Apple: chipping away at its suppliers

In a special IT Blogwatch Extra, Apple hires an impressive roster of chip designers; and Richi Jennings watches bloggers ask, "Why?" Not to mention the Free Hugs prank...

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• Apple goes back to PowerPC?

Konnichiwa, Yukari Iwatani Kane:

There’s been buzz about Apple’s interest in microprocessor designers ever since the company bought the Silicon Valley startup P.A. Semi last year. But there’s ample evidence that the company’s hiring of chip-heads started much earlier, and is continuing. The question: what is Apple going to do with these guys?

One goal of CEO Steve Jobs is pretty clear–developing powerful, energy-efficient microchips for its iPhone, iPod touch and other future devices ... Another likely direction, based on recent hires, is combining low-power technology circuitry for managing graphics and video, which would give it advantages in smartphones and other products.

Bill Ray asks if Apple is setting up a "chip division for next-gen iPhones":

The suggestion comes from the Wall Street Journal, which has put together the news from recent hires by the company and searches of LinkedIn, and reckons that the lads in Cupertino are as motivated by increasing security as adding features.
...
Steve Jobs admitted the company would be creating system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs for the iPhone and iPods just after that. So the recruitment of Raja Koduri (who starts with Apple this week) and Bob Drebin, both of whom held the position of CTO at AMD, shouldn't come as a complete shock. In December Apple also chucked $4.8m in to British SoC developer Imagination Technologies, buying 3.6 per cent of a company ideally positioned to integrate powerful graphics into a new chip design.

Michael Rose cheers for how the Internets make sleuthing easy:

The WSJ notes that over 100 LinkedIn profiles for chip engineers who recently worked at Samsung, Intel or other hardware companies now indicate they are sporting Apple employee badges (yay for transparency!).

With the current economic climate triggering layoffs and shrinkage at many high-tech enterprises, Apple's combination of marketplace strength and Scrooge McDuck-esque giant pile of cash is allowing it to build a brain trust in hardware that rivals its legendary software expertise.

Ex-Brit Howard Price still likes fish 'n' chips:

It gets more interesting when you take a step back and put a few things together. Apple is amassing some serious hardware talent on both leadership and design side of the house. Their upcoming version of OSX ... has OpenCL technology built into it to manage all types of CPUs and GPUs in a system as a pool of computing resource to be called on as needed, speeding up normal tasks dramatically.

It wouldn’t be a huge stretch to think that they have plans to make some dramatic moves in the processor or graphics spaces that could upset the current state of play. That coupled with the growing domination in media and mobile devices could make for very interesting times ahead in both technologies and products.

Katie Marsal thinks she knows what's going on:

This emerging family of chip designers spearheaded by the P.A. Semi crew is being tasked with crafting a future generation of chips for Apple's multi-touch devices that will deliver advanced gaming graphics and specialized features while simultaneously improving battery consumption and allowing the company to maintain more secrecy around its intellectual property.

John Herrman has his own theory:

Don't confuse Apple's latest move with an effort to spur innovation—from here, this looks like technology-hoarding, pure and simple; a bid to further insulate their mobile devices from competition by locking down their hardware as hard as they do their software.
...
Apple is prone to occasional fits of vertical integration, and has never been terribly reluctant to run counter to the prevailing hardware winds, but this doesn't sound like some Jobsian act of contrarianism.

But Pope Bender simply scoffs:

More likely a move that will see Apple move out of its core competencies and lose a boatload of cash.

And finally...

• Free Hugs Prank

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• DoJ reads Google the rule book
• iPhones don't work, say researchers
• The swines! Flu panic blamed on Twitter and blogs.
• ...more

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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 24 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.