Slashdot Mirror
Positive Reports From Transmeta
utopicillusion writes "The register reports : "More cash flowed into Transmeta in the second quarter than it spent, the company said late last week as a teaser for its upcoming results announcement." This is about after a month that CNN predicted that Transmeta was going under. "
Until Netcraft confirms it...
Give me a break, this is the first real Slashdot-ism that I've ever used outside of Soviet Russia...
Why does the icon look like one of the mosquito repellants from my youth.
I'm not familiar with any new hardware that has Transmeta chips in them, and I don't remember hearing any big news about new partnerships. Where is the cash coming from? They promised a lot a long time ago, and they kind of stalled.
"Well you're not Fiona Apple, and if you're not Fionna Apple, I don't give a rat's ass."
I'd say it's a bit soon to come to the conclusion that the company is not going under, because of the result of 3 financial months.
I'm not saying that the company IS going under, but it's pretty easy for a company to shuffle expenses off to the next quarter and make it seem like the current quarter is greater than it in fact really is - If we were talking about a complete fiscal year it would be more impressive.
My <1000 UID is with a hot chick
Perhaps that CNN story was sponsored by a competitor of transmeta . . .
Or perhaps someone who was looking to scoop up the ashes
Rumouring the demise of a company that may be suffering , but not out for the count can tip the scales
Especially if the story comes from a source like CNN.
Its good to know this did not happen as i was looking forward to a few of the advances Transmeta were developing
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Is Slashdot's love for Transmeta borne purely from the fact that Linus Torvalds used to work for them? My understanding was that they had promised much in the way of low-power, cool-running processors for embedded applications, most of which have been surpassed by better offerings from other vendors. Why all the fuss?
Can someone in the know fill us in? As I understand it, transmeta's boasting of low power cpus translated into rather meager results in practice.
What's the status of their productline?
Brace yourself while corporate America tries to sell us its wretched things!
The chips going into the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 are similar in technology to what Transmeta was doing years back. They all strip out out of order execution, branch prediction, etc to reduce die size and circuit complexities. Maybe people are starting to realize the way around the Ghz wall is to reduce complexity?
Face it this company is toast. NeXT even posted a profitable quater once too, and look where they are!
Ok kinda bad example, but unless someone wants their "technology" on a firesale this sucker is in game over territory.
And for all the boo hoo hoo geeks, you are like the fan bois that go on and on about the PPC, MIPS & the Dec Alpha, and yet have never owned one either in their hayday, or afterwards.
Face it the market is only in it for FAST x86, nobody cares about power. And if they did they want to see it from intel, or AMD.
Does that mean they're borrowing heavily?
This is from a high school student taking simple high school accounting..
:P
More cash inflow than outflow doesn't necessarily mean its turning a profit. It can, but it doesn't have to. I think the editors (here and the external link) have jumped the gun on this one, and I'd rather wait for the real results announcement, instead of a little bit of information out of context. I'm sure there are real accountants here willing to contradict me, but it's just my 2 cents - regardless of how immaterial it is
Let the commencement BEGINULATE!
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
The release from transmeta says that cash flow from operations is positive. This means that actually dollars out is higher than actual dollars in because there can dollars going out for non-operational items, such as capital expenses, repayment of loans, etc. The news is good news if you like transmeta because positive operating cash flow is better than negative - but it does not necessarily mean that transmeta can pay all its bills.
that people don't think that Transmeta would be able to become pritable. After all, they changed their entire business model. They no longer manufacture CPUs, but have become an IP only company, like e.g. ARM. Additionally they have licensing and support contracts for their LongRun2 technology with NEC, Fujitsu and Sony. And they are working with Sony on the Cell processor. They don't say exactly what they are doing, but half of their engineers are now working for and essentially paid by Sony.
They also sold their remaining Crusoe and 130nm Efficeon CPUs and technology to a Chinese compny, while still retaining the 90nm Efficeon which will probably be manufactured by the new Fujitsu fab in Mie.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
No, it's not.
Slashdot's love for transmeta probably springs from the same reason that Linus went to work there:
it was a real cool concept
Along with many others, I was expecting to see a few more uses of code-morphing that x86 instruction execution, so I'm dissapointed there.
Other reasons are Transmeta are not Intel, and like AMD are doing cool stuff and cool prices instead of yesterdays (dull) snacks at yesterdays prices (I would say tomorrowws prices except that prices are going down) that we get from intel.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
What's amazing is that they could sell it. Who would want a piece of that business?
