IBM tries ARM-style Licensing of PPC Processors

[OlafS3]

Licensing will not help Amiga. Unless someone is going to do a large batch of G4's and G5's (Will it now be possible?) there won't be any advantage.

We don't need people throwing more spanners in the works, I say go ARM and stick with that course.

Why should someone create a big bunch of G4 and G5? For which customers? (Amiga-market is too small to be of any interest)

[OlafS3]

" The PPC market is still larger  than the x86 market in number of units shipped"

Really?

[OlafS3]

They did alright with the current games console generation as PPC was used by all three. Next year they will likely take a beating.

I "googled" a little. Most reports were older (about up to 2005). Newer reports are only about Xbox using X86 in future and similar (hardly good news). But for "Amiga-community" it does not change much. That "AmigaOS" or "MorphOS" using PPC become competitive again hardly anyone expects. If IBM really drops (to a wide scale) PPC development only would make clear again that PPC is a dead end, a small niche for some geeks at best. To get outside a change in architecture is needed (be it ARM or X86/X64). But most are happy with their exclusive hobby and the situation so finally it is not important.

[OlafS3]

might be... I have not found numbers

the problem is "Amiga" (all variants) is designed as desktop and not for embedded market (AmigaOS/MorphOS would need desktop processors). So if at all someone invests money in PPC development it will be for embedded devices (where performance is less important). And if I would invest in embedded devices today I would invest in ARM propably. Processor development is risky and expensive and companies tend to invest in "security" and ARM today is the more secure bet.