Think Different? Think Again

Ask an Apple fan what they think of Intel and they’ll immediately start thinking of phrases that I wouldn’t want my kids to hear. Intel after all has been a part of the establishment in the PC World for decades now. Intel’s Inside program has been the marketing antithesis of Apple’s Think Different. So today’s news that Apple is to dump IBM in favor of Intel is something of a shock. I say ‘something’ rather than, ‘a massive,’ simply because the news was leaked well in advance in a bid to soften the blow to all concerned. That’s said, Apple fans are getting used to these moves after Jobs swallowed his pride an made friends with Microsoft.

A couple of things I do think that are worth noting about this news are firstly that Paul Otellini, Intel’s CEO was quoted by AP as saying “We are thrilled to have the world's most innovative personal computer company as a customer.” This quote will clearly annoy Dell and HP and I suspect his PR team are busily trying to reposition this statement. Second, the news seems to have taken the stock prices of Apple, Intel and IBM all lower on a day when stocks are essentially flat. Clearly the markets feel that at this stage the benefits of the switch are hard to see.

I guess the interesting question now is, what should Apple’s new tag line be when it has Intel Inside? “Think a little bit differently to the guy that bought a Dell?”