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Transmeta OK'd for Mira Displays
viewstyle writes "eweek is reporting that Transmeta's Crusoe chip has been approved by Microsoft for use in the Mira smart displays -- a move that further edges out AMD and Intel from the mobile processor marketplace."
Microsoft has been showing less and less interest in being an exclusive "partner" with our good friends at Intel... Maybe MS is taking the Tel out of WinTel.
Yeah, just the way Linux is "edging out" Windows as a desktop OS, or intelligent comments are "edging out" mindless Linux zealous idiocy on Slashdot.
Maybe "eeking out a small chunk of a large market and managing to stay afloat."
x86 is only one processor supported by the Mira platform.
To say that Transmeta is edging out a giant like Intel who has the PXA255 is just wrong. Transmeta doesn't have any edge in this market whereas Intel certainly does.
I have been pwned because my
Microsoft's company partnering with Linus Torvalds's company... hee!
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
The Transmeta chip being approved for use in one device hardly qualifies as edging anyone out of the mobile chip market, much less "further" edging them out. Besides, what do we (read as: geeks) have against AMD? I thought we liked them, no?
Don't count out Intel quite yet. The Pentium-M is still one of, if not the best mobile pure x86 processors out there. The rumor that Intel is additionally working on an ultra-ultra low-power version of the chip(600mhz, smaller L2 cache) would further prop themselves up in the Mira market, with their brand name tagging along for the ride. Transmeta has had a lot of problems so far breaking in to the US market, and I don't see them winning that easily so soon, especially with Chipzilla on the lookout.
With the dot-com bust giving Transmeta a hard time, an approval by Microsoft could be just what they need to get back on their feet and out of bankruptcy.
Maybe this will be a lesson learned for the GNU/Linux community as well, to support the companies that use open source and contribute back to the movement. Everyone's all about freedom, but nobody seems to want to pay the price for it. Apparently Transmeta has seen this and is moving on to greener and more friendly pastures. Good for them I say, and I'm looking forward to the product.
Think about that the next time you Bittorrrent the latest release of Redhat instead of purchasing it. What would you do if they decided to switch over to Microsoft? You'd all be screwed then.
... edged right out of their tiny 15% and 80% market niches. Tremble, AMD and Intel, tremble.
It's like having VPN from anywhere in your house. It sounds like a dumb idea and for 95% of the people out there it probably is, but for the 5% who are left it is a real great technology.
It's laptop power without the heat and power consumption of a full-blown system.
I have been pwned because my
Does Bill Gates know that Linus Torvalds works for Transmeta?
Wherever you go, there you are!
It seems like this question has been asked several times in this thread.
e valuation/news/fromms/mira.asp
Here's the short version:
Mira (Smart Display) is a small, tablet-like device that becomes a remote terminal to a Windows XP machine. It uses wireless networking to create a Virtual Private Network (VPN) with the XP host. When connected, the Mira device can use all functions of the host PC.
Here's Microsoft's version:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/Embedded/ce.NET/
I have been pwned because my
Common, the association between Transmeta and M$ isn't that new. Who was one of the major investor in Transmeta ??
M$ co-founder Paul Allen.
Intel has the new XScale, and AMD has their Alchemy processors (MIPS32) for the Mira displays. AMD demoed the Mira running with the Au1500 recently, and ran better/faster than the PXA stuff from Intel. I saw it, it was reasonably cool.
The sad thing is, they're just re-inventing X-terminals. Mira is just a dumb display, the magic still happens on some big, beefy iron in the background. Everything old becomes new.
So far in 2003, Transmeta has reported a net revenue of $6 million. (these numbers taken from Transmeta press releases)
These numbers are paltry compared to the industry giants Intel and AMD (especialy Intel), but they do reflect stability and massive growth since Q1 2002. No, Transmeta is no direct threat to Intel or AMD, but they deserve to be taken seriously nevertheless. The underdog is always forced to innovate, and market hype can swing an extra $2 to $3 million in revenue towards a company like Transmeta. Remember, we all laughed at AMD, too.
As for all of the negative comments, cmon, what do you expect? This is Slashdot afterall, and the creator of Linux works in a rather prominent role at Transmeta. This is exciting and encouraging to us Linux geeks.
The net revenue for Transmeta in 2002 was $14.1 Million (1.5 Q1, 6.4 Q2, 6.3 Q3).
Unfortunately, revenue only tells part of the story. Transmeta's net loss for the fiscal year ended 12/31/2002 was $110 million (source http://biz.yahoo.com/p/t/tmta.html)
I think Transmeta's a great company... just want to make sure we paint the complete picture here: they lost about $100 million last year, and their stock is worth a little $1.00.
Going for the mobile market is indeed a mistake.
They went for the blade-server market, which was not a mistake.
Embedded (under certain circumstances) is not a mistake either, but it's a very competitive market.
They've ignored the quiet PC market, and that was a huge mistake.
OK, here comes the clarification. The power savings of TMTA chips don't matter much for mobiles, because the power profile is dominated by the monitor and other devices, not the CPU. The one advantage the chip does offer for mobiles is low heat disipation, but they didn't pitch that. Instead, they marketed enhanced battery life and when that (predictably) didn't materialize, they started to look like Enron execs.
The power savings matter a great deal for server farms, because when you jam 1000s of CPUs into a room, all those watts add up quickly, and you also reduce the cost of cooling the room. In general, when TMTA's chips are scattered all over the place, the heat dissipation and power savings don't matter that much. When the chips are packed together in small spaces, then it matters, which brings us to...
...The quiet PC. The low heat allows TMTA chips to run FANLESS. This wasn't emphasized enough by their marketing or engineering departments, and as a result there are virtually NO PCs being made with TMTA's chips, and there are no inexpensive motherboards using a TMTA chip. That market has been conceded entirely to VIA's mini-itx boards. This is a real shame, because apparently the TMTA chips can (in theory) perform better than VIA's chips and do so without a fan. Also, TMTA squandered its geek appeal by making it very difficult for anybody to experiment with their chips. I haven't seen any SBCs with a TMTA chip in them for under $600. The chip itself is available for $90 in single units, but there is nothing to plug it into. Since Intel chips cost about the same, I don't see any argument for why TMTA can't get somebody to make inexpensive MoBos. That is an oversight that must be corrected.
If you look at the mini-itx.com site, you'll see that most of the projects are hobbiest kitsche. I imagine that most of the projects at the original Homebrew Computer Club were like that too; but one of them was the first Apple. Unless TMTA gets its /\55 in gear, it will end up like Zilog instead of Motorola.
It's very, very ironic that Linus works for a company that has failed so miserably to understand the importance of hackers and the "garage" in driving the industry. I haven't heard him say anything about advocating within TMTA to make their hardware more open. Notice, I mean open in the sense that you should be able to buy components separately and tinker with them; I'm not asking TMTA to give up any copyrights or patents.
For example, in theory, you can emulate any CPU by writing your own code-morphing software. Now, I defy anybody to find the documents that tell you how to do that.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?