Geez, if you had told us back in the mid-'80s that in less than two decades' time we'd be praising IBM to the skies as Apple's golden savior while cursing Motorola as the Mac's near-downfall, we'd have force-fed you a lithium and sent you merrily on your way. Funny how things change, isn't it? (Just not necessarily "Ha Ha" funny.) Not that we have anything against Motorola employees, mind you (what few still remain, at any rate); we know a few, and they're smart, competent people who frequently make exasperated faces when faced with brain-dead orders from above. It's Motorola as a corporate entity who should really just lay all the cards on the table and admit once and for all that it's messing with Apple just to watch Steve sweat, as some twisted form of StarMax-inspired vengeance.

See, it's less than a week to Steve's Apple Expo keynote in Paris, and the man is well aware that no matter what great stuff he unveils, if badly-overdue updates to the PowerBook product line aren't somewhere in the mix, Apple's going to take some heat. Unfortunately, nobody knows for sure whether or not Motorola finally coughed up enough of those PPC7457 G4s (originally due last May) to allow Apple to rev the products. Interestingly enough, as of yesterday there were still conflicting rumors surrounding the likelihood of PowerBook updates meeting the deadline; LoopRumors says such an announcement is a "certainty," while the PowerPage claims that it "isn't likely." Then again, the PowerPage also insists that the holdup isn't a shortage of 7457 G4s at all, but rather a problem with "the final assembly of the boxes," which doesn't slot nicely into our foaming-at-the-mouth Motorola-as-scapegoat world view, so we've decided not to believe a word of it. Then again again, LoopRumors also reported that the new iMacs would have FireWire 800 and would be introduced in Paris, so your guess is as good as ours. And theirs.

Of course, when all's said and done, when it comes to dishing dirt, we say "accuracy, shmaccuracy": it's all about the drama, Bootsy, and this time it's MacBidouille who's got it in spades. They posted a rumor yesterday (one of their last, apparently, as noted by faithful viewer Codewarriorus) noting that "Apple/Motorola relations are degrading," which is probably true regardless of which definition of "degrading" you fancy. Allegedly Steve proved one of our recent predictions true by visiting Motorola headquarters, although there's no word on whether or not he brought along his "big, scary axe"; whether he did or not, though, at least he gave the Moto execs an earful, reportedly calling the G4 a "Tonka truck processor"-- meaning, of course, that it's a mere toy next to the raw, unbridled power of the mighty G5. Or maybe he meant that it's bright yellow and has big, goofy wheels. (Oooo, words can hurt like a fist.)

Meanwhile, Steve is allegedly collecting weekly updates on the situation, possibly in case he wants to unleash the lawyers next year in hopes of recouping lost PowerBook revenue in the form of a lawsuit. Apple and Motorola locked in bitter multimillion-dollar litigation over missing chips and mental cruelty? That's pure ratings gold, baby!

Speaking of IBM's continuing role as Apple's fairy godmother (fairy chipmaker?), just for giggles, why don't we recap the number of times in the past few years that IBM has pulled a Great Gazoo to hoist Apple's bacon out of a Motorolan fire? Let's see, the most obvious one was when Apple enlisted IBM to license and produce Motorola-designed G4 processors when Motorola fell way behind schedule. (Remember the rumors that IBM managed to increase G4 clock speeds to 600 MHz before Motorola, and Motorola used clauses in IBM's Altivec license to prevent the company from shipping chips faster than Motorola's own?) And of course the G4 would probably never have fit into a non-flaming PowerBook at all if not for IBM's silicon-on-insulator technology. Then there's the recent rumor that Apple might turn to IBM's super-fast, Altivec-enhanced G3s as permanent substitutes for Motorola's no-show G4s.

We've also heard that IBM once posted Apple's bail at 3 AM after Motorola framed it for two counts of indecent exposure, but those reports are still unconfirmed.

