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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."
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
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.
I'm guessing that it will be rather worse for customers than Wintel...
Wintel duopoly = lower margins for the companies that "make" the computers = greater incentive to take payments in exchange for bundling shitware and/or attempt to 'differentiate' with vendor shovelware.
With cellphones: Same thing; but the customer is cryptographically prevented from uninstalling the crap unless the model is popular enough to attract a really solid mod scene and an easy-to-use custom firmware...
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
Where is this happening?
Samsung, LG, HTC, Moto et al. seem more interested in a race to the top providing the best high end phone. Even in Wintel land, its a race to the top with Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and so forth competing for the best product in each price category. Heuwei and others seem more interested in providing the best low end phone possible.
Sorry but your argument is bad.
Competitive environments don't support races to the bottom, only highly restricted environments support products that are deliberately underpowered, striped of features or just not fit for purpose
No, it isn't good for certain one-size fits all competitors. It's excellent for Android customers. UI's sort themselves out as some thrive, some die and orders establish themselves in the same way that various technologies fought on Windows, all can co-exist but one or two become dominant. I'm not a liberatard but the market really will sort this one out.
Try saying fragmentation a few more times, at least you wont sound like more of a fanboy. The fragmentation myth has been disproved time and time again, I mean tweetdeck had all of two android developers for the hundreds of handsets (in reality they coded for 4 versions of Android, 1.5, 1.6, 2.1 and 2.2). If you don't know how interpreted code works and why android uses this model you shouldn't be participating in this conversation.
In the end it still comes down to "do or not do". Wintel is still on top because it does more then any other OS (Linux rules the servers because it does more then any other *nix). Windows does nothing, well lets not kid ourselves, its a bloated, buggy, unreliable piece of crap but it runs all my work programs, games and anything else I throw at it. This will be the same on mobile OS's, in a years time there will be a lot that Android does that other mobile OS's don't do, already my Moto Milestone w/Android 2.2 is more like a desktop machine in a form factor that is convenient to make phone calls on.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
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.
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."