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Qualcomm Wants a Piece of the PC Market
jfruhlinger writes "Much of Intel's story of the past few years has involved its so far fruitless attempts to break into the smartphone and tablet market. But as it keeps trying, it may find competition on its home turf: Qualcomm, which makes many of the ARM-based chips in those smartphones and tablets, wants to make PCs, too. The advent of Windows 8 for ARM and Android will make this possible."
Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.
And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you ever knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.
Raspberry Pi Forever !!
Re: Q and PC
I pass a lot of gas on that call
good a thing as any to use for a drinking game.
Did that mean (Windows 8 for ARM) and Android, or Windows 8 for (ARM and Android)?
What goes around, comes around.
At one time, Apple pitched RISC (ala PowerPC) as the logical successor to CISC (x86). They were also an early investor in ARM (along with Acorn and VLSI). Intel, though, had the development resouces ($$$) to stave that off.
Sounds like it might finally be happening.
(Opinion: Too bad Apple has turned evil in the interim.)
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Just what I can't wait to have, a PC that I can't get any drivers for or put anything but the singular blessed Windows 8 installation it came with on.
I'm sorry, but unless Windows 8 comes with a top-notch emulation platform to run x86 apps, this is dead. As much as I enjoy having an Android smartphone, having a PC running Android is something I DO NOT WANT. The main reasons why people want a full fledged PC rather than a tablet is for certain legacy applications (along with a real keyboard/mouse!) and such. If Linux hasn't been able to succeed on the desktop, then I see no reason why ARM would succeed. Plus, we all know that people are going to be talked out of this by your typical Best Buy salesmen and your average person who /thinks/ they are computer savvy but not really. When looking at a 1.2 Ghz ARM CPU vs a 2.2 Ghz x86 CPU their gut instinct is to go for the x86 even though it might be inferior to the ARM.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
But as it keeps trying, it may find competition on its home turf: Qualcomm, which makes many of the ARM-based chips in those smartphones and tablets, wants to make PCs, too.
The article linked to says
The company is talking with PC makers about building thin and light computers based on its Snapdragon chips, Jacobs said during a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show.
which isn't quite the same as "Qualcomm ... wants to make PCs".
Before I being, bear in mind, the whole annoying mantra that x86 will NEVER compete with ARM in low-power applications has just been shot out of the water: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5365/intels-medfield-atom-z2460-arrive-for-smartphones
I've been hearing ad-nauseum about how all ARM has to do to destroy x86 in the desktop market is to flip a couple of bits and they'll have "good enough" performance while using zero-point energy that produces free power and unicorns since about 2006. In the meantime, the exact same people who say that ARM is "good enough" rip dual-core Atoms for being too slow (while the single-core Medefield I just linked to is faster than dual--core A9's in the Iphone 4S and Galaxy Nexus, while using less power).
I've also heard about how the A15 will completely blow Intel away when it finally shows up blah blah blah (I heard the exact same story about the A9 cores btw, and Intel is still in business).
What I have yet to see is ARM *really* ratchet up performance... and no, I'm not saying that they need to beat Ivy Bridge... I'm saying they need to *approximate* a mobile 1.8Ghz Core 2 from about 2006 to get that "good enough" performance. I have yet to see that chip, and for all you fanboys out there, the A15 is *not* that chip (it'll likely finally beat a single-core Atom from 2008... but remember the single-core Atom was never good enough to begin with!). Intel has closed the gap for x86... it's a done deal, and no amount of "ARM is magical" will change the laws of physics.
ARM has *NOT* closed the performance gap with x86, and when you add in all the cache, real memory controllers (not those jokes used in current ARM designs) and I/O controllers needed to do real work, your ARM chip will end up using just as much power as a competitive x86, no matter how many forums you go on to brag about the superioirity of the ARM instruction set that doesn't even do 64 bit, and which you never even write assembler for anyway.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
The year of the WINE desktop!
Where can I sign up to start making them myself?
Windows on ARM PC and we can't forget the year of Linux on the desktop. Yeah, right.
Qualcomm folks must be smoke'n something good to think Windows on ARM is going to be worth a hill of beans. It'll probably be just as good as Windows on the OLPC XO was, at best.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Given the rumors surrounding how poorly Windows 8 is running on Qualcomm silicon I wouldn't bet on them doubling down on microsoft products anytime soon.
http://hybrid3005.blogspot.com/
With even Microsoft's emphasis on online apps these days, it shouldn't matter what processor a system has. They made their bed, I guess they can lie in it.
As far as emulators, everyone recalls the PC emulators available for the PPC Macs. They did work, but the system they were emulating was slow by standards of the time. You could in principle emulate any processor on any other processor - but would it be worthwhile?
The limited screen space on netbooks was intel's fault. Basically intel restricted the "netbook" to 1024x600 resolution to avoid cannablizing their high-margin "notebook" market. It wouldn't sell atom processors to vendors that violated this restriction and actively discouraged any atom processors w/o their own integrated graphics (by pricing the stand alone atom processors more than the combination chipset package which required signing the "netbook" restriction agreement). Although intel got dinged for this anti-trust behavior, it was basically too late for the netbook market.