In any case, it looks like Apple's about to benefit yet again from IBM's continuing campaign for Mac sainthood: according to The Register, Big Blue just announced that it's made another breakthrough in the chipmaking field-- namely, Strained Silicon Directly on Insulator, known by the shorter but less pronounceable acronym SSDOI. We don't pretend to understand the technical details-- apparently it's got something to do with stretching silicon geraniums with a strainer or something-- but IBM states that when the technology is commercially implemented in a few years' time, it'll boost chip performance by 20-30%.

Now how much would you pay? Don't answer yet, because if you order now, we'll throw in a free bonus gift: in addition to SSDOI, IBM has also slapped something together known as Hybrid Orientation Technique (with the suspiciously serendipitous acronym HOT) which "improves the mobility of positive charges" and therefore offers a further performance boost of 40-65%. Which all simply means that future G5s are going to be so fast they'll melt your eyeballs in your head.

Isn't it interesting that whenever we hear about these chipmaking improvements, such as copper technology, silicon-on-insulator, and now SSDOI and HOT, they seem to come from IBM instead of Motorola? In fact, if we recall correctly, the last time Motorola attempted to improve its semiconductor manufacturing process, all it discovered was that trying to make chips out of Skittles instead of silicon only makes the machines all sticky. But then again, IBM never invented the flip-phone, right? And we all know how much that's helped Apple over the years...

Ever wondered why our frequency of "Mike Dell is copying Steve Jobs" scenes has dropped precipitously over the past year or so? Here's a hint: it's not because Dell finally started innovating all on its lonesome. Here's another hint: it's also not because our frequency of scenes period has dropped precipitously over the past year or so. Smart guy. (Sheesh, take eight or nine unscheduled extended hiatuses and you never hear the end of it. Somebody better warn the folks at Crazy Apple Rumors Site that if they aren't back soon they may as well start sewing scarlet A's on all their clothing. Or S's. Something, anyway.)

No, the real reason we haven't trotted out that age-old classic for a while is because we just plain got sick to death of it. Yes, okay, Mike Dell hasn't got an original bone in his body. Given that we've mentioned that fact in approximately 3,000 of AtAT's 4,197 scenes, we're guessing people have probably figured that out by now. And while some part of us does indeed enjoy the irony of deriding a captain of industry for being unoriginal by pointing out that he's unoriginal over and over and over again (in other words, we're being just as unoriginal, but at least he's making some cash at it), we always knew that eventually we'd have to stop falling back on the same hackneyed old standard just because it's easy.

Ha! You probably fell for that, didn't you? Sucker.

Check it out: faithful viewer americanuck notes a story over at SaturnFans.com which reports that customers who buy or lease any 2003 Saturn vehicle by the end of September will get a free Dell personal computer. Gee, where on earth do you suppose Mike "Call Me Steve-- No, Really, Do It, Dammit" Dell got that idea? Does anyone else see just a smidge of similarity between "Buy a new Beetle. Get a new iPod." and "Buy a Saturn, Get a Dell"? Of course, there's an important difference: whereas the free iPod comes with a car kit so that it's actually a Beetle accessory and the promotion makes some sort of sense, the free Dell is a desktop model that you couldn't use while driving your new Saturn without seriously endangering life and limb. Actually, we take that back: we suppose you could use it as ballast to improve traction in winter weather. But heck, it's not even ideal for that, since it comes with an LCD display instead of a heavier CRT. Bummer, huh?

So despite being yet another psychotic Dell rip-off of All Things Apple (specifically the "Pods Unite" promotion), the Saturn-Dell tie-in is about as random as it gets, Saturn's spiel about the "younger Saturn target buyer's desire for the latest technology" notwithstanding. (And by the way, a 2.2 GHz Celeron is the "latest technology"? Who knew?) But come to think of it, if we were forced to use a Dell, we suppose it'd be convenient to be at the wheel of a moving vehicle so we could aim for the nearest brick wall and end our misery.