Apple stands to gain a competitive edge by partnering with Intel because it will have access to slightly cheaper stuff. In the first instance it might actually pay more (than it would with IBM) for the processor, but Intel’s total platform … is less expensive, said Roger Kay, IDC analyst.

After all, Apple has until now been involved in hardware architecture and design work – a role most OEMs gave up a while ago – but now has Intel as its volume platform manufacturer, he said.

In the short term, Apple’s partnership with Intel likely will make a very insignificant dent in the market shares of Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

Dell declined to comment on the Apple-Intel deal. And, in a boilerplate statement, HP pointed out Apple remains a very distant No. 8 in the global PC market, with just over 2% market share, while HP’s PC market share (No. 1 or No. 2 in nearly every market in which it competes) is an area of strength.

But if Apple and Intel get it right, things could be different in the longer term. Apple could be become the showcase for Intel’s technology, Kay said. This may be particularly likely in the home-entertainment market, such as digital video. It could challenge the industry, but more at the level of the consumer segment than the corporate.

Since corporate makes up two-thirds the volume of all PCs, a potential shift in the market would not be tectonic.

Still, the consumer segment is important because in some ways it leads to technology adoption in the enterprise, Kay said. So there’s quite a lot of potential down the road.

There will be, of course, potential speed bumps along the way.

Apple has said it would not allow Apple OS X to run on any machine other than an Apple Macintosh. It seems likely, however, that users would be able to use Windows on Macs running on Intel. This may motivate some devious users to steal Mac software, which would be a new type of problem for Apple, Kay said. Previously, Apple has not had to deal with these kinds of security concerns, since Mac software previously only would run on a Mac. And the company doesn’t have anywhere near the piracy rate for its software that Microsoft has.

Still, it seems on balance that in choosing Intel chips over IBM’s, Apple stands to gain more than it may lose.