Balance of power shifts

Motorola takes control of design centre as partnership with IBM ends.

Motorola and IBM have finally gone their separate ways on the PowerPC architecture, announcing that control of their 'Somerset' design centre in Austin, Texas, is to be transferred to Motorola.

The two companies claim they will "continue to co-operate closely on the PowerPC architecture", but it is clear from the Somerset deal that they will be going in different directions. About 100 IBM staff who were involved in what was a 50:50 joint venture are being offered jobs by Motorola, indicating that the projects they worked on will not be continued at IBM.

The partners have been moving apart for a couple of years, as the PowerPC consortium - which included Apple - has become less focused on setting a de facto standard to rival Sun Sparc, and more interested in individual members' often contrasting product strategies. Both companies will now compete to supply Apple with its PowerPC CPUs.

IBM claims a lead in copper-based semiconductor production, which will produce very fast, low-cost chips, although Motorola is chasing hard.

Motorola is introducing instructions similar to Intel's MMX to its versions of the PowerPC platform, to address consumer and graphical applications. IBM has so far steered clear of this route.

While there is still compatibility between the two companies' products, it seems likely they will diverge, and compete more aggressively in the future.

The Somerset announcement also suggests this divergence will accelerate.

"The companies also intend to leverage their individual design activities to compete for desktop microprocessor opportunities at Apple Computer," said the statement.

"Motorola is committed to the PowerPC architecture as an important high-performance element in our Digital DNA strategy. The total ownership of the design centre will allow us to expand our commitment to new designs for Apple and our embedded market customers," said Hector Ruiz, president of the Motorola semiconductor products sector.

IBM will also be pushing embedded products, and continuing to pitch for Apple's business. But it did stress the continuing importance of PowerPC in its mainstream computer lines, pointing out that two of its server lines, RS/6000 and AS/400, use the chip.