Given that I already run Linux on non-x86 architectures I've long awaited for an alternative CPU to use in my desktop PC. x86 has a lot of baggage from the need to be backwards compatible with an architecture developed in the 1980s, so scrapping all that and reusing the transistors for something more performance oriented would be fine with me.
The "thick and heavy" market is already cornered.
I was just going to comment but then I noticed "PC" is the laptop. So PC is the multi-purpose "tool" used for something else than browsing and email? It can't be a a laptop as laptops don't usually have the muscle (it's possible but with $$$). So usually that leaves the desktop because we don't need mini computers in the modern era.
The thing I was going to comment was: How well this supports HTPC configuration, i.e. RAID (for storing big amounts of data), TV cards and 1080p HDMI. I guess badly as RAID is the "server" component, TV cards are the "desktop" component and 1080p movies are not really the most common use case.
Every RISC cpu is great for a particular level of complexity. And ARM is great for in order, no speculation, no branch prediction, ultra power sipping designs. Through smart use of their instruction set they have made themselves great for ultra low power, low IPC, low frequency platforms. ARM for a PC misses the point of why x86 has been successful, its easy to tack crap on the side without resolving to use of "co-processors", and the less commonly thought about advantage of x86 the fact that x86 instruction code is basically a hardware interpreted byte code at this point. No modern x86 actually runs x86 is breaks it down or decodes it into a RISC setup that is suited to the particular level of complexity of the current generation/transister count/die shrunkenness/frequency. If anyone truly cared to replace x86 they would design a fixed width CISC instruction set chip where the instructions are purposely designed to be a little higher level then risc and layed out in a way thats easy to decode into whatever the chip is actually doing the work in, so that when the next generation of chips come out you don't have to throw the whole thing out and start over like RISC has continually done over the ages.
It's about decreasing the monopoly x86 has had on the desktop and laptop scene for decades, and its not targeted at the masses anyone who thinks that they are going to move soley to ARM is a fucking retard. Another reason is to have an alternative to x86 its been 20 years and they have yet to change the architecture for the better(x86_64 doesn't count they simply added the ability to support more ram). having ran linux on non-x86 arch's(specifically arm and ppc) I prefer them over x86 and would like to have the option to not use x86. No you aren't going to be able to run all of your applications immediately that shit has to be ported first so quit bitching. The biggest difference in the two architectures is the amount of time that was spent in learning about them(referring to software devs) simply put all of your shit is on x86 because thats been the favored arch for so long, hopefully this go round they won't put all their eggs in the same god damn basket.
It looks like Intel's new Atom SoC is going to be given a shot in the smartphone space: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5365/intels-medfield-atom-z2460-arrive-for-smartphones.
Why would a lawnmower manufacturer want to make PCs?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"No branch prediction" is completely false for modern ARM processors:
http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/cortex-a8.php
And ARM is great for in order, no speculation, no branch prediction, ultra power sipping designs.
The Cortex A9 core is dual-issue, out-of-order, speculative, and uses 2-level dynamic branch prediction. This doesn't seem to have adversely effected its power consumption in relation to previous designs, and it doesn't appear that the instruction set has made this difficult for them to implement.
The beginning bullshit makes me laugh & per my subject-line above is why with you opening like this:
"Starting your argument by referring to the opposing opinion as "fanboys" does not help your position, it weakens it." - by Required Snark (1702878) on Tuesday January 10, @11:32PM (#38660200)
Who the F are you & who do you *think* you are? The "expert"?? I know not.
Classic 'suspension of disbelief' is required to even go on reading your utter crap!
That's where you go wrong!
Starting with that line of complete BULLSHIT on your part makes me laugh, & demands "suspension of disbelief" because you're no expert on the subject @ hand. Far from it.
(Acting as if "your words are God's" (they're clearly not, especially with your "market forces" bullshit next)).
"It's not about "fanboys". At some level, it is not even about technology. It is about market forces." - by Required Snark (1702878) on Tuesday January 10, @11:32PM (#38660200)
Hate to tell you this, but YOU NEED A CLUE: Markets are driven by demand, & what helps create it? Word of mouth from users, and yes, fanboys out online.
The same fanboys get word-of-mouth out and reviewers do the rest.
End users use the internet to get such word-of-mouth & reviews. That helps drive demand, which in turn, is the "main motor" of markets - giving people what they want, but making them pay for it = profit.
This is absolutely right! Remember in the 90s, when Microsoft introduced NT for RISC platforms like the Alpha & MIPS, they never ported their major programs there, like Office, nor the bulk of their apps. That made the MIPS version almost a non-starter (Silocon Graphics itself gave up very quickly, and NeTpower soon abandoned MIPS for Pentiums, while DeskStation abandoned MIPS for Alphas), while Alpha struggled to emulate Windows programs on an emulation software called FX!32, which of course just eliminated the sole advantage Alphas had over Pentiums - performance. Years later, Compaq pulled the plug on it, while NEC pulled the plug on NT/MIPS.
