Back in the 1990’s, Richard Branson, the legendary Entrepreneur and investor was asked how to become a millionaire, and he allegedly responded, “There’s really nothing to it. Start as a billionaire and then buy an airline.” I think the same principle can be applied to a large part of the Semiconductor… Read More
As mentioned in a previous post, Microsoft has started to come clean on its software strategy as it relates to Windows 8 for PCs and Tablets. The strategy has been changing quite rapidly since their first admission in September. Essentially the Windows 8 O/S will be forked based on whether the mobile device is operating on an x86 or… Read More
What if Amazon’s new Kindle Fire, priced at $199 and using a sub $10 TI processor, has effectively started the ball rolling towards forcing Intel and AMD to building a Very Low Cost (perhaps even <$10) x86 mobile processor? A recent article entitled “Amazon’s Risky Strategy” explores the ramifications of Amazon selling Kindle… Read More
During the weekend, I read two articles that highlighted Apple’s LCD supply chain build out and started to think of how this would look if Apple were to do the same on the x86 side of the ledger. The two articles, one related to Hitachi and Sony building a new 4” LCD for iphones and a more extensive one on Sharp building a new LCD for the iPAD3… Read More
When AMD announced its cutbacks recently many people were left wondering why they were so deep given the strong financial performance in Q3 and the guidance for an up Q4. It couldn’t have been related to the Thailand floods that could have been at most a one-quarter squeeze expected in Q1. Now it is apparent from reports that AMD’s … Read More
Answer: it depends how you count. Units, market share, revenue, profit.
According to Gartner, Android has doubled its market share and now run just over half of the world’s smartphones. Android handset sales actually tripled during the year, selling 61 million last quarter, not that far off a million a day.
iPhone sales … Read More
One of the interesting tidbits of information to come from Intel’s October earnings call was that Brazil, a country of nearly 200M people, has moved up to the #3 position in terms of PC unit sales. This was a shock to most people and as usual brushed aside by those not familiar with the happenings of the emerging markets (i.e. the countries… Read More
It is hard not to be impressed by Intel’s stunning financial performance since the 2008 downturn. They are on track to post revenue of $55B this year or 50% higher than 2008 while nVidia and AMD will be flat to less than 10% better. More significantly, earnings will be 3X that of 2008. More significantly, in the past 12 months they have… Read More
Vertical integration, as I have noted in previous blogs, is the way to domination and maximum profitability. That is unless someone else has beaten you to the punch with an even bettermodel. Apple is now executing a product and manufacturing supplier strategy that will force Samsung to lose lots of money and then ultimately split… Read More
Time to ring the Bell. With the iPhone 4S, Apple has just surpassed the 70% gross margin metric that usually equates to a compute platform becoming an industry standard. IBM’s mainframe achieved it in the 1960s with the 360 series and still is able to crank it out with their Z-series. The combined Intel and Microsoft tandem (Wintel)… Read More
