IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing

IBM announced Sunday that it would be issuing its quarterly earnings statement early Monday, moving it up from its previous schedule, timed for after the close of markets. The company said it would also separately make a business announcement.

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty is looking for ways to increase margins as revenue growth slows while the company transitions to new technology and services offerings. One way to do this is to shed less profitable parts of the business. The company's chip manufacturing operations in East Fishkill, New York, is one of them.

Reports surfaced this summer that IBM was working on a deal to have GlobalFoundries take over the plant. The deal fell though at the time, however, over disagreement on the amount of money IBM would pay GlobalFoundries to take over the money-losing fab, reports said. IBM was offering $1 billion, but GlobalFoundries wanted $2 billion, according to a Bloomberg report.

IBM has been steadily shedding its hardware assets and is closer to taking on a chip licensing model approach much like ARM Holdings. IBM earlier this month closed a deal to sell its x86 server business to Lenovo for $2.1 billion. Its hardware business now centers around Power architecture, which is best known for powering the Watson supercomputer, which outwitted humans in the TV game show "Jeopardy."

For decades, IBM made Power servers in-house, but is now working with other hardware makers to bring the chip architecture to more servers. IBM last year started licensing Power architecture so third-party companies can develop chips, servers and components. It also formed the OpenPower Foundation -- which boasts Samsung, Google, Tyan and Nvidia as members -- to promote Power-based software and hardware development.