Brian Tiemann has a good post on an interesting idea that's going around--that Apple's move to Intel chips is at least as important to Intel as it is to Apple. Why? Because if Intel is to keep growing, there must be compelling reasons for people to buy new computers. And Intel has some of the best engineers, and lots of cool ideas that can potentially help make that happen.

But, they've been stymied by the PC makers and by Microsoft. The Wintel PC vendors only want cheap and simple. And Microsoft only wants to sell its ponderous software, and not to help nurture exciting new hardware. Apple may be Intel's chance to break free and show what it can do. I'm excited.

Brian also agrees with my impression, that this transition to Intel processors is going to be pretty painless, with a lot of apps moving quickly to universal binary form, which will run on both Intel and PowerPC chips. Most of what's happening will be transparent to users, who won't even need to know what chip is inside their machine. And the gains in power and speed and price will follow much the same curve they are already on. SO, probably you should buy a new Mac when you need it, and not worry about choosing the right moment.