Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the chips-ain't-easy dept.
aftk2 writes "According to news.com, chip maker Transmeta - current home of Linux creator Linus Torvalds, has canned 40% (200 people) of its work force, and has shifted its goals toward obtaining profitability in 2003. No word on whether there were any penguins seen leaving the building."
There's a shock.
by
Skyshadow
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Despite the "celebrity" factor Linus brought to the place, their product just never panned out. It was a good idea, and hopefully some larger company will buy up their proprietary technology, but I don't see how Transmeta on their own ever could have made a run at capitalizing the chips in an already severely swamped market -- the barriers to entry were just too high.
Still, having been laid off twice last year, I wish all the former Transmetites the best. I hope Linus is able to find an interesting job after Transmeta folds -- otherwise, my company could use a good code jockey...
-- Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Transmeta - the Power Management Company
by
Animats
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The trouble with Transmeta was that the feature people wanted was fine-grained power management, not software translation into microcode. Transmeta was first with fine-grained power management, but as soon as it became clear that people cared about that, everybody else (i.e. Intel and AMD) started doing it, and Transmeta lost the only advantage it had.
Transmeta's "code morphing" turned out to be another Really Neat Computer Architecture Idea that Doesn't Matter. It goes to the graveyard with stack machines, tagged-word machines, capability machines, dataflow machines, single-instruction multiple-datastream machines, hypercube machines, and Forth machines. Each of those has been made to work, built, and sold. Few people have ever seen any of then, but they all did exist as working commercial hardware at one time or another. None of them had enough of an advantage over vanilla architecture to survive.
The same thing will probably happen to Intel's Itanium, which, even within Intel, is considered a marginal idea.
In a way, it's sad. We're stuck with vanilla architecture like x86 and vanilla languages like C. There are many better approaches, but none better enough that the pain of conversion is worth it.
Do not count these guys out
by
John+Murdoch
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Hi All!
I think it would be a big mistake to count Transmeta out any time soon. I say that not because I'm a penguin-loving Linus-worshipper. To the contrary, I primarily use Microsoft development tools, and when I'm feeling giddy about Unix I use FreeBSD. The only Linux boxes around here belong to paying customers.
So why not write off Transmeta? Simply put, they're working their way into the product channel. Transmeta does have a very low-power chip--and that Transmeta technology is at the core of an emerging form of hardware: the smarter embedded system. Don't think "desktop replacement"--think "death to the PLC."
What's a PLC? Programmable Logic Controllers are tiny CPUs that appear in all sorts of specialty uses: controllers, valves, automated-just-about-anything. They're cheap, they're generally very reliable--and they have zero memory, have very limited functionality, and require programmers who demand significant coin. When you try to add a feature to an embedded application you will typically a response on the order of "that will take--at least--200 bytes of memory. And we only have 68 bytes left. So what feature do you want to drop to do this?"
Coming soon, to a factory floor near you... The Palm OS, WinCE, and the Transmeta chips are going to change all that. Handhelds and rugged semi-embedded handhelds are appearing in larger numbers--with gigabytes of flash storage, and 128 MB of RAM. Skip counting bytes--add all the features you want. Connectivity? They have 802.11 already embedded, along with USB, serial ports, etc., etc., etc. Some of the vendors I've browsed recently include InfoCater and SyntegraTech; they're both distributors for Tablets, WebPads, and handhelds that run with WinCE or Midori Linux. Very, very cool stuff.
Laying off 20% of your staff may be painful--but it is not the same thing as shutting the doors. For example, note that VA Software is still around....
Re:Intel Fires 4000 Employees 2002-07-16
by
buffy
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Why didn't Slashdot report this news item, hhmmmmm?
Slashdot Mirror
... when he wore that shirt that said he would replace you with a small shell script!!
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Still, having been laid off twice last year, I wish all the former Transmetites the best. I hope Linus is able to find an interesting job after Transmeta folds -- otherwise, my company could use a good code jockey...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Transmeta's "code morphing" turned out to be another Really Neat Computer Architecture Idea that Doesn't Matter. It goes to the graveyard with stack machines, tagged-word machines, capability machines, dataflow machines, single-instruction multiple-datastream machines, hypercube machines, and Forth machines. Each of those has been made to work, built, and sold. Few people have ever seen any of then, but they all did exist as working commercial hardware at one time or another. None of them had enough of an advantage over vanilla architecture to survive.
The same thing will probably happen to Intel's Itanium, which, even within Intel, is considered a marginal idea.
In a way, it's sad. We're stuck with vanilla architecture like x86 and vanilla languages like C. There are many better approaches, but none better enough that the pain of conversion is worth it.
Hi All!
I think it would be a big mistake to count Transmeta out any time soon. I say that not because I'm a penguin-loving Linus-worshipper. To the contrary, I primarily use Microsoft development tools, and when I'm feeling giddy about Unix I use FreeBSD. The only Linux boxes around here belong to paying customers.
So why not write off Transmeta?
Simply put, they're working their way into the product channel. Transmeta does have a very low-power chip--and that Transmeta technology is at the core of an emerging form of hardware: the smarter embedded system. Don't think "desktop replacement"--think "death to the PLC."
What's a PLC?
Programmable Logic Controllers are tiny CPUs that appear in all sorts of specialty uses: controllers, valves, automated-just-about-anything. They're cheap, they're generally very reliable--and they have zero memory, have very limited functionality, and require programmers who demand significant coin. When you try to add a feature to an embedded application you will typically a response on the order of "that will take--at least--200 bytes of memory. And we only have 68 bytes left. So what feature do you want to drop to do this?"
Coming soon, to a factory floor near you...
The Palm OS, WinCE, and the Transmeta chips are going to change all that. Handhelds and rugged semi-embedded handhelds are appearing in larger numbers--with gigabytes of flash storage, and 128 MB of RAM. Skip counting bytes--add all the features you want. Connectivity? They have 802.11 already embedded, along with USB, serial ports, etc., etc., etc. Some of the vendors I've browsed recently include InfoCater and SyntegraTech; they're both distributors for Tablets, WebPads, and handhelds that run with WinCE or Midori Linux. Very, very cool stuff.
Laying off 20% of your staff may be painful--but it is not the same thing as shutting the doors. For example, note that VA Software is still around....
Because Linus doesn't work for Intel, silly.