[pohl]

Still sounds like crazy talk to me. I think it's much more likely that Apple would just want to make sure that the CPU roadmap was going in the direction of their designs.

They have a history of participation in the AIM alliance. The Altivec instruction set is practically their baby. The reason they had to switch to x86 is because neither supplier (Motorola nor IBM) was willing to target the performance-per-watt that Apple needed to execute their laptop designs. If there is any truth to this rumor, I would guess it has to do with securing the roadmap so they don't get blindsided by suppliers in the future. That makes much more sense to me than blowing 8 billion dollars to scuttle competitors.