[Info-vax] Chinese Alpha?

[Michael Kraemer]

JF Mezei schrieb:
> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> 
> 
>>If they make money on Power CPU's then they will make them. If not
>>then they will drop them.
>>
> 
> 
> Not that simple. IBM makes money from its chip fabbing business. And the
> sell plenty of PowerPC chips to the game console makers.
> 
> So the Power chip, *IF* not profitable, could very well be like its "Big
> Blue" computer that plays chess and car makers building formula 1 racing
> cars: advertising to show how capable IBM is.

But even this strategy has limits. Development of the "big" Powers
is costly, probably as much as Alpha was. If it turns out to be too
much, they'll drop it without regret. What keeps the platform alive,
is the fact that there are a lot of Power derivatives which keep
the fabs running. For example, the Nintendo Wii alone translates
into 90 million PPCs since 2006 or so.
Add the Xbox, the PS, and all that invisible embedded stuff
and one might end in annual sales of
the order of all PowerMacs ever sold.

So this is similar to intel's Itanic/x86 model.
(with the exception that Power is a much better chip of course :-)