Very true about board level products we can consider using. There just isn't much that would be practical.
As to the PS3, it wasn't my intent to suggest that IBM's approval would be necessary to port to that (I think that would be Sony's call). What I meant was using the Cell would require IBM's approval. They made this point very clear to me. They hadn't ruled out its use in other consumer devices, but they didn't market it broadly. In fact, they told me they didn't have the documentation prepared to market the product that way. Rather, they preferred to qualify applications and only partner with companiess that they thought stood a good chance of making a decent return on investment.
I think after getting burned more than once in the PC market, IBM has decided to maintain a more involvement/control over their IP.
From a management and corporate culture perspective, IBM is a very intriguing company. They've made some great decisions and some poor ones, but I can't think of any other company that has more impact on the industry or one that has remained successful as long.