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New Transmeta Chip: "Efficeon"
ddtstudio writes "Oh, "Astro" was such a friendly name -- but it probably had trademark issues. So the alphabet blender came up with "Efficeon" instead. This eWeek story gives the lowdown on what Transmeta is doing apres Linus. There's also a writeup on ExtremeTech."
I've always looked for performance over name brand, and if this chip can do what the article says it can do...it could give Intel a run for it's money in the portable marketplace.
Transmetta specializes in low power computing. That's their niche - processors that don't eat up much energy. This really isn't a direct-sale market. The stuff they make is built into other devices. So their job is to convience sony and/or palm or whoever makes the low power (read - portable) devices that they are the ones to talk to. So I don't think there's really a need to become well known outside the computing industry.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Then again, there needs to be a budget for said ridiculous amounts of money.
I think Transmeta is doing a good job getting their chips marketed. HP is including them in their products; this seems to me to be a pretty good method of advertising in the first place -- if your product is already accepted by a major manufacturer, you're halfway there. Then again, I don't think they're in precisely the same market as Intel in the first place.
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What an awful name. I think someoen used one of those name generator software packages
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
What good is it for Transmeta to advertise like Intel does when unlike Intel you probably can't go to your local store and buy a machine with a Transmeta cpu in it?
"I think if any competitor really wants to break into the chip industry and compete with the big boys they are going to have to get their name out, the real differences between one chip versus another are not very obvious to the consumer, brand recognition is what drives sales."
No not really, the people who buy from big boys already know about Trasmeta and choose not to use them. There is not a single largescale oem who doesn't know that they have around 4 to 5 cpu's to choose from when building systems, be it set top boxes or mainstream PC's.
What Transmeta needs to do as our friend AMD knows so well, it to lock up more oem deals. Not being an industry insider when it comes to cpu sales I have no idea how aggresive they are, but seeing that Transmeta cpu's aren't inside anything I'm considering buying I'd say they aren't doing a very good job.
So in short yes they need to do more advertising, but not outside the tech industry like your advocating. Transmeta needs more big vendors deals then the rest will take care of itself.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
$350 million buys a lot of presence in magazines etc... Similar problem for linux in trying to get past the reams of Microsoft bought advertorials etc. in the magazines as well...
Transmeta's Efficeon will have to compete on it's technical merits, and when people who matter realise that it offers a much better power consumption, lower temperatures and much longer battery life they'll start to take it up. 3 hours or so with Intel Celeron 1500 is just not on when I was used to some 24 hours or so battery life on my old 8086. Hopefully, the Efficeon will enable them to make notebooks that can cope with a complete working day or more away from the mains outlet... RAM's cheap enough these days to enable them to give it a seriously large cache so as to minimise HD usage, and sticking the OS in a bootable flash disk will improve matters as well. Now we just need a very low power display technology such as high res colour "electronic ink" based thin displays
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Transmetta specializes in low power computing. That's their niche - processors that don't eat up much energy. This really isn't a direct-sale market. The stuff they make is built into other devices. So their job is to convience sony and/or palm or whoever makes the low power (read - portable) devices that they are the ones to talk to. So I don't think there's really a need to become well known outside the computing industry.
True, but companies who make consumer devices would be more inclined to listen to Transmeta if consumers were demanding devices with Transmeta processors. The way to convice consumers is with direct marketing. If you were correct, Intel wouldn't need to targer consumers either, since most of Intel's sales are to OEM, not direct either.
0xfeedface
But what % of palm or Rio owners can name what kind of processor powers it? With a PC, the first spec listed is going to be the processor type. Consequently, that gets a lot of attention. With handhelds, most people care a lot more about battery life or form factor than processor type. Which is why I just can't see the day when people start writing in demanding Transmetta processors.
Hopefully this iteration will be more readily available than the previous chips.
The transmeta chips have some great power/heat characteristics, and the ability to speed up / slow down based on load. These would be great for a small home linux server / gateway type device.. If there was someone making/selling this type of small/quiet/cool device.
Does anyone besides me read this as "F-ing Con"? Maybe my problem is that seems like a good description of Transmeta's current business model.
Incompetant at marketing, maybe. But that does not mean they are conning anyone. If you had tried a laptop that uses thier Crusoe chip, you would know that thier chips deliver exactly as promised: Extremely efficient use of power and extended battery life (eight plus hours in many models) with acceptable performance. The con game in laptops is convincing users that they need a P4.
Read, L