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
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
With worldwide annual media tablet shipments forecast changing –growing- almost every quarter, the latest from ABI research calling for shipment to approach 100 million units in 2012 and passing 150 million in 2014, with the same kind of forecast for smartphone passing 400 million units this year (438 million) and approaching… Read More
It is always a treat to listen to the nVidia earnings conference call as Jen Hsun Huang offers his take on the industry as well as a peek at his company’s future plans. Invariably a Wall St. analyst will ask about Windows 8 and Project Denver – the code name for the ARM based processor designed to run Windows 8 with great graphics performance… Read More
Can semiconductor devices change the temperature of the earth? The heat from my Dell XPS changes the temperature of my lap! A 63” flat screen TV changes the temperature of my living room. I just purchased six of the latest iPhones for my family (under duress) and signed up for another two years with Verizon, so our carbon footprint … Read More
When Intel entered the server market in the 1990s with their Pentium Processor and follow on Xeons beginning in 1998, they focused on the simple enterprise applications. At the same time they laid the groundwork for what will turn out to be a multi-decade, long war to wrest control from all mainframes and workstations. The announcements… 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
With the introduction of the Kindle Fire, it is now guaranteed that Amazon has the formula down for building the new, high volume mobile platform based on sub $9 processors. In measured fashion, Amazon has moved down Moore’s Law curve from the initial 90nm Freescale processor to what is reported to be TI’s OMAP 4 in order to add the … Read More
“Where’s the Taurus?” In the history of company turnarounds, it was one of the most penetrating and catalyzing opening questions ever offered by a new CEO to a demoralized executive team. The CEO was Alan Mullaly, who spent years at Boeing and at one point in the 1980s studied the successful rollout of the original Ford Taurus. For… Read More
According with ABI research, worldwide annual media tablet shipments are expected to top 120 million units in 2015, which is more than decent for a niche market. But if you compare it with the smartphone market (you can find the smartphone shipments forecast here), media tablet will weight 15% in unit shipment of the smartphone … Read More
