5th Ave Store Opening (CNBC) 18 May 2006

Some forgettable CNBC reporter who managed at least one interesting question of Steve Jobs concerning AMD. Jobs, looking thin and pixelated, and dressed in a black, long-sleeved shirt of indeterminate neck variety, was speaking from the within the new store on Fifth Avenue, in New York.

Most of the interview was about the new store and the retail initiative, which Jobs described as being a “success beyond our wildest dreams.” When queried over the expense of flagship stores, such as the SOHO store in New York, Jobs responded that Apple has “never believed in the philosophy that flagship stores don’t make money,” and they do. To that end, he suggested Apple’s first response to the idea of a store underneath the plaza outside the GM building was, “subterranean, are you crazy?” However, Apple responded with a “crazy” idea of their own, the now famous 32 foot glass cube and brand beacon to generate traffic. Jobs mentioned that of the 300 employees at the store, half will be available for tech support, even at 2:00 AM, and who wouldn’t want to stroll the plaza at that hour with a couple of thousands dollars worth of hardware? The CNBC reporter also asked about the iPhone and was correctly snubbed, but more interesting was the response to a question about AMD chips, one that is well-suited for Da Vinci Code type analysis by Mac nerds on the Internet guessing Apple’s next move. I transcribed as best I could, of course.

You know AMD’s got some interesting products at the very high end of the server space, but the part of the market we concentrate on the most is notebooks and consumer desktops, and for that Intel’s got the best chips. This Yonah chip, the Core Duo that they have right now, is the best chip in the world for notebooks and consumer desktops, so right now Intel’s road map looks very, very strong for the kinds of products—processors—we need for the products we build.

Many will note the “right now” phrase, but I am more intrigued by the tacit admission of the shift away from the tower as the flagship product of Apple Computer. Of course, the fact that Apple has yet to make the transition to Intel for the pro desktops says as much, but it’s still strange to hear from the CEO’s mouth.

source