Introducing the G5!

Apple’s introduction this week of the new PowerPC 970 processor, nicknamed the G5 (and associating it with poorer performing chips from Motorola for reasons only Apple knows), was a great thing for the company. They’re aiming the G5 at the professional graphics designer, publisher, and videographer market to reinvigorate sales of the Power Mac line. That’s fine for now, but Apple must realize that it is not a strategy they can afford to adopt for very long.

In an interview with Macworld magazine, Apple’s Vice President of Hardware Product Marketing, Greg Joswiak stated that: “…the [G5] is not going into the Powerbook soon.”. That’s understandable from a technical standpoint. The architecture of the G5 is different enough from the G4 that it will take some time to retool all production lines to fit it. But if Apple keeps the PPC 970 out of its Powerbook, iMac, and iBook lines too long, it’s going to completely sabotage the market momentum it gained by the G5’s introduction. Mr. Joswiak stated that the G4 would be around “as long as the market demanded it”. That’s not reality. The market is demanding the G5. Apple needs to be moving to incorporate the G5 line in all its products. For now, the only place remaining for the G4’s (and these are the 1Ghz and faster G4’s) are in the iBooks and possibly a bottom end iMac just to keep the price points down.