Apple’s shift to ARM can disrupt Intel
At the World Wide Developer’s Conference 2020 (WWDC), Apple announced that it would, over a period of two years, be migrating its Mac line of products from Intel-based processors to ARM based ones– with much of the processor design coming from its iPad and iPhone line. This is not an easy move for either Apple or its developers and customers. A change of this scale requires a fundamental rewrite of all hardware and software and does not come cheap. One can simply look at Apple’s 2006 CPU switch from PowerPC to Intel to recognize the level of effort and pain it would take to pull this off. However, this move hints at a much bigger and fundamental disruption coming for Intel than it does for the short-term pain for Apple as it transitions out of Intel’s clutches.
Apple is by no means Intel’s biggest customer. The company represents just an estimated 5% of the chip makers’ global revenues so a catastrophic drop in financial performance should not be expected any time soon. However, the real threat comes from the power that Apple wields on not just its own ecosystem but also on its neighboring ecosystems. The company is a trail blazer when it comes to speeding up the obsolescence of old standards and establishing new ones. Let us not forget it was Apple that single handedly took down the floppy disks, CD Drives and headphone jacks and was a pioneer in bringing USB-C ports and…
