What is IBM's advantage in making and using this chip?

[vniow]

By now it's a pretty safe bet that this new IBM chip is going to be used by Apple and we all know what they have to gain from this.

I'm just wondering, what does IBM have to gain?
I mean, they're pumping a fair amount of money into it so they're not doing it for no reason.
We know that Apple's aren't the biggest sellers now so I think it's less about money and more about something else.

Thoughts?

 

[alex_ant]

IBM is rumored to have its own line of Linux computers coming out that will use this chip. Also, they'll probably use it to replace the aging 604e they use in some of their low-end Unix servers.

And Apple isn't a nobody... if they sell 50k computers that use this chip in a quarter, and each chip costs $100 (pure guess), that's $200 million/year in revenue for IBM, which is already dumping money into the Power architecture and profiting off it; if they can derive commodity chips from that architecture for relatively not much engineering effort, that's just a bonus.

 

[jefhatfield]

ibm is so large, they have their hands in everything and they will stay with apple as long as it makes money for them

when working with apple becomes a financial liability, they will pull out

it's too bad ibm had to can their excellent retail division but they realized that they could not compete on the retail level in stores against hp, compaq, and emachines

their online sales are still there, but they have to compete against dell and gateway

ibm actually makes some of the best and highest rated pc laptops and the funny thing is, i hardly ever see an ibm computer these days anywhere

i do like their x30 ultra light laptop *great stats but the usual ibm boxy look, and if i got a new pc laptop/computer, i would consider this model...but i have my eyes set on an ibook which is much sexier in every way inside and out...funny thing is, the ibook runs on ibm's g3fx chip