Hybrid business
From reading the posts so far, one would hardly get any sense that the NY Times article featured in the story is mainly about IBM's gambling on the future of its semiconductor business. The linked article really has very little to do with the production problems of IBM's Fishkill plant.
IBM is betting its semiconductor business on contracting two-thirds of its production capacity to other companies. Demand still is low and this puts IBM in a precarious position, though their semiconductor business is hardly in jeopardy.
If demand should increase, however, that means their diversity and agility would enable them not only to improve the chips they manufacture for their own hardware (e.g. the Power Series), but also to improve the chips they make for others. Though the linked article makes no mention of this, there is a distinct possibility that this could be a chink in Intel's armor. As companies are able to contract IBM's semiconductor production (and as IBM builds more fabs with comparable production capacity), chip technology can be radically and quickly, rather than incrementally, improved.
In all, this article really isn't about Apple at all, though IBM's success in this area will have an affect on the kinds of chips available to companies like Apple.
Those posters who compare IBM to Motorola are probably having trouble seeing beyond their desire for more consumer goods (which in my opinion is a sickness too many of us have, myself included). Motorola has a
history of missed deadlines, underperforming hardware, and technological inertia. IBM, so far, has a very different story to tell. Having survived the decimation of their own practical monopoly, IBM has turned itself into a nimble gorilla, to purposely mix two metaphors.
The real story here is not about Apple and IBM, but about IBM and Intel.
(Edit:
I forgot to add this quote, which I think summarizes the article's speculative nature.)
Yet I.B.M.'s strategy of selling advanced custom chips to a comparative handful of outside customers could well succeed, some analysts say, if demand picks up. For example, Sony has signed up I.B.M. to produce the microprocessors for its PlayStation 3 video game consoles, with production scheduled to begin in the second half of next year.
"One product like that, if it's a hit, could make I.B.M. look very smart a year from now," said Richard Doherty, president of Envisioneering, a research firm.
Playstation 3 in the second half of 2004 would destroy Xbox where it stands. Maybe this article is really about Death to Microsoft
