At IBM, The Challenge Is To Turn Sour Apples Into Applesauce

Now, in the wake of IBM's painful loss of Apple as a customer of its PowerPC processors, it's starting to adopt a similar approach. The man who led IBM's adoption of Linux, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, is sounding many of the same messages now about the company's chip business:

To underscore his point, Wladawsky-Berger notes IBM's decision last week to release the specifications of its forthcoming Cell processor, where it's already collaborating with Sony and Toshiba.

So while many may believe IBM's chip business is on the decline, the company may be trying to repeat its success when it found itself in a sinking Unix market.

This doesn't excuse IBM from having to focus on raw technology performance. IT strategist Scott Alan Miller has some thoughts, echoed by others, on why Apple finally had to switch from PowerPC to Pentium platforms.

But if IBM can change its public face from chip maker to processor solution provider, it may be able to turn sour apples into applesauce.