Mercury-Momentum = They have one shipping product (the development board), it appears two more on the way, do you honestly believe they are a major portion of the G5s sold?
Momentum alone have done quite a few 970 based boards but I don't think all of them are public. Mercury sell to military, medical etc. type customers so we're unlikely to hear much of what they sell either.
My point it Apple are not the only people selling 970 based systems. Apple are the only company selling them to the general public though.
Telcos probably find them useful. ---- G5 is a pretty expensive part for the that use, why exactly do you think that is true??
G5 is a very good DSP, Telcos (or suppliers thereof) can and do pay top dollar for that sort of processor, e.g. Ericsson signed a deal with Compaq to buy $1 billion worth of Alpha processors a few years ago, and they were sure never cheap.
IBM hasnt been able to ship enough G5's to its primary buyer Apple.
Ars technica forwarded a theory a while back that says the supply problems were due to Apple not ordering enough parts and expecting more to be instantly available - not a sensible move given it take 3 months to make a new batch. IBM did admit to having yield problems in early 04 but never since. They don't seem to have problems making millions of processors for Microsoft.
And of course you are still missing the point, which of these products use the fastest G5's (only apple), which of these use the dual core G5's (only apple).
IBM have already announced dual core blades...
I agree the really high end 970s are being driven by Apple and the pressure to push them will be off after Apple leave. However with PA Semi appearing both IBM and Freeescale now have some pretty serious competition and will need to compete. It could be argued that this is only an "embedded processor" but that doesn't mean it'll be a useless desktop chip or slow, it's looking like it'll be just as good as anything Intel will be producing.
IBM look like they want to get into the low end server market, they're getting pressured by AMD now and would probably rather have their own chip in their boxes. AMD and Intel are giving up on clock speed, IBM are still pushing upwards so a cut down POWER6 could be just right for that market - Apple or not.
I disagree, who exactly in your opinion bought more then 2 million G4s last year to take Apple out of #1 G4 buyer in your opinion?? My info says Apple is number 1, if you think I am wrong, you are going to have to come up with a name and some facts.
So, you're saying you are right because, well, you just are?
I haven't heard who but I have heard they aren't the biggest G4 customer, given it is primarily an embedded part and that's Freescale's business this shouldn't be terribly surprising.
I mean your Freescale comment is funny, but not alot of reason with it, even you agree Apple bought the most G5's yet they couldnt get one good enough for a laptop could they??
The lower clocked G5s have long run cool enough for laptop, the problem seems to have been the recently replaced Northridge, it ran both slow and hot.