Apple's plan to switch to Intel chips initially provoked an outpouring of vindictive that Apple was suddenly siding with the enemy.
The heedless and the over-emotional who would like to see Apple stay in a niche grotto make these sorts of rash judgements without considering for a second the business imperatives behind what is probably the biggest decision ever taken by Steve Jobs and Co.
They see it clearly now as the right time to take the Mac to primetime.
Several factors have pointed to this, chiefly among them the continued dropdead success of the iPod and the Apple music strategy in general.
Also the genuine wider uptake of Macs in the consumer market. The low exposure on the business market has for a long time skewed the share figures down. You can't (Dell, HP/Compaq etc) ignore the fact that 7 of the 10 top-selling desktops on Amazon are Macs and 6 of those are G5s. That is incredible for a company with supposed less than 5% market share.
Then there's burgeoning laptop market that IBM could not service with a suitable G5 chip that Apple are desperate to grow with speed (because they make the coolest portables by far). These occupy 6 of the top 10 places on Amazon. Again, incredible.
So with Intel in there, these machines will run faster and despite the protestations that Apple will only allow OSX to run on Macs you can bet that's just the Reality Distortion Field in action. I can see those PCs being lined up and everyone offering the old dual boot scenario and pretty soon it could be goodbye Microsoft ... It won't happen tomorrow, but it will happen.
Here's a great guide to the change to Intel for Joe Consumer.