If Microsoft had, at that time, made Windows a portable platform and ported all their apps to all their Windows platforms, it would have ensured success of Windows on all platforms, and apart from making RISC platforms popular, would have made Windows ready to fly on any platform, w/ ready apps and all that. Microsoft of course didn't, those RISC platforms failed, Windows remained an Intel only OS. In fact, given that MIPS spans a wide variety of processors - from low power to top performance used in Silicon Graphics servers, had Microsoft ported everything to that, they'd have had a platform today, which, though not ARM, would have easily run many, if not most Windows programs, and there could have been spins for all sorts of devices - tablets, phones, laptops or anything else.
But they didn't, and now, they are struggling to be in 3rd place in the tablet market - something they'd not be had they all these years ensured at least that all their own apps run on RISC. By letting their Windows on RISC die, their wounds here are pretty much self inflicted. Now, they want to re-create a Windows on RISC, but why would devs select them over Apple or Android?
If Microsoft wants Windows 8 tablets to succeed, their only way to do it is to make their tablet platform the Atom and the Fusion, and let Intel & AMD provide the target CPUs for that segment, so that they can at least get their apps to run. It will have to be something where their apps will be the same as before, except that in addition to keyboard and mouse inputs, it will recognize touchscreen inputs. Otherwise, I don't see Microsoft doing better than even RIM or WebOS (whoever ends up owning it) in this segment.
As far as Windows 8 for the desktop goes, if their resource consumption this time is less than Windows 7, that would be the only reason to switch. Also, they have to provide a way (read: tinkering w/ registry settings is not a way) to have the Windows 7 UX if one wishes - don't make it a choice b/w just Metro and the old Windows 2000 classic.
>> And ARM is great for in order, no speculation, no branch prediction, ultra power sipping designs
All of which makes them an excellent choice for real time development, the power sipping being a bonus. However I have used a Gumstix Overo on a Tobi as my workstation on days when I have left my laptop at home and have been able to work just fine... so I fail to see the problem with an ARM based PC (if you are running Linux and a Linux user that is).
Informing others about this scumbag punk gmhowell (who thinks it's cool to harass others online, with his diabetic fatass pal tomhudson).
"I've been trolling people for 36 years. Why would I stop now? I've also never denied trolling you. Why would I?" - by gmhowell (26755) on Sunday April 17, @05:03AM (#35846218) Homepage
QUOTED VERBATIM DIRECTLY FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2087330&cid=35846218
"I never denied trolling you" - by gmhowell (26755) on Tuesday December 14 2010, @01:55AM (#34543612) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM DIRECTLY FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1907528&cid=34543612
gmhowell posts journal on trolling myself, years ago now -> http://slashdot.org/journal/266768/the-best-thing-about-trolling-apk
PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:
"The best thing about trolling APK?" - http://slashdot.org/journal/266768/the-best-thing-about-trolling-apk
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/journal/266768/the-best-thing-about-trolling-apk
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gmhowell says he will stop next below (after I got on his case) too:
"But seriously, I may stop" - by gmhowell on Thursday June 16, @09:38PM (#36470452) Attached to: The best thing about trolling APK?
and
"Hmm... Maybe oughta lay off for a while." - by gmhowell (26755) on Thursday June 16, @09:38PM (#36470452) Homepage
I took him @ his word, & then laid off on retrolling he, but?
gmhowell starts up YET again (now by AC posts only)!
Proof? Ok, this week -> http://slashdot.org/journal/276148/now-this-is-entertaining
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gmhowell's part of the "trolltalk.com" crew (a domain tomhudson, a total scumbag troll actually keeps no less).
gmhowell hangs around with (or is just another alternate registered 'luser' guise tomhudson keeps) tomhudson, a known troll
(tomhudson = a miserable fat diabetic wreck too that can't program for shit & *thinks* she can but hasn't been noted for it in anything in publication in the realm of the computer sciences, fact)!
Example:
"Wait until he starts on another kick, then reply to him as an AC. It's the new meme". - by tomhudson (43916) on Sunday May 09 2010, @08:29PM (#32150544) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM DIRECTLY FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1646272&cid=32150544
"BTW - if you're going to tell this guy to stop spamming his hosts file crap, make sure you do it anonymously" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16 2011, @11:45AM (#35840680) Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM DIRECTLY FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086920&cid=35840680
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(This "trolltalk.com" pack of weasels? Heh - They're all "scumbags of a feather that flock together")
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gmhowell & crew from trolltalk.com also CHEAT THE MODERATION SYSTEM HERE, & others noted it also -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2236608&cid=36442386
"I do whatever amuses me at the moment. Sometimes that i
Is that why they have made 90 million profit alone over the new Fusion apus they have started selling recently ? and made it over a month ?
Also make it 64bit, attach a SIMD instruction set that doesn't suck balls, and a standardized implementation of an MMU would be nice.
This is why /. loves APK.