How Sony inadvertently helped Microsoft's Xbox 360 development

[Spire_VII]

"An upcoming book penned by the lead engineer in charge of Cell's development -- The Race for a New Game Machine -- details the behind the scenes work that went into developing the Cell CPU developed jointly between Sony, IBM, and Toshiba. According to the book's authors, their early dev work on Cell played a key role in the development of the Xbox 360's Xenon CPU. From the Wall Street Journal:

IBM provided the bulk of the manpower, with the design team headquartered at its Austin, Texas, offices. Sony and Toshiba sent teams of engineers to Austin to live and work with their partners in an effort to have the Cell ready for the Playstation 3's target launch, Christmas 2005. But a funny thing happened along the way: A new "partner" entered the picture. In late 2002, Microsoft approached IBM about making the chip for Microsoft's rival game console, the (as yet unnamed) Xbox 360. In 2003, IBM's Adam Bennett showed Microsoft specs for the still-in-development Cell core. Microsoft was interested and contracted with IBM for their own chip, to be built around the core that IBM was still building with Sony.

All three of the original partners had agreed that IBM would eventually sell the Cell to other clients. But it does not seem to have occurred to Sony that IBM would sell key parts of the Cell before it was complete and to Sony's primary videogame-console competitor. The result was that Sony's R&D money was spent creating a component for Microsoft to use against it.

Mr. Shippy and Ms. Phipps detail the resulting absurdity: IBM employees hiding their work from Sony and Toshiba engineers in the cubicles next to them; the Xbox chip being tested a few floors above the Cell design teams. Mr. Shippy says that he felt "contaminated" as he sat down with the Microsoft engineers, helping them to sketch out their architectural requirements with lessons learned from his earlier work on Playstation.

The book seems to be a fascinating tale.Amazon reader has an excerpt from the book's prologue, which provides a detailed account of the first time the lead engineer was told he'd be working with Microsoft: "Wouldn't we be competing against ourselves? Two-timing? Sleeping with the enemy?"
(Spotted on Engadget)"

Source - http://firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=21141