IBM Corp is unveiling an "IBM Technology" logo to appear on products running its chips and software, and Nintendo Co's GameCube video-game console will be the first to carry it.
The strategy represents the biggest computer maker's first logo for hardware or software that other companies include in their products, IBM spokesman Bill O'Leary said. IBM started selling microchips to other companies in 1993. GameCube, which debuts this year, uses a PowerPC chip custom-designed and manufactured by IBM.
IBM's logo, reminiscent of Intel Corp's "Intel Inside" symbol on PCs, is a marketing effort to boost sales of IBM's specialized chips, which it sells to makers of networking gear, mobile phones and set-top boxes for digital TV. IBM's custom-chip sales doubled in the first quarter, then slowed to 29 percent growth in the second quarter as networking customers cut orders.
"This is a corporate-driven branding scheme," O'Leary said in an interview. "We plan to actively engage other customers. It's going to be used on a whole range of things."
Nintendo, whose rival Sony Corp also buys chips from IBM, will place the "IBM Technology" logo on the side of the GameCube carton. Future partners may place the logo on the product itself, O'Leary said. The logo will be about the size of a postage stamp on the GameCube box.
IBM isn't paying Nintendo for the spot on the game maker's new products, O'Leary said.
"By carrying this new mark, the public clearly sees we are including the latest in IBM technology," Genyo Takeda, general manager of Nintendo's integrated research and development division, said in a statement.
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