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Apple Dumps PortalPlayer Chip
Quash writes to mention a BusinessWeek article about Apple's decision to not use the PortalPlayer chip in a future version of the iPod nano. From the article: "PortalPlayer stock promptly shed $9.46, or nearly 42% of its value, and more than $220 million in market value. Apple generally doesn't discuss future products, nor its manufacturing or component supply strategies. It had no comment on the matter. But theories about who may have been the beneficiary of PortalPlayer's misfortune are abounding."
I don't believe that Samsung is a direct competitor to Apple in the DAP market, much the same way Dell isn't really a competitor to Apple in the desktop PC market. Apple goes after a pretty narrow market, and they're highly successful there. Samsung is more a more broad-ranging company sells tons of different things. It's a bit like comparing a small boutique carmaker to General Motors. Both make the same product, but are not really competing against each other.
You are treating Samsung as an evil business. Just because they are trying to enter a marketplace doesn't mean they will sabotage their reputation by selling faulty chips to apple. Seeing as how the volume of ipod's sold would tower over the volume of samsung players sold, samsung would probably be better off selling apple computer chips.
Portal Player solution is very expensive. Last time I checked, it requires 2 ARM 7 chips with an external auio codec chip to run the the non video version iPod. There are plenty of more cost effective solution from the competitors such as Sigmatel, Philips or Freescale.
It is probably just a cost cutting move for Apple.
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
Cringley predicted this months ago. Cringleys speculation was that the reason Apple chose Intel over the nominally superior AMD was to get access to intel technologies on a broad level, including their low power embeded chips for the ipod. (Which they were familiar with from the Newton).
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Looking at the last earnings report from Apple it seems that the REAL reason they switched to Intel was to lower overall component costs. Scale matters -- being the only retail game for PPC was putting a premium on Apple's marginal costs; since switching to the Intel ecosystem they reap the reward of using essentially commoditized parts.
So it wasn't really about a supposed technology ramp-up which they touted and I doubt they were banking on "future" technologies. The way I see it, it was simply a matter of the bottom-line: you really can lower costs when using high-availability parts. Go figure.
Never-the-less, that's some fun technology to be watching.
Does this drive anyone else nuts? FTA: ...one of Apple's main suppliers for so-called NAND flash memory.
It seems like anytime some media type doesn't understand tech, they drop 'so-called' in front of the name.
You are comparing a record breaking Christmas season quarter with the next quarter? Do you know anything about economics? There is always a significant drop in demand for consumer electronics in general in the quarter following Christmas. Looking at the year over year for the "same" quarter, there is a significant increase. The stats you quote may be accurate but your interpretation of the number is flawed.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
"There is always a significant drop in demand for consumer electronics in general in the quarter following Christmas."
Why would you make such an obviously false claim when the iPod sales figures show EXACTLY the opposite of what you are claiming in a chart just a couple posts above you?
iPod sales have NEVER decreased after the holiday quarter EVER in the life of the product. And for the first time sales not only didn't continue to accelerate after the holidays, they DROPPED 40% and you are trying to claim that is normal???
A 10% drop in sales would be major bad news for Apple.
A 40% is huge. Especially mixed with the warning they are giving on next quarters sales already.