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Splitting Up With Apple is a Chipmaker's Nightmare (engadget.com)
Apple is such a powerful company that, for third-party suppliers, it's hard not to become reliant on the cash that it pays you. Engadget adds: But when Apple says that it's done, choosing to move whatever technology you provide in house, the results can be really painful. Imagination Technologies is one such supplier, famously designing the iPhone's PowerVR graphics as well as pushing MIPS, a rival to ARM. But back in March, Imagination publicly announced that Apple was ditching it in favor of its own graphics silicon. Now, Imagination has revealed that it's going to take Apple to dispute resolution, maintaining that the iPhone maker used Imagination's IP without permission. It's the second chipmaker in recent months who believes Apple isn't playing fair, with Qualcomm counter-suing Apple in its own licensing dispute. Secondly, Imagination is going to have to sell off MIPS and Ensigma, two parts of its business that aren't as profitable as PowerVR. Gamers with long memories will remember that MIPS designed the CPUs that lurked inside the PlayStation, PS2 and Nintendo 64.
Its pretty much impossible to build a modern GPU without infringing on the patents of one of the existing players. Even Intel is stuck paying licensing fees from AMD or nVidia, its hard to see how Apple won't have to do the same.
And that would be the reason my father told me never to let one client dedicate more than 30% of my business. It's also why I told my father that reliable clients sometimes get heavy discounts, to offset the lack of sales/collection efforts, which keeps them from rolling their own.