Maybe NOT good to dis one of your most signature customers... just not good business practice...

Intel does see the light of day. Frankly for a large corporation to spread FUD is not a very good sign. Apple is a great customer for them but one must understand that a customer is never tied to one vendor. As a consumer we buy different products based on our needs. The vendors try to sell us their other wares but the choice is ours and the decision to go with a single vendor may not be necessary at a point in time. If the vendor provides me with an offer that fulfills my needs in the future I may switch.The whole thing is economics. If the executives at Intel are mistaken they should not only apologize, Intel should fire them as it will be Intel who may loose on the whole. Apple could move to AMD as it is a compatible processor. As with Apple moving from a completely different architecture (PowerPC) to x86 did not take much time, I would assume moving from Intel to AMD would be much less painful.Apple is a innovative company and has proven time and again that the products that they deliver to the market may not have all the features but they certainly have what is needed and more.

85% customer satisfaction is reality distortion too?

This reminds me of a maxim an old boss told me once..."you don't s**t where you eat".

@ rytc

Apple has just shown that it doesn't have to go with Intel by swapping to a Nvidia chipset. AMD is still around and may yet come up with some good products. Intel is not totally safe . Yes, it's in a good postition; losing Apple would still be a huge loss to them, both in reputation and finances. As Nickgold said, "You don't dis one of your signature companies."

AMD is not competitive on the desktop at this point and are not a viable alternative for Apple. Not unless Apple wishes to take a large step backwards. Given the fall out over FW, I doubt that moving to a lower performance processor will make users any happier.

The Intel exec's were wrong to make the comments, but they were correct in pointing out the ARM's comparative weakness.

Intel, somehow, managed to do just fine before Apple decided to do a 180 after years of denouncing Intel as inferior to PPC. Let's also remember Apple (who can do no wrong) spent more than a decade "dis'ing" Intel.

Apple enjoys a much stronger market position today because of Intel and on the strength of it's own products. But remember back when OS X was PPC specific? Apple struggled along often speculating on dropping out of the hardware/systems game and was only saved by the emerging iPod.

Together with Intel, Apple has made significant financial gains, in large part because Intel has been willing to bend over backwards in helping Apple. Not unusual for Intel as this is how they do business.

My point is the warning to Intel misses the mark - Apple just dis'sed Intel again by moving to the NVidia platform in place of Intel's Montevina platform. NVidia has long made chipsets for the desktop but has never produced a mobile based chipset that I'm aware of.

To keep things in perspective: Intel volume on Atom alone for qtr. 4 is 25m units. Losing or keeping Apple processor sales doesn't scratch Intel's bottom line. As for reputation, Apple has no loyalty other than to the whims of Steve. Shrug.

Apple did not "dis" Intel...it rebutted that clock speed was not the sole factor in overall system performance. Secondly, they were not an Intel customer at the time making this an inappropriate comparison. Thirdly, I'd love for you to elaborate on how Intel has "bent over backward" for Apple. Intel partnered with Apple due to Apple's reputation for innovation, technical prowess, and to aggressively keep trade secrets confidential. Of course their growth and profit potential didn't hurt too much either. Fourth, any Intel sales loss, Atom or otherwise, not only scratches the surface but may become infectious or turn into a full-on bleed.

Wall is obviously a PC with less hair, but the same level of jealousy.