IBM is a follower...
IBM is just following Sun/Oracle's lead here. I leave out HP in this discussion as they've given up on the Chip innovation front, entirely relying on partners... Chips are not profitable, except for those that can monetize slave labor or those that own 90% of their market -- often both.
There is definitely value to be had by creating customized chips for your particular need, but the general CPU market is dead except for a very few.
IBM has been ahead of the curve in many cases by getting rid of profitable product groups before they fell off the cliff (PC's, Switches, Disks, etc), but they missed the boat on this one by about 10 years.
Warning... the above opinions are those of their author, and not necessarily based upon fact, nor any special knowledge of the company in question. Numbers may be over or under inflated, and are used relatively arbitrarily.