eWeek reckons Apple is keeping an x86 version of OS X going (see below, August 3) in its Marklar project (yes, a South Park reference). This provides some insurance if it has to bail out of using PowerPC processors, which are running up to two years behind Intel/AMD chips for speed. (This may not sound much but it means the top-of-the-range PowerPC would already be bin-end lines in the x86 world.) I've already written a speculative opinion piece in Computer Weekly (under Technology > Servers > Columnists) about how this could turn out to be a double-edged sword.