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Transmeta's Demise Predicted
egdull writes: "According to this story, Transmeta's party is over. Between buggy first-implementations of chips, leadership shake-ups, and "being outfoxed by Intel," Transmeta is done, according to C|Net. With a low stock price, they might be a target for a takeover, with Via being the only named interested party."
no, but cpu's are a great source of heat in laptops, and fans that have to come on constantly to keep it cool can suck up power as well.
i know that having my laptop sitting on my lap for an extended period of time makes me very attractive to the cats that like to sit on blazing hot laps.
it's not just power, it's the heat aspect as well.
Transmeta intended to create a superior product that would quickly capture a small, but profitable, segment of the market--much in the way Apple Computer has survived with less than 5 percent of the operating system market.
Comparing Transmeta to Apple is stupid.
Transmeta develops and manufactures a single product - the Crusoe. Transmeta relies on this single product to drive their revenue. Apple, on the other hand, makes desktops, laptops, monitors, networking peripherals, and MacOS. They're not relying on a single product to stay afloat. So yes, Apple is still alive while only holding 5% of the OS market. Why? Because 100% of Apple's operating system installations run on Apple's own hardware. (Not counting the five or six Apple clones out there.)
If Apple made their living by only selling MacOS, then the comparison could apply. Not here.
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It's hard for any company to compete with Intel sure AMD's done well but how many companies will really make any headway aginst Intel? Not many IMO. It's almost like trying to compete with Windows, Something may be a better product but when people get used to something they don't like to change. It scares them. Maybe not the best thing to compare this to but you get the idea.
Snoozer.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
I don't see how buying Alpha technology would have helped - Alpha's were never aimed at low power markets. In fact, Alpha's high performance designs made them power hungry monsters - not exactly what you want on your laptop. Not unless you can't find anything else to make an omelet on :)
Displays will get lower power with OLED displays.
Drives will use less power, and also with cheaper, lower power memory (DDR-II at 1.8V), more data can be cached in RAM on a laptop instead of having the drive on.
So low power CPUs are important. If we want a laptop that can last an entire plane journey around the world, or a week in the woods, instead of lugging 4 spare batteries around with you, then you need a low power CPU.
VIA's C3 with LongHaul power management looks good. Intel have Speedstep, AMD have PowerNow. Transmeta awakened the major CPU makers to the need for low power processors. Can Transmeta stay ahead of the game? It will be hard.
However, the sizable number of laptops are actually transportable desktops. CPU power is not relevant with these devices, hence the common usage of desktop processors in these devices.
Fujitsu is selling a Crusoe based notebook that they claim will last 14 hours on a charge.
Lifebook P
Transmeta's problem is not technology, it's public relations. As the article's author pointed out, after 5 years of secrecy they are not comfortable talking to the public. Add to that fact that Intel is telling anyone who'll listen that Crusoe is junk. Do you really think Intel doesn't have anything to do with the lack of notebooks in the US with Crusoe processors?
Linux zealots blame MS for not being able to buy Linux laptops, but turn a blind eye to the Intel monopoly? What gives?
This article is a good example of the kind of press Transmeta doesn't need or deserve. The authors claim Transmeta is down the tubes, but don't provide any evidence of that (bad debts, layoffs, etc.) In fact Transmeta has enough cash to go 3 more years at the current run rate before becoming profitable. They may indeed go tits up or be bought, but it is _far_ to early to start nailing up the coffin
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Huh? I find this statement interesting, as I own a Transmeta laptop and have never had a problem with compatibility... If you're trying to say that it's a hell of a lot of work to implement another architecture in code morphing I'd agree, but beyond that I'm not sure what you're talking about.
.technomancer
Please don't write us off just yet. We have over two years worth of cash in the bank, and we've recently announced our second product. The Crusoe chip has been very popular in Japan, including holding the #1 Notebook Top Seller spot for a while.
Is it easy to go up against Intel? Of course not. This is not an overnight, just-add-water kind of deal. We're trying to change the way people perceive computing. NEC has taken our chip and combined it with a low-power screen for further power savings. RLX is using the Crusoe chip to build ultra-dense server racks. Granted, there's some overcapacity in this area at the moment, but that could turn around.
Yes, our stock price has been beaten down. Yes, Intel is a formidable competitor. Yes, we've had a management shake-up. I don't think it's nearly as bad as the CNET article makes it sound. I'm not looking for a new job, and I'm staying fully vested with the ESPP. Let's wait and see what happens. You may be pleasantly surprised.