If Apple has licensed QuickTransit for an Intel-powered Mac, all current applications should just work, no user or developer intervention required.

If this is indeed true, then the world will be turned upside down on Monday.

Consider the plausible chain of events that would unfold if Apple does indeed move to Intel AND Transitive's emulator indeed works as advertised.

o It will immediately disrupt the entire PC industry. Since no OS will be married to any hardware platform, all bets are off. The entire industry will be reorganized based upon market demographics, not price or distribution. Dell will still exist, but it may or may not be the market leader depending on what consumers of PCs truly want: affordability or well integrated design.

o Microsoft's dominance will be in serious jeopardy. With OS/hardware weddings being moot, then the value proposition for Wintel based systems will be seriously undermined. Right now its main value is price/performance. That ceases if Apple can produce an Intel based system, with its typical tightly integrated design, and top notch OS. Microsoft will be left forced to compete on features and functionality, a battle that it almost always loses in the end.

o Apple will be absolutely positioned to enter the content on demand market, with video at the fore front. They already are positioned well, but using an Intel based system could enable the DRM that the content industries are requiring. Yes, Microsoft has been a big champion of DRM, but Apple has the mind share of the marketplace right now. WMP does not. If this does happen, then Apple will surely enter this space faster than MS can, and it will put the two companies squarely against each other as they battle it out on the content industry front. Apple is clearly better armed than MS in this regard.

o If all of that comes to pass, Apple will be the dominant player, and will control not only hardware, OS, major applications, but also the content and consumer marketplaces. In one fell swoop, they will have united all of those subchannels and brought convergence to reality.

Which, added all together, makes me think that this is not possible. That would be such a radical shift and have such deep and paradigm shifting consequences that it seems nearly impossible.

Hollywood Orders: Apple Wed Intel