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IBM's Power processors face an unknown fate(ENP Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) ENP Newswire - 21 October 2014 Release date- 20102014 - Intel's x86 chip architecture, which already controls about 96 percent of the world's server market, just got another shot in the arm as IBM announced today it was selling its processor manufacturing to Global Foundries. Well, selling is something of a misstatement, as IBM gave the business to Global Foundries - which used to be AMD's fabricating arm - along with $1.5 billion, presumably to help the flow of IBM Power8 chips to keep flowing. And to think that less than a month ago IBM was telling folks it was ready to compete with Intel in the server market via the Power8 chips, and Google was testing the processors in some of its own servers. So the selloff gets IBM pretty much out of the hardware business, as it has already sold its x86 server business to Lenovo this year; and its PC to the same Chinese manufacturing company in 2005. Another potential nail in IBM's coffin is that en VMware announced a deal with Lenovo today which looks very similar to the deal the virtualization company previously had with IBM, before the Big Blue sold the x86 server business. The company didn't announce that it was giving up on the Power8 platform, but it does appear that IBM can't possibly sell its chips competitively, according to a Forbes article. Still, IBM Power chips still are an important element in very high-end chips, along with Oracle and Fujitsu Sparc chips. (c) 2014 Electronic News Publishing - |