Posted on 06/06/2005 4:45:36 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
This is no suprise. IBM is NOT a semiconductor company. To think they could swim in the same pond with Motorola, Intel and AMD is a bit arrogant -- but that is Big Blue to the core. This should be no suprise to informed stockholders.
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Do you know where that is? IBM is generally doing very well with its semiconductors. The POWER continues to be THE mainframe chip, the Cell is taking off like mad, and the PPC runs a lot of stuff. It just seems that the general purpose desktop PPC970, with Apple's relatively small volumes, wasn't interesting enough to IBM to keep developing up to par.
IBM has one of the best PR departments in the world. Starting with you.
Couldn't swim in the same pond with Motorola? Apple got on board with IBM for the g5 when motorola's powerpc roadmap stagnated. Not that production of the g5 has been smooth sailing but there are probably less problems than with the g4.
Apple was frustrated because IBM wouldn't produce another powerPC for notebooks, which they wouldn't do because the volumes wouldn't be enough to be interesting to IBM. whatever this says about IBM, it's not that IBM is too minor a player in semiconductors to keep Apple's business, more like the other way around.
IBM is generally doing very well with its semiconductors.
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Regardless, with less than 1% of their revenue from semis, they are not a semiconductor company. IBMs is a computer and storage media company. I know -- I have been calling on them for over 25 years and know many folks there.
Lots of companies make some semi devices. And they are not semiconductor companies, per se.
Not to mention it's not even an exclusive IBM product. Sony and Toshiba also own 33% of the design, and will have their own fabrication facilities.
Kind of hard to be a great CPU and not be in production yet, don't you think? ;)
Nah, not really. It's been demonstrated, and there are some good vouchers for its ability.
Simultaneously decoding 42 SDTV signals is pretty damn impressive.
I can build you an ASIC to do exactly the same thing, which doesn't tell you anything about its value as a general-purpose processor. I'll believe the hype when the demo is done by someone other than the guy who wants to sell me one ;)
Well... they really don't want to sell you one unless you're buying a PS3, or own a large company.
A simple case of Deja Vu? Remember last time there was a new Playstation chip? Built by Silicon Graphics that time, it was going to dominate the world. Whatever happened to IT?
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CGN/is_3765/ai_56194746?cm_ven=YPI
"Kutaragi told the San Jose, California conference that enhanced versions of the SCE Graphics Synthesizer (GS) and Emotion Engine (EE) chips used in the PlayStation 2, will drive workstations able to run development tools 10 times faster than today's platforms, rising to 100 times and 1,000 times faster by 2001 and 2005."
Besides which, Motorola is no longer a chip company at all. They spun off their discrete business to On Technology and then the rest of their semiconductor business to FreeScale Semiconductor. After a disastrous decade, Motorola decided to focus on mobile phones instead of chips.
bttt
Motorola is no longer a chip company at all.
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By and large, you are correct. But at one time, they were truly a semiconductor company and recognized as such. That was my point. At the same time, they were/are a major supplier of radio systems of many types. As it was for many, the semi industry became TOO competitive and margins went away, to the point where it was not worth it. A market that went into over-supply worldwide.
True, semiconductors are a small part of their business, but with this statement: "To think they could swim in the same pond with Motorola, Intel and AMD is a bit arrogant" you seemed to say that IBM is not capable of competing. It is highly capable, it's only a matter of will.
Hard to imagine such a person. Anyone "informed" would not be a stockholder.
That right now is huge, just that means millions will be shipped. There is so much interest, and it has a lot of industry support (remember Toshiba's video demo?), that it can't fail. BTW, the processor in the upcoming XBox is IBM, and a close cousin to the Cell. The next Nintendo will also use a related IBM chip.
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