Maybe This Explains WHY! -- MIDRANGE-L

The article that I have included below may explain why our friends at IBM
don't have the budget to push iseries:

 

New chip unveiled

IBM, partners develop a product to greatly boost computing power of video
games, televisions.

 

By BOB KEEFE

bkeefe@xxxxxxx

 

San Francisco - IBM Corp. took wraps off a new semiconductor Monday it
describes as a "supercomputer on a chip" that promises to dramatically
increase the computing power in video game systems, televisions and other
consumer electronics.

 

At an engineering conference here Monday, semiconductor designers from IBM
and partners Sony Group and Toshiba Corp. said their new so-called Cell
processor has 10 times more computer power than traditional chips when it
comes to some applications.

 

"This really is a new era in performance," said Jim Kahle, and IBM fellow
who oversaw the chip's design.

 

With other features that let it handle video and Internet applications, Sony
and Toshiba are betting the Cell chip will give them an edge over personal
computers makers in the ongoing battle to become digital entertainment hubs
in consumers' living rooms.

 

The chip is capable of giving Sony's next-generation PlayStation 3 game
console the computing power equivalent to supercomputers used in high-end
research projects.

 

With that sort of power, characters would appear in photo quality and move
in real "human-time," Kahle said, instead of with short delays inherent in
today's video games. 

 

But just as importantly, the extra computing power could be used to help
transform the game console into a home's primary source for delivering
music, movies and Internet - based entertainment - all areas in which Sony
has interests.

 

Toshiba has similar goals in mind when it starts putting the chips in some
of its high-definition televisions beginning in 2006.

 

Sony, Toshiba and other electronics companies have been under increasing
pressure from computer companies pushing new "media center" PC's that are
designed to be digital media hubs for photos, video, audio and home
computing tasks.

 

The Cell chip could help the electronic makers regain lost ground.

 

"This won't perform {traditional} PC-type functions --- but it could
definitely be a challenge to the media center PCs," said Tom Stames, an
analyst with technology research company Gartner Inc.

 

A Cell-equipped game console would likely be substantially cheaper than a
media center PC, Starnes said - probably selling for a few hundred dollars
compared with a few thousand dollars for today's media center PCs.

 

Even in the expensive realm of chip design, the Cell chip has been a massive
undertaking.

 

More than 400 engineers, primarily at IBM's semiconductor design center in
Austin, Texas, have worked on the project since the three companies started
collaborating on it in March 2001.

 

In all, the companies have spent more than $2 billion on the design and
retrofitting chip factories in New York and Japan that are scheduled to
start producing the chips later this year.

 

While Sony's Playstation 3 console and Toshiba's TVs will probably be the
first devices with the new chips, the three companies will also be marketing
them to other consumer electronics companies to recoup development and
production costs.

 

The new Cell chips can support virtually every type of operating system, IBM
claims. They also can be virtually linked to other Cell chips, increasing
their performance potential even more.

 

The new chips are also unique in that they can have up to nine "cores," or
processing units, allowing them to handle up to 10 different software
operations at the same time.

 

In contrast, makers of personal computer chips are only starting to push
into multicore processing - a technology that IBM pioneered.

 

Jack Derham

Direct Systems, Inc.