The great leveling

[chrisv]

Well, knowing about it is one thing, admitting to it is another.

The nature of their business is that they can't admit anything. If
they were to show any lack of confidence in Itanic's viability, it
would certainly be a self-fulfilling prophecy of it's death.

The WiFi chips I can understand, they have a support relationship to their
existing core business (CPUs). HDTV is another thing altogether.

Intel seems to have a history of flailing about when it comes to selling
products outside of its core business. It starts a business and then just as
abruptly kills them. Remember those home networking gear it used to sell at
one time? Also the webcams?

The "flailing about" is extremely typical of companies who have had a
very successful "cash cow" product, and then go looking for similar
success in other markets. It's not easy. Intel is fortunate that
their cash cow is still giving plenty of milk.

Or it may be worried that people would think that the reason it is producing
chips for other companies is because it can't fill up those fabs itself.

I don't know. Their balance sheet is a matter of public record. What
matters is the bottom line, and they're doing quite well, despite the
economic recession.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Really? Do you think Microsoft isn't running profitably?
They currently have a lock-in on PC operating systems.

Yup, you're right, totally forgot about that lock-in showcase. I was
thinking more along the lines of "normal" companies like IBM or Sun, etc.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

The nature of their business is that they can't admit anything. If
they were to show any lack of confidence in Itanic's viability, it
would certainly be a self-fulfilling prophecy of it's death.

But it's also often the case that if you can't admit something externally,
it's likely you're not admitting the same thing internally; you're not
admitting something to yourself. It strengthens your own case if you believe
it yourself. But that could also lead to unrealistic expectations, which can
lead to not doing things to fix your problems properly.

The "flailing about" is extremely typical of companies who have had a
very successful "cash cow" product, and then go looking for similar
success in other markets. It's not easy. Intel is fortunate that
their cash cow is still giving plenty of milk.
Yes.

I don't know. Their balance sheet is a matter of public record. What
matters is the bottom line, and they're doing quite well, despite the
economic recession.

Wall Street seems to be worrying right now about whether this is going to
last much longer. They don't just look at the bottom line, they look at the
trends behind the bottom line too.

Yousuf Khan

 

[keith]

Robert Myers wrote:

As to analysts, the sales forecasts having been so useless in the
past, why would anyone take to believing them now?


Comedic relief?

[dropped comp.sys.intel so I don't get pulled over by the OT police]

I think analyst's estimates are a form of intellectual reinsurance
("Well, of course it's BS, but what else do you want me to rely on--my
own BS? My dart board?").

What do _you_ think Yousuf? Will Itanium die while Power and Sparc
survive? All three chips look more like expensive hobbies than
realistic business propositions (and a dart board looks really
attractive for predicting the future of that market segment).

My personal dart board has both Itanium and SPARC dying out in the
not-too-distant future, at least for the high-end of things (legacy
support will of course continue for quite some time). Really I only
see a bright future for three processor ISAs: x86, PowerPC and ARM.

No comment. ;-]

While Power at the high-end might not be a good money-making venture,
the ISA in general has some pretty good support throughout various
market segments. In particular it seems to be doing very well in the
console market and the high-end of the embedded market. At the
top-end with the Power servers it might not make much money, but it
helps push the development for the more profitable chips further down
the line.

ARM, of course, is probably the top selling ISA out there these days
(with the possible exception of some really low-end/low-cost stuff
like 6805 or 8051), and it will probably continue doing well on the
really low-power front.

ARM isn't low-cost? 8051 isn't low cost? I guess PICs aren't "low cost"
either then. ;-) I think you'll find rather a large number of PICs (and
8051s) out there. ;-)

x86, meanwhile, seems likely to continue dominating the desktop and
workstation market for the foreseeable future while constantly taking
away server marketshare from the traditional big-iron machines.

I don't see x86 dominating the "workstation market" today. I think it
easily could, but I don't see it today.

At least.. that's how I see things going. Now, if you don't mind
stepping aside, I have a few more darts to throw :>

....never stand in the way of a Canuckistani with sharp weapons.
^
+-- see: even I can learn how to speel.

 

[Tony Hill]

I'm certain it's crossed their minds, and if they're not doing it,
it's for a good reason (like the profit margins aren't high enough).

Another thing to think of is that Intel has such a varied product line
up that, no matter what they were asked to produce, Intel would
probably already have their own competing product. Now for some
companies this would not be a problem, but Intel does NOT play nice
with others. They've never really been a company that was good at
partnerships and alliances beyond the "We design and build it, you
sell it" sort of thing.

 

[Tony Hill]

ARM isn't low-cost? 8051 isn't low cost? I guess PICs aren't "low cost"
either then. ;-) I think you'll find rather a large number of PICs (and
8051s) out there. ;-)

Err, unless my eyes are deceiving me, I mentioned that 6805 and 8051
ARE the "really low-end/low-cost" stuff. PIC falls into this category
as well, even if the top-end PIC chips cost $20-$30 in volume.

