There were keynotes from all three semiconductor partners in the Common Platform Alliance and, as if to show how common they are, they all talked about the problems that need to be addressed in the next decade and a half and they all said pretty much the same thing. Gary Patton of IBM went first and so he got to say everything first. Plus,… Read More
Next Wednesday is the Common Platform Technology Forum. “Common Platform” is a name that only a committee could have come up with, giving no clue as to what it actually is. As you probably know, there are various process clubs sharing the costs of technology development (TD) and one of them consists of IBM, Samsung and… Read More
It has come to that point in time when former great computer companies in the twilight of their years should consider a marriage of convenience that ends … Read More
Please join IBM, Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., and GLOBALFOUNDRIES at the 2012 Common Platform Technology Forum. The forum will showcase the alliance’s technological progress and how joint collaboration and innovation is setting the direction for industry-leading solutions to enable next-generation products. … Read More
One thing I do as an internationally recognized semiconductor blogger is listen to the quarterly conference calls of companies that drive our industry. TSMC is always interesting, I really like the honesty and vision of Dr. Morris Chang. Cadence is good, I always want to hear what Lip-Bu Tan has to say. Oracle and Larry Ellison, … Read More
Perhaps no semiconductor company took it on the chin harder the last half of 2011 than Micron. And yet, perhaps no company was racing as hard as Micron to make a radical changeover. Micron is considered a bell weather on the overall health of the semiconductor industry given that DRAM, NAND and NOR Flash are used in some combination… Read More
Back in the 2008 financial Crises, GM was finally brought to its knees and had to face a radical makeover. They asked for a bailout from the government that allowed the unions to swap out lower compensation for equity, something no union would do unless the alternative was to shutter the doors. The bondholders and the shareholders… 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
In a Washington Post Column this past Sunday, Barry Ritholtz, A Wall St. Money Manager and who has a blog called the Big Picture, recounts the destruction that Apple has inflicted on a wide swath of technology companies (see And then there were none). He calls it “creative destruction writ large.” Ritholtz though is only accounting… Read More
The Common Platform Technology Forum last week was not well attended, less than half than the GlobalFoundries Conference. It was deja vu of previous CP forums but there were a couple of surprises to go with the disappointment. The lunch line was long, but fortunately I was escorted to the press lunch featuring VIP’s from Samsung,… Read More
