Summary
Intel, as a chip vendor, and Apple, as a consumer electronics vendor, will always have a vendor-customer relationship, not a competitive rivalry.
Analysis
Mr. Olofsson's comment is exactly right. The x86 instruction set architecture (ISA) has no inherent advantage over the ARM ISA and in the crowded and cost competitive market of chip makers for consumer electronics Intel has no outstanding advantage.
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Intel's dominant size as a semiconductor vendor is due to their leading position as a PC processor chip vendor. PCs were dominated by Windows and Microsoft chose to support only the x86 ISA. In the market for chips for consumer electronics (CE) devices there are many competitors with similar offerings and fierce price competition. The price points for most CE devices are lower than for PCs with low margins, which keeps the chip vendors lean. Intel can play in the CE chip business but will be a much smaller company.
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Whereas Intel makes its money selling chips, Apple makes its money selling CE devices. They will no more be competitors than United States Steel and General Motors. Apple will likely switch chip vendors between generations of product lines, as they have been known to do, but will not sell chips. Apple's chip design group, the former P.A. Semi team, have designed high performance implementations of the x86, PowerPC, and ARM ISAs. They have demonstrated an ability to apply their processor and chip design expertise independently of ISA. Should Apple choose to switch their desktop and notebook computers from Intel to another manufacturer's chip (as they did from Motorola/Freescale PowerPC chips a few years back) they could.
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Intel and Apple will always have a vendor-customer relationship. As customer Apple might jerk Intel around, but the companies will never be competitors.
This author consults with leading institutions through GLG
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
