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Why Mobile Innovation Outpaces PC Innovation
Sandrina sends in an opinion piece from TechCrunch that discusses why mobile systems are developing so much faster than the PC market. The article credits Intel with allowing hardware innovation to stagnate, and points out how much more competitive the component vendor market is for smartphones. Quoting:
"In PCs, Intel dictates the pace of hardware releases — OEMs essentially wait for CPU updates, then differentiate through inventory control, channel / distribution and branding. Intel and Microsoft win no matter which PC makers excel — they literally don't care if it's Asus, Dell or HP. In the smartphone world, it's the opposite. Dozens of component vendors fight each other to the death to win designs at smartphone OEMs. This competitive dynamic forms an entirely different basis for how component vendors approach system integration and support. Consider Infineon, which supplies the 3G wireless chipset in the iPhone. In order to stay in Apple's graces, Infineon must do everything necessary to help the hardware and software play well together, including staffing permanent engineers in Cupertino or sending a team overnight from Germany. Do you think Intel does this for Dell?"
It's called cannibalization. When there's an established monopoly any possible invention "cannibalizes" the markets of established product groups and must be suppressed. It takes a long time because monopoly is tremendously profitable, but ultimately this is a stagnant path that goes extinct in much the same form as it existed when it achieved monopoly.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Mobile innovation is outpacing desktop innovation because desktop innovation has been going on for 20+ years and mobile innovation has been stuck in its infancy for too long.
If Intel was holding everyone back with your proposed CPU and Chipset conspiracy, don't you think that would just prime the market for AMD to pair up with VIA or someone and just wreck Intel?
AMD tried hard. They introduced 64-bit x86-compatible CPUs. And Microsoft wouldn't support them until Intel caught up. On the other hand, Microsoft supported the Inanium until 2004.
The PC isn't innovating because it doesn't need to - it's already perceived as "good enough" by its users. Advances in computing power generally get asorbed by the ever-increasing needs of the OS and office applications. Smart phones, on the other hand, are so constrained by their form factor and their tiny user interface that innovations in UI, usability, battery life, etc. are very meaningful. Merely making a different set of trade-offs can produce real wins.
Because PCs have a headstart of decades?
It's like asking why China can have growth rates of over 10% while "Western" countries only get 1-3%. It is very hard to improve if you're already close to technical and physical limits and any made improvement won't look as impressive. Handhelds will soon enough hit the same walls that Desktop Systems currently try to tear down.
The "dominance" is the x86 instruction set. Intel and Microsoft have locked us in; AMD is just a second source for chips that use that instruction set.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
The car market has gone the same way - they all look pretty much the same - dictated by the laws of aerodynamics. It means that other features have been developed to differentiate - things like economy, safety, electronics. While this is not necessarily good for the manufacturers - the number of players shrinks as the market consolidates, it is good for the consumers. So it will be with phones (or whatever they evolve into, they're the equivalent of an Atari, today). We have yet to see the major benefits emerge, despite what Apple may tell us.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Incorrect.
AMD introduced a 64-bit/32-bit hybrid CPU as a competitor of the Itanium for the server market. Opterons were and still are quire successful in that market, especially with the new g34 socket and 12-core processors (up to 48 cores per server and no tier-BS - all processors can run 1-4 SMP configuration) Microsoft viewed AMD's technology as *superior* to Itaniums because it allowed for seamless migration from 32-bit to 64-bit platform. Microsoft essentially *told* Intel that they will only support *one* 64-bit CPU and that will be the AMD instruction set. Intel had no choice but to incorporate AMD's instruction set into their processors.
Microsoft doesn't care if AMD or Intel catch up to each other as long as their software runs on those processors. They didn't "wait" for Intel to catch up. It simply took many years to migrate Windows from 32-bit code to 64-bit clean code. There was XP 64-bit, but how many people used that? Hell, lots of people didn't even get 64-bit Vista because of perception that if you don't use more than 4G of RAM you don't need it. Actually, all modern machines should be running 64-bit OS only - simplified address space management and increased register count makes it a no-brainer.
If you want an example of a company that still fails and fails hard at 64-bit software, it would be Adobe. They recently dropped support of the 64-bit plugin. Not sure, maybe they are still "waiting for Intel to catch up"?
