If you're currently sticking to the theory that the letter from an "Apple employee" posted to Mac OS Rumors is an elaborate hoax, allow us to donate an extra piece of supporting evidence: there's a second connection to recent AtAT ponderings, which some people might consider far too much alignment to be a mere coincidence. In addition to echoing our own prediction of 733 MHz - 1 GHz Power Macs at Macworld Expo, that missive also raised a ton of fascinating issues related to the future of the PowerPC, through the development of Apollo G4s, the G5, and beyond. It's the "beyond" part where things get a bit sketchy on the Motorola side-- and incredibly interesting to Mac fans looking for water cooler rumor fodder, as well as those trying to unearth proof of an AtAT connection.

See, while Motorola is reportedly keeping up on the G4/G5 development thanks to Uncle Steve's constant prodding, the company has essentially no desire to continue forward to the G6, since that chip doesn't mesh with Motorola's focus on the embedded processor market. (Given the company's money troubles, it's hard to blame them.) So for now, Apple "is turning its focus to IBM" when it comes to getting the G6 cobbled together, but that's not the really interesting bit. There's so much good stuff crammed into that "employee letter" that we almost missed the best part of all: as faithful viewer Paul Ferro pointed out, the letter claims that "Apple has the option in 2002 of buying the entire PowerPC assets from Motorola for $500 million."

There are little light bulbs popping into existence over the heads of regular viewers across the globe right about now; those people recall that just two days ago we declared that Apple's struggles with the PowerPC stem from the same lack of control that led to the ickiness in retail sales-- and we all know how Apple is fixing the latter problem. Then we pointed out the company's $4 billion in cash, noted Motorola's thoroughly unpleasant financial situation, and asked "how much a chunk of a semiconductor business goes for these days." Well, now we have our answer: half a billion simoleons and another year of waiting, and Apple can take over Motorola's PowerPC business altogether. Allegedly.

So you can either interpret this as more evidence that the MOSR letter is a hoax cobbled together by someone who watches too much AtAT, or you can bow before our awesome psychic ability that is unparalleled in this plane of existence. All we know is that the prospect of Apple making its own chips for its own Macs-- controlling the software and the hardware all the way down to the processor level-- would be a huge step forward in Steve's "we make the whole widget" philosophy. Next year could turn out to be mighty interesting indeed...