Chips clock up new approach

Is there a way that IBM will incorporate feedback? One thing about openness is that people will ask for different things. Will you take the top few ideas and actually build them into the architecture, if it makes sense?
That is exactly what I was referring to earlier. We are looking at the issue of putting together a governance body that will address exactly those questions. What we did was we put together a Web site at which people can actually download all of the tools and access the necessary hardware to begin the process of working in this area.

I did talk about governance at an earlier conference. I was describing the potential development of what I will call a marketplace. We have no plans ourselves to go and create it. We do not even want to create the impression that we are trying to control it. We are not. We are really trying to be very much in the opposite direction: This thing is completely open and self-assembles.

What's in it for IBM?
It is just a fantastically powerful means to make progress. Remember, there are things that we do better than anyone else on this planet. I truly believe that we have the most innovative technologists in the world at the level of system design, software design. However, to believe that you can literally do everything better than everyone else is fundamentally foolish. There is a tremendous benefit to opening up an ecosystem and saying, "bring me the best of the best, and I will incorporate it."

If you believe that you have a compelling value equation in a large part of the market space, then what you are missing, essentially, are ancillary pieces of it where people could bring value. When they bring value, everybody benefits.

Does it help IBM to sell more chips, get more business for the foundry service, et cetera?
I would characterise it as essentially a boost across the entire spectrum of the businesses we address. At the one extreme, the hardware side, this could clearly be a significant benefit. However, if you are at the other extreme, look at our services business -- it would absolutely have the same benefit.

Does it help IBM to get into new markets where people are looking for lower-cost computers?
What this does is basically enable you to build full, custom solutions, which is to say highly optimised solutions. It will obviously open up markets that cannot be addressed through standard chips today.

It sounds as if this process will apply to future chips.
Oh, no. Power5 actually rolls out a lot of these capabilities. It is dynamically reconfigurable and has tremendous capabilities. But what I was referring to as being in the future is where the chip will autonomically morph. That is something that will take a couple of years to actually roll out.