IBM has formed an industry consortium, called Power.org,
to open up the process of building Power processors.
Power.org is intended to give IBM's partners better access to
the Power technology so that they can more easily build things like
processor simulators, compilers and algorithm sets.
It will also give them a way to develop and share common power
components without having to work directly with IBM, as is
presently the case.
"This is not just a business partner program," said Mike
McGinnis, IBM's program director for PowerPC licensing, "This is a
collaboration. It's giving these partners a say in where the
architecture is going."
The consortium is comprised of 15 companies from the software,
consumer electronics, automotive and networking industries, and
includes such companies such as Sony, Cadence Design Systems,
Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Novell and Red Hat.
Some prominent Power licensees like Toshiba and Apple were not
on the list of members, but IBM expects to announce new members
soon.
One of the first orders of business for the consortium will be
defining an open bus interface specification to be used by
suppliers who build components like networking or memory processors
around the Power core, McGinnis said.
Although IBM is still working out details of the governance
model, the organisation will be modeled on Eclipse.org, which IBM
created in 2001 to build a standard set of software development
tools.
Eclipse has become a popular development environment that has
been widely embraced by suppliers.
"The intent is clearly to have this become an independent
entity," McGinnis said. "If you understand what Eclipse is, then
you understand what we would like Power.org to be."
Power processors are already used in IBM's pSeries servers and
in Apple's computers, and IBM has been pushing hard to open them up
to new markets.
Earlier this week, Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment, and
Toshiba announced plans to begin building products on a Power-based
processor designed for the consumer electronics market, called
Cell.
The three companies plan to use the processor for game consoles,
high-definition televisions and home servers, with the first
Cell-based products shipping in 2006.
Last year, Microsoft announced plans to use IBM's processor
technology for future versions of its Xbox game console.
By announcing the creation of Power.org in China, IBM is sending
a clear message that it would like to work with Asian
manufacturers, who will represent the bulk of the new Power
licensees, said Richard Doherty, an analyst with rsearch firm The
Envisioneering Group.
"It is no accident that this announcement was made in China and
not in New York or Silicon Valley," he said.
The announcement also puts pressure on Intel, which has been
wooing some of the same licensees but does not have a similar
consortium model for its own processor licensees, Doherty said.
"There's probably going to be some head-scratching in Santa
Clara over the next few years," he said, referring to Intel's
headquarters in California.
Robert McMillan writes for IDG News Service