According to the article, this is cash flow from operations, so the revenue from the sales shouldn't be included. (Which, of course, doesn't mean it isn't, somehow.) More likely is that the sale eliminated a lot of red ink that would otherwise have been included in CFO.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
based linux notebook. The Crusoe does a fine job. My 900MHz notebook has enough power to play back two DVD at once. Sure, it took a little tweaking, but the battery lasts a long time, it's cool(as opposed to kewl), and it keeps on ticking.
You've never seen a woman naked, have you? Nerd.
Transmeta's market was always mobile computing, but for the most part only deluded /. geeks understood that to entirely consist of `mobile desktop'. AFAICT, they have targetted single board system embedded devices and thin clients as their primary target market from the get go. The closest `mobile desktop' gets to their target market is tablet computing which isn't really in the same category.
As far as the tens of millions of Xbox 360s and PS/3s that are expected to ship in the first year that they are launched, you are quite misinformed if you think that those numbers would be nothing to an Intel. Their flagship server processor, the Xeon, is lucky to sell a million units in a quarter. In 2004, it is estimated that just under 180 million PCs shipped worldwide. From my understanding, Intel has about 80% of that market meaning that that Intel's desktop sales is about 140 million CPUs. Game consoles, if we conservatively estimate XBOX 360 and PS/3 selling 10 million units per year each, would amount to 14% of Intel's desktop market. That is hardly `nothing.'
AMD, IBM, Intel and Via would all be interested in buying Transmeta on the strength of Transmeta's patent portfolio alone.
CNN: Here's one.
SLASHDOT: Ninepence.
TRANSMETA: I'm not dead!
SLASHDOT: What?
CNN: Nothing. Here's your ninepence.
TRANSMETA: I'm not dead!
SLASHDOT: 'Ere. He says he's not dead!
CNN: Yes, he is.
TRANSMETA: I'm not!
SLASHDOT: He isn't?
CNN: Well, he will be soon. He's very ill.
TRANSMETA: I'm getting better!
CNN: No, you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment.
SLASHDOT: Oh, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
TRANSMETA: I don't want to go on the cart!
CNN: Oh, don't be such a baby.
SLASHDOT: I can't take him.
TRANSMETA: I feel fine!
CNN: Well, do us a favour.
SLASHDOT: I can't.
CNN: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
SLASHDOT: No, I've got to go to the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
CNN: Well, when's your next round?
SLASHDOT: Thursday.
TRANSMETA: I think I'll go for a walk.
CNN: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Look. Isn't there something you can do?
TRANSMETA: [singing] I feel happy. I feel happy. [whop]
CNN: Ah, thanks very much.
SLASHDOT: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Unlike nearly all the posters here - I actually own something with a transmeta chip in it. My Sharp MM20 laptop is just over 2 pounds and gets 8-9 hours on the battery (real life usage - not just spec sheet) and costs much less than the closest Intel-based competitor by Sony.
Don't know how the chip itself "specs" but I would recommend the actual end product to anyone who doesn't want to lug a brick and an AC adaptor around all day...
If Allen really wanted Transmeta to live, then what is needed is new and innovative ideas based on the chipsets. One approach is to fund ideas that use the hardware. MS used the approach of funding software for Windows 3.0 and NT 3.0.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Transmeta's public accounting firm resigned recently as well:0 00089161805000476/f10542e8vk.htm
http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1001193/
This doesn't happen to growing companies.
Nice one, Hemos. Your punishment will be to neurotically have someone else proof your work for a month or two.
I rememember the days when Transmeta's home page was apparently blank, but had a secret message about `coming soon' if you looked at the source. In those days, I remember /. speculating about all the things you mention. But all the actual press releases I remember had TM going after the thin client/embedded/tablet market rather than the desktop market. The way back machine's earliest archive of www.transmeta.com is from 2000 and it emphasizes devices like tablet PCs and internet appliances which are certainly not the desktop niche.
In fact, before TM starting making press releases about its initial processor, the speculation on the street was that they were going to launch some sort of handheld device akin to a Palm. Look at articles on rumor sites in the last quarter of 1999. After the Crusue debuted in Jan. of 2000, most analysts conjectured that ARM had more to worry about from TM than Intel or any other x86 vendor except maybe Nat Semi with their Geode processor. Time and again, it was mentioned that the chip was geared towards subnotebooks or other small devices, especially internet appliances.
And anyone that mistook TM's approach for RISC was sorely misguided. All their marketing propaganda was truthful in that it described the chip as VLIW. It did use less power because their were fewer transisters, but it was never RISC nor was it ever advertised as RISC. That you even bring RISC up in the discussion suggests that you're remembering more about idle speculation on /. than anything that actually came out of Transmeta.