Coming attraction? IBM's PowerPC 970 seems ideal for the Mac--will Apple adopt it? (Mac Beat).

Pop open any Mac made in the past two years, and chances are you'll find a Power PC chip made by Motorola inside. But that could change, courtesy of a new processor--recently unveiled by IBM--that may soon make its way to a Mac near you.

Neither Apple nor IBM will comment on whether the chip, the PowerPC 970, is slated for Macs. But industry analysts aren't nearly so reticent. "They can't say Apple, but we can--speculatively, of course," said Microprocessor Report senior analyst Tom Halfhill shortly after the PowerPC 970's October introduction.

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