Part of the reason why IBM used to charge so much for PPC970 (G5) chips was that Apple never ordered in sufficient volume to make the production runs worthwhile from the economies of scale perspective. Now, they are using mass-market Intel chips instead, so they are in a much better position in that they can buy them straight off the same production lines that supply everyone else as well. In this sense, I doubt that they could get better prices by threatening to do it themselves since they would be back into the situation of a lack of volume. However, they still sometimes require special product versions, such as the reduced-size C2D used in the Macbook Air.
On the basis that Intel is all about volume and is therefore much more likely than IBM to refuse to produce custom parts on special contracts if the volume isn't there for them, Apple's ownership of their own processor design which they could have made on demand at contract fabs such as TSMC could be a very useful thing. For example, it would be ideal if they wish to produce similar ultra-portable devices in the future, for which the power of the mainstream processors isn't really needed and for which size, power consumption, and availability from a reliable but not mass-market source are very important.
[Posted by: MTX | Date: 04/27/08 11:39:56 AM]
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