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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. "
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
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?
I'm sorry, did I miss the memo?
Is the whole Netcraft thing done now, too tired, overused? I sincerely appologize. Allow me to rectify my error.
"In Soviet Russia, the profits Transmeta YOU!"
No? That one is also too overused? Okay, how about: "Yeah but do they run Linu.." Pardon? They do? Oh...
"Well I'd love to see a Beowolf cluster of these..." Now what? There are clusters of these. Damn, well...
"Cowboy Neal is hot!" I fail to see how this sentence relates to Transmeta's profits, but know that it was through modding my post a troll that you drove me to it!
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!
Yeah, all Tom Sawyer like, they got Apple to pay NeXT to take over Apple...
What do you know I wrote a novel
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.
I, for one, never cared about Transmeta because `Linus once worked there.' Transmeta was cool because (1) they were making chips using an innovative design, which is rare, and (2) they were making chips for a niche that I have an active interest in. Turns out that neither their VLIW design nor their approach at x86 emulation turned out to be efficient enough to be effective, but it is tremendously interesting technology.
You're barking up the wrong tree with your point about NeXT. The NeXT crew got purchased by Apple, engineered a takeover, and now control the single largest Unix vendor in the world. Are you suggesting Transmeta might do something similiar?
You're probably correct that ``unless someone wants their "technology" on a firesale this sucker is in game over territory'', but not for any of the reasons you listed. The real reason is simple economics. Transmeta, however an interesting display of technology, failed to deliver a product that is superior to its competition. Which is the sad part. We don't know if their approach is a technical dead end or if their particular implementation of it is a dead end.
You're also dead wrong that ``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'' as demonstrated by Microsoft dumping x86 for PPC in the XBOX part II and Sony moving to the cell processor for Playstation part III. Not to mention that Via seems to be doing a brisk business with its low-power x86 and ARM doesn't appear to be hurting either.
In one market nich, the desktop PC, you're probably correct. But desktop PCs are a relatively small port of the market for CPUs. When's the last time anyone bought a cell phone or a PDA because of the `Intel Inside' sticker? Who cares whether or not their hardware firewall is running at the latest and greatest high speed Ghz?
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
Have you looked at desktop Vs laptop sales recently? Have you compared the trends? It looks like a large and rapidly growing segment of the market (myself included) cares a whole lot more about power than speed (assuming we've got a GHz or so to play with).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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...
"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."
You are insane or an idiot. Right now heat/power usage are huge issues. Apple is going to Intel largley because they could not get G5s to run cool enough for notebooks. Intel is going with Pentium M based cores because of heat vs speed issues with the PIVs. The current computers are more than fast enough for your average home and office use. What people want now are smaller and cheaper machines that do not require a small power plant to run and sound like a 747 on take off. Notebook sales are way up desktops are getting smaller. Even the slashdot crowd are moving away from full towers to mini-itx and shuttle like cases. The only thing you got remotely correct is that AMD and Intel will step up and provide it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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...
Manufacturing processors didn't work out so well, so they went to the ARM model of business: License your IP for other people to use.
Most of their valuable IP consists of their LongRun2 technology. They have Sony, Fujitsu, and NEC as licensees so far.
Their Crusoe processor has been sold off to a Chinese company, Culture.com Technology Limited. Not sure what the status is of their Efficeon line, but it's been licensed to Culture.com, too. I imagine that Efficeon is up for sale, too.