Don't forget that the mobile market gets to take advantage of knowledge and research done for the server/desktop market. Sure, there's new tech going on in there, but it's the whole trickle down approach, too. The mobile market is *catching up* to the desktop market, so there's a lot of acceleration just from using all of the prior knowledge. Building multi-core processors isn't easy and how many mobile phones do you know that are sporting them? Zero that I know of. And what about Intel's turbo processing (dropping cores and overclocking the remaining cores when not needing as many cores), how long do you think before a mobile phone will have that technology?
The innovation in a lagging area (mobile) seems faster only because the innovation has already been researched in the leading area (servers first and consumer second). It takes longer to figure out something the first time than it does to figure out how to make it "smaller" (smaller in the sense that it is for the mobile market, it may be a smaller die footprint or power footprint or whatever).
Try your statement again on a Bean counter test (TM):
Hell, lots of people didn't even get 64-bit Vista because of perception that if you don't use more than 4G of RAM you don't need it.
Bean counter:Alright! Since we skipped Vista, none of our corporate PC's ever needed even 3GB. Money saved!
Actually, all modern machines should be running 64-bit OS only
Bean counter:Tell me more and I'll put in an order so we can stay competitive in this "modern" market. I'm curious.
simplified address space management
Bean counter:Huh?
and increased register count
Bean counter:Useless. More technobabble that only programmers need. I'll recommend keeping XP on our single core Pentium 4. I'll also get a raise for saving the PHB a ton on this year's budget.
makes it a no-brainer.
Bean counter:I fully agree. I'll even grin all the way to the bank!
Sun fumbled so much with SPARC chip design they had to ask Fujitsu to sell them their SPARC64 IV processors, so they could actually have a high end SPARC server product to sell.
I know, I could write that every decade or so.
When I started with computers, processing audio was hard and clunky, and video unheard of. But, increasingly, non-computer devices are getting more intelligent (in terms of really being computers under the hood), to the point where they look and feel like computers, with different peripherals.
When I first viewed video on a computer monitor, it was clunky, and in a window. Even in full screen mode, one would eventually escape back to the windowing UI, that made the TV stop looking like one, and more like a computer. 10 foot interfaces have changed all this, of course. And yet, if one does want to switch from a video entertainment device "mode" to an "internet browsing" mode to view YouTube videos, for example, the computer UI looks normal and not out of place. We are getting used to the browser being our interface to the world around us.
The point is that computers are becoming ubiquitous. From TVs to phones, to ebook readers, to netbooks, and iPads, we are using computers to present content as well as organize it. If I were to desire a "universal" remote control, I would seriously consider a netbook for the purpose because it could add so much more functionality over a universal "remote", and actually costs less than many of them! Why we still have 38khz IR remote controls instead of web-based UIs available over 802.11b/g/n escapes me, but I am sure that will start to change with the first "networked" remote, and "IR hubs" with 802.11b/g/n in and IR blasters "out" for legacy equipment. Why can't I use my smartphone as a remote? Oh wait! I can!
Just look at how UpNP has shaken out into DNLA-based equipment.
I just retired a 400 disk CD/DVD changer and replaced it with a MythTV box. I had done that before, but with false starts, and things weren't smooth enough to really retire the changer. Now, the MythTV box is quiet enough, and powerful enough, to make the thought of actually handling media for anything more than "one of" playback archaic.
Look at HDMI, at least the latest incarnations. Not only does it integrate uncompressed video and audio in a single cable, 100 Mb/s datalink layer ethernet, and SPDIF "back channels" are included. Literally, "one cable to link them all". And, it's not an expensive interface, only found on high end equipment: it is becoming the standard for computer monitors and televisions (the difference really becoming blurred).
So, certainly because of competition and "technology catchup", phones and consumer electronics are evolving at a dizzying pace, whereas computers have stagnated. but, perhaps we've reached the point where computers already do everything we want them to: compute, process, store, and retrieve data. As far as presentation of entertainment content goes, a traditional computer offers little more than storage, and second rate display: it is non portable and the display or audio capabilities are poor compared to alternative: smaller display but complete mobility in phones, netbooks, and iPads, and massive displays in flat-screen TVs. And these are the areas where we are seeing advances.
In Liberty, Rene