Notes: IBM left in the dark, Nokia preps Safari-based browser

Several executives close to the last-minute dealings between Apple and IBM said that "Mr. Jobs waited until the last moment - 3 p.m. on Friday, June 4 - to inform Big Blue" that it was switching to Intel chips, reports the New York Times.

"Those executives said that IBM had learned about Apple's negotiations with Intel from news reports and that Apple had not returned phone calls in recent weeks," the report says.

While Jobs has publicly stated that performance issues related to IBM's PowerPC chips were the main motives behind the switch, Big Blue told the Times that pricing was a central issue.

"In the end, Mr. Jobs was given no choice but to move his business to Intel, when IBM executives said that without additional Apple investment they were unwilling to pursue the faster and lower-power chips he badly needs for his laptop business."

In 2004, Jobs also reportedly met in California with both Nobuyuki Idei, the chief executive of Sony, and Kenichi Kutaragi, the creator of the Sony PlayStation, to discuss the possibility of adopting IBM's Cell processor, which destined for Sony's PlayStation 3.

However, Mr. Jobs passed on the idea, telling Mr. Kutaragi that he was disappointed with the Cell design, which he believes will be even less effective than the PowerPC.

Nokia Developing Mobile Browser Based on Safari

On a totally separate subject, Nokia said on Monday it is developing a mobile browser for its Series 60 smartphone software in cooperation with Apple.

"A key component of this development has been Nokia's cooperation with Apple, as the Series 60 browser will use the same open source components, WebCore and JavaScriptCore, that Apple uses in its popular Safari Internet browser," the Finnish telecoms equipment maker said on Monday.

"Based on KHTML and KJS from KDE's "Konqueror" open source project, this software has enabled Safari to achieve industry-leading features and performance. Nokia intends to continue its collaboration with Apple and actively participate in the open source community to further develop and enhance these components, contributing Nokia's expertise in mobility."

The new Series 60 browser will reportedly be available to all Series 60 licensees as a standard Series 60 application during the first half of 2006.