IBM seeks China partners for Power PC chip

SHANGHAI: Computer maker IBM is discussing partnerships in China that would use its Power line of chips, aiming to leverage the technology with a niche-oriented model recently employed in that country, a senior executive said.

Charles Wu, IBM's strategy and development manager for greater China, said the company is in talks with several parties in the world's biggest emerging market for technology but declined to be more specific.

The company already supplies its Power chips to China's Culturecom Holdings Ltd., which adds Chinese language capability and the Linux operating system to IBM's line of chips.

"There's a lot of interest in this model," Wu said at the Reuters Asia Technology Summit.

"We continue to talk with other potential partners based on this model."

For several years, the U.S. based company has also been working with Japan's Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. to develop a new chip, code named "Cell", for future use in PlayStation game consoles and other applications.

IBM once hoped to make a dent into the broader PC market with its Power PC chips, but made no major inroads against the potent "Wintel" combination of Intel Corp. chips and Microsoft's Windows operating system.

The company has since taken a more niche-oriented approach, focusing on customized chips developed in partnership with various companies.

This approach is particularly suited to the China market, which is still highly fragmented and where a true mass-market approach is much harder to pursue, said Tom Manning, a director at consultancy Bain & Co.

"IBM has been an excellent example of a company adapting its products to a China market situation," Manning said at the Technology Summit. "Much of what is used elsewhere in the world is very applicable here (in China), with modifications."