Gotsta Git Fonky! Remember yesterday when we discussed how IBM plans to shrink its processor fabrication process from 130 nanometers down to 90 nanometers by the end of the year, thus unleashing a golden bounty of lower-power, higher-clock-speed G5s that will propel Apple squarely into serious World Domination Mode? The bit about a move to 90 nanometers within three months came from IBM itself, but the idea that the G5 would benefit that quickly was pure speculation tossed lightly with an "anonymous and unverified report," some garlic-and-onion croutons, and a healthy shaking of Bac-Os. (Bits, not Chips.) We repeat, IBM has not publicly stated whether or not G5s will go 90-nanometer by New Year's.

So let's dish about how they're going to go 60-nanometer instead.

That's right, sports fans, news is so slow today that we're plunging even deeper into the realm of the suspiciously unsubstantiated and nigh-unbelievable. Faithful viewer Tom Ritch tipped us off to a month-old blurb over at macosXrumors.com which we apparently missed the first time around: according to them, "very reliable sources" insist that over at Big Blue, a 90 nanometer process is strictly for sissies and mama's boys; being burly manly men who crush beer cans on their foreheads and write their names in the snow, IBM will instead be cannonballing right into the 60-nanometer end of the pool. Yes, 60 nanometers. By the end of this year.

How, you may ask, can IBM be jumping right to 60 nanometers when the rest of the industry is barely set to go to 90? Good question. And evidently one without an answer, other than the aforementioned "IBM is full of burly manly men" thing, which we're already starting to regret because we're sure there are plenty of extremely competent and feminine women in IBM's chip division who are even now planning a road trip to come beat us senseless with tire irons. (It's satire, people, it's satire!) Regardless of the "how," however, rumor has it that IBM's first 60-nanometer production tests were "very encouraging," and thus IBM is thinking about skipping 90 nanometers altogether. The upshot? Apple "will be technically and financially able to go 100% G5 for all its Macs, including laptops and consumer Macs, within a year."

But hey, why stop there? AtAT's own sources have unearthed evidence that IBM's semiconductor division has since decided that 60 nanometers is pretty wussy, too, and now plans to get to a mucho-macho 30 nanometers by Thanksgiving-- unless those jerks over in Storage Technologies start flapping their gums again and dare them to hit 15 nanometers before Halloween. At this rate, we actually think IBM will hit a negative-nanometer process by 9:32 tonight...

We all know that Apple has been slowly ramping up for a serious push into enterprise computing and corporate sales for, well, years now-- arguably as far back as the 1996 decision to buy enterprise-savvy NeXT and use its operating system as the basis for Mac OS X. Well, Mac OS X has been out for a couple of years, now, Apple has a raft of hardware far more suitable for business use than Performas and candy-colored iMacs, and there's reportedly even the beginnings of an honest-to-goodness enterprise sales division within the hallowed halls of One Infinite Loop. So is it finally time for Apple to pull out all the stops and launch a killer sales offensive on the IT departments of the world?

BusinessWeek seems to think so. Right now it cites an opening into corporate IT formed by "three key trends": the increasing popularity of Apple hardware among UNIX/Linux users; portables that kick exactly the right kind of butt in a market starting to buy laptops instead of desktops; and IT departments sick to death of cleaning up after "catastrophic failures of entire organizations" every time a new virus or worm says howdy. The result? A "slow but steady rise of interest in Apple products at corporations"-- one that Apple could accelerate if it deems the time is right.

Conspiracy theorists may find the confluence of factors a little suspicious. It's perhaps reasonable to chalk up the imminent release of the most-corporate-friendly-ever Panther and the peak of Apple's "Year of the Notebook" as a mere coincidence, but the viruses and worms that plagued the Wintel world with billions of dollars in damages over the past few months seem a little too well-timed to ignore. Does anyone else have a nagging suspicion that a sizable wing of Apple's top secret underground labs must be devoted to the cultivation and timed release of havoc-wreaking Windows malware?

Anyone? No?

Okay, so it's just us, then. Maybe we'll see about upping our dosage. Still, we agree with BusinessWeek that this completely coincidental convergence of factors (cough) has opened just the door that Apple's been waiting for. Don't be surprised if Apple starts getting aggressive about corporate sales soon after Panther's release. But here's a word to the wise over in Cupertino: if the feds come a-knockin', burn the printouts!

We're going to have to make this quick, because we here at AtAT are all currently mired in various stages of an end-of-summer cold outbreak ranging from "just starting to get a little cranky" to "all the fluid in my body is attempting to flee through my nasal passages." But we just had to make sure that we told you this: we've broken Apple's secret code! That's right, we now know how corporate execs hide company secrets in public data so that only Level 5 Management and up (the ones with the secret decoder rings with the built-in signalling whistle) can extract the info. The key? It's all in the job postings!

Take, for example, the job listing that Think Secret pulled up: Apple is supposedly looking for a "Hot-Spot Evangelist" in Uxbridge in the United Kingdom, whose duty would be to "raise the profile in the marketplace of AirPort, Apple's wireless networking solution." Ostensibly this evangelist would spread the gospel about AirPort by launching 802.11 access points "in high profile places, which Apple will support." Wow, so Apple's hoping to boost AirPort sales (and therefore portable sales) by aiding the proliferation of public wireless access points in the UK. Good stuff, right? Except that's not the real story.

Notice, also, that AppleInsider has referenced an Apple job posting, this time for a Security Analyst to "assist with the security response effort at Apple." Said analyst will be responsible for ensuring that Mac OS X doesn't turn into a sieve full of bullet holes like certain other operating systems originating roughly 800 miles due north. Again, sounds good-- and again, it's all just a smokescreen.

So here's the real story: we've got two seemingly-legit public job postings turning up at high-profile rumor sites within the same 24-hour period. One is for an AirPort evangelist. The other is for a security analyst. AirPort. Security. Clearly, Apple's next big lateral move is going to be in the field of airport security!

And why not? It's definitely a growth industry, and one in dire need of Apple's vaunted attention to detail. We foresee luggage-scanning equipment that can actually tell the difference between an explosive device and a jar of almond butter. Walk-through metal detectors that are smart enough to ignore belt buckles and steel pins in one's hip, but will rat out anyone trying to smuggle a sharpened Popsicle stick through to the gate. Genetically engineered aluminum-and-snow bomb-sniffing dogs. The possibilities-- and the profits-- are endless!

Huh. It says here on the label that we weren't supposed to mix NyQuil and antipsychotic medication. Who knew?