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Is 'Quadroid' the New 'Wintel'?
CWmike writes "'Wintel' is the term that for years defined Windows-based computers running Intel chips. Now a similar expression is emerging for smartphones: 'Quadroid,' a term that refers to the Qualcomm chips used inside smartphones running the Android mobile operating system. The term, recently coined in a report by the PRTM consultancy, could catch on, largely because Qualcomm provides 77% of the chips in phones running Google's Android, which is expected to take the No. 2 slot in 2010. And the Quadroid alliance is expected to grow. Like Wintel has for PCs, Quadroid could push down profit margins for smartphone manufacturers, some analysts say. That might seem like a good thing to consumers, but may not be so good for many phone makers."
In a few more words: we're not going to see what we saw with Wintel because people actually have to go out and select Android. Wintel was what you got when you walked into a store and walked out with a computer; most people didn't even know what an operating system was until it was far too late.
So does that make the Nokia-MeeGo combination a NoGo? I don't like the sound of that!
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
When the race to the bottom occurs, and everyone's trying to grab marketshare rather than profit, OEMs are going to crap out ever more unreliable, useless hardware. The whole thing's a mess.
This isn't good for consumers. the Android software ecosystem WILL suffer. custom UI skins will be more bloated and useless, apps will become more and more fragmented, and I'm not sure if consumers are going to be willing to put up with it.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Stop it you motherfuckers. Just fucking stop it. Stop with the ass-grabbing buzz-wording over-hyping bastardizing-jargon based marketing bullshit! I'm sick of it and you all need to police yourselves from now on because I simply don't have the resources to slap the shit out of every last one of you like you deserve.
FUCK.
I think this moniker is dumb and pointless. Wintel meant two things - you were buying x86 compatible hardware preinstalled with Windows. There were multiple OS options when the term was coined, and it concisely meant that the machine was not preinstalled with OS/2, just MS-DOS, etc, but Windows specifically. Intel meant that the machine was Intel x86 compatible, which, again, was important at the time when the architecture of the machine mattered because many x86 programs did not even run in Windows.
So for starters, "Qualcomm" is a misnomer, because it is actually an ARM chip, and that is the important part. Android doesn't run on only Qualcomm chipsets, but on ARM compatible devices.
Second, people don't get a choice of OS and / or CPU architecture when they purchase a phone. There is no mixing and matching. Thus referring to the phone by its chipset is totally pointless.
Third, just because it's Qualcomm doesn't give any idea of the actual hardware. Does it have a FPU, GPU? What's the processor speed? We don't gain any important information from knowing that it is a Qualcomm chipset.
Everything that a consumer needs to know can be described in the name of the OS at this time when it comes to Smartphones, which is why "Quadroid" is lame and useless.
Better known as 318230.
What's the Samsung-built ARM stuff in an iPhone? Sapple? Samphone?
The world needs to know. This is important!
This is absurd - (A) to not even refer to the main processor in this meaningless marketing term, and then (B) to exclude (or mislabel!) nearly a quarter of the market...
I'm not a conspiracy kind of guy, but seriously - is Qualcomm behind this transparent marketing grab or what???
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In a few more words: we're not going to see what we saw with Wintel because people actually have to go out and select Android. Wintel was what you got when you walked into a store and walked out with a computer; most people didn't even know what an operating system was until it was far too late.
You are skipping the early history of Windows. Many people were very much aware of Windows, just as many are aware of Android. It was Intel that they didn't really know about, much like they don't know about Qualcomm. Windows 3 caught on because of huge marketing efforts and a high public demand to turn people's DOS boxes into something graphical and easier to use. People initially had choices, stick with DOS, move to OS/2 1.x (+ Presentation Manager GUI if interested), or buy a Mac. Well I guess SCO Unix and Microsoft Xenix were options too. :-)
As for your thesis that people just wanted a computer and got Windows without really knowing about, well the same is true for Android. Some people want a smartphone and buy some Motorola, Samsung, LG, etc phone without being aware of Android or Google.
A race to the bottom for margins doesn't mean quality as well. In most competitive industries you find that will it does allow for cheap, crap, items it also allows for reasonable, good, items. Look at desktop PCs. Graphics cards are extremely cutthroat. Prices are wonderful, consumers can get a powerful midrange card that does great on modern games for less than $200, and even approaching $100. However those cards can be perfectly well made. You can find cards with lifetime warranty in that range. You can get cheap, ultra low end cards of course, that are neither very powerful or well built, but you don't have to. Higher send stuff is still made, including some ridiculously high end stuff.
Consumers benefit when manufactures are encouraged to lower profit margins. After all, from a consumer point of view, profit is just money wasted. The best situation for a consumer is that a company earns no profit, all money is going to cover the cost of the good. It is not good when a company can charge a massive margin for no reason. That is just wasted money for a consumer.
Also for the most part with cellphones, relatively low quality is ok since they aren't things people keep. Technology progresses too fast and people want the new gadget. Fine, but that means that building a phone to last 10 years when it will be used for 1 is silly.
Now when phones settle down, when they stop changing at such a breakneck pace, then yes, would be nice to maybe get a phone and keep it for many years. However I don't see that happening any time soon, particularly since phones are partly fashion and thus you need ot be new and trendy all the time in most peoples' minds.
er you've not worked in enterprise IT have you, or maybe its just something us strange Aussies say.
MS server techs are universally referred to as 'wintel' (as distinct from unix, mainframes etc.)
Windows was shipped with IBM(?), and that caused a markedshare to form. Now.... we also have anticompetive practice from Microsofts DOS against drdos, and etc...
Before all that there was tremendous interest in Windows 3 prior to its launch and a lot of people eager to use it once it became available. At the time people were really interested in using a graphical environment rather than DOS. Also at this time Microsoft was telling developers that Windows was temporary, just something for DOS users to use for now, and that the future would really be OS/2 1.x with the Presentation Manager GUI.
In the sense that it's a retarded portmanteau word then yes, it most certainly is.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."