The AIM alliance was formed by Apple Computer, IBM, and Motorola to develop the PowerPC processor.
History[]
On October 2, 1991, the three companies formed the alliance to counter Microsoft's and Intel's growing duopoly of their "Wintel" platform.[1] The director of the PowerPC program at IBM was Bob Mansfield,[2] who would later join Apple.[3]
In 2004, Motorola's semiconductor division was spun off into Freescale Semiconductor.[4] IBM's last contribution to the alliance was the PowerPC G5 processor. After IBM encountered difficulties in keeping up with Apple's product roadmap, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the company would switch to Intel processors at the 2005 Worldwide Developers Conference, effectively ending the partnership.[5] Freescale CEO Michel Mayer stated that Freescale (and Motorola) had known of of Jobs' intention to move to Intel processors for 5 years.[6] In 2015, Freescale was merged into NXP Semiconductors.[4]
References[]
- ↑ Pollack, Andrew. "I.B.M. Now Apple's Main Ally", October 3, 1991. Retrieved on March 5, 2019.
- ↑ Thiple-Threat Chip Poised To Claim Its Market Share by Robert K. Ackerman, Signal vol.8 p.23. 1993-09.
- ↑ Apple Inc. (2010-08-09). Apple - Press Info - Bios - Bob Mansfield. Apple Inc.. Archived from the original on 2010-07-23. Retrieved on 2010-08-09.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 NXP Semiconductors And Freescale Semiconductor Close Merger RTTNews. Retrieved on December 13, 2015.
- ↑ Four years later: Why did Apple drop PowerPC? by Brooke Crothers, CNET. 2009-06-15.
- ↑ Freescale CEO: Jobs wanted to move to Intel 5 years ago by Kasper Jade, AppleInsider. 2005-12-07.
External links[]
- AIM alliance at Wikipedia
Articles[]
- The Deal of the Century (or, The Alliance of Losers) by Jimmy Maher at The Digital Antiquarian (2020-02-07)
