| Wednesday, July 31, 2002 |
14:24 - So now there's a liquor store involved...
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-947358.html
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Well, well. IBM seems to be building a new chip foundry.
According to this article, brought to my attention by J. Karl Armstrong, IBM wants to refocus its business away from money-losing arms (like its hard-drive manufacturing sector, which I would guess is the IBM Microelectronics they mention as being a money pit, and which I have heard they'll be dumping quite soon-- though not their consistently cutting-edge research into drive mechanisms which always seems to develop the best new miniaturization and data-density technologies) and bolster its chipmaking prospects with a new foundry for forging chips "for other companies".
The article doesn't explicitly mention Apple, but I would have to see a fair bit more negative punditry before I dismiss the possibility that the thrust of this venture might be to ramp G4 production and G5 development back up to the pace that it needs to be in, following a buyback of Altivec from Motorola by Apple. Or it could as well be for the possible POWER4 chimaera that we're hearing about in sidelong whispers.
I've also heard whisperings that there is a mysterious new manufacturing facility being built at the Apple campus in Cupertino, and that Motorola employees have been spotted going in and out of it. I don't know if I buy that one as easily, since I walk past most of the Apple campus on a daily basis here at work, and I've seen no such black-shrouded construction. I hope it isn't simply that someone saw the Peppermill having been bulldozed down (good riddance to awful food, I say), and assumed that the new building going up in its place-- with its de Anza frontage and its across-the-parking-lot proximity to One Infinite Loop-- was a mysterious new Apple lab.
Whatever ends up happening in the near future with Apple's chip supplier juggling, I'm less and less convinced that Motorola will remain a player of any note.
Unless a miracle happens.
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