Originally Posted by swise
It's no surprise that the boards are made by Intel. First, they're development machines, Apple would need to partner with Intel's engineering teams on motherboard design, and it's only one more progression to see them manufactured by Intel. Second, The more manufacturers that are disclosed to the partnership prior to announcement the greater the chance that the news would have leaked sooner than it did. Having the board built by another party would have increased this risk.
Why? They have designed and made their own boards for many years now, and now all of sudden they give up on development? R&D has always been the cornerstone of Apple...