I don't see x86 dominating the "workstation market" today. I think it
easily could, but I don't see it today.

I'd say that it does, with the possible exception of certain high-end
niche markets. Certainly there are still 64-bit Unix workstations
being sold, but almost all of those are being abandoned. Sun is
hurting in this market badly, SGI is getting out of it altogether and
HPaq is doing the same with their PA-RISC and Alpha lines. I suppose
there still are HP's Itanium workstations, but from what I've seen
they aren't exactly racking up record sales by any stretch. That
pretty much leaves IBM's Power workstations as the last bastion of
new, high-end Unix workstations.

Of course, I guess a lot of this depends on just how you classify
"workstation" vs. "desktop". Depending on that classification the
exact marketshare for any one ISA could vary greatly.

...never stand in the way of a Canuckistani with sharp weapons.
^
+-- see: even I can learn how to speel.

And don't you forget it!

 

[George Macdonald]

George Macdonald wrote:

I don't think you need a conspiracy. Why would an analyst with no
working engineers or scientists want to try to outguess Intel? And
there is the fact that, aside from being an investment vehicle itself,
Intel is an investor, and, like all investors, likes to be told what it
wants to hear.

More importantly here though is that Intel was undoubtedly delirious with
joy to have IDC trot out this guff to the media, investors, IT execs etc.

As to who would buy analyst projections, I'd think that just about
anybody who needed to plug a related number into a spreadsheet and had
to be able to defend it would be a potential customer. Everybody in the
business has to be (or should be) wondering where the center of gravity
of the industry is headed. If the analysts really did know, their
predictions would be extremely valuable, I would think. They don't
really know, but a guess based on accepted methodology is much better,
or at least safer, than nothing. I thought you were in OR. Your stuff
works better? ;-).

When the guesses are that bad the "accepted methodology" is worthless..
worse. Nobody at IDC seems to have err, noticed?? In the absence of legal
responsibility, you'd think a free market would take its course. My only
involvement with OR data has been after the guessing stage.

IBM sold its Power 440 IP and I gather its commitment to being a
supplier to Apple is less than certain. IBM did form the Systems and
Technology Group, apparently giving up on the idea that Microelectronics
could stand on its own profitability. That signals a commitment to
Power and allows them to hide just how much Power is really costing
them. The subtext, though, is that Power, on its own, is never going to
be a money-maker. How long will IBM be willing or able to tough it out?
Right now, the evidence is that IBM has made the right choice and HPaq
the wrong choice. Over the long run? I still think a proprietary chip
is running against the tide. Only time will tell.

IBM sold Power 440 IP? Are you talking about the AMCC deal? Didn't look
like an outright sale to me - just a license of some IP with a takeover of
some responsibility for logistics & marketing. I don't think their picture
is anywhere as bleak as you paint it and I don't see, with the IBM
infrastructure, why a processor group would have to show a profit on its
own.

I'm amazed at the bandwidth that has been consumed on Alpha without much
of anybody facing up to what happened there: the chip was too expensive
to be a merchant chip and the software base never fully materialized.
Where is Windows on Power, anyway?

Yeah well like DEC, err Digital, I guess IBM just gave up on pouring money
into Windows for Power, or Risc6K or whatever it was called at the time.
As for Alpha, surely the cost of making the chip could have been fixed -
the fab was ancient by the time Intel agreed to take it over. Digital's
half hearted efforts at targeting the workstation, never mind the desktop,
seemed more to blame to me.

Aside from the embedded market, maybe.

I thought ARM *is* the embedded market or are you thinking of the bottom
end of it more?

The problem (as always, from my limited perspective) is that none of the
revolutions in microprocessor design have really been revolutions in the
sense that they answered questions there was a big payoff for anwering.
Intel thought IA64 was a revolution that answered an important
question (how to get significant parallelism without recoding
everything), but other architectures have been just about as successful
(or unsuccessful) in achieving the same goal.

It's not as if there were no important questions worth asking--latency
tolerance, moving data around as the virtual real estate gets larger,
and, of course, power consumption--come to mind, but the demand drivers
just aren't big enough to drive a real revolution. Maybe if (say)
google succeeds in its plans for world domination and needs a real low
power revolution the way HPC needs a low power revolution.

Revolutions are rare and I don't see why they'd be necessary as a sign of
success. Steady progress with the odd discontinuity works fine for me.

Of course they matter, but not soon enough for any but the most foolish
to speculate how.

So far they're showing signs of going in the wrong direction - unique
national standards for wireless could be just the start of something bigger
and more destructive... their version of "playing by the rules"?? It's
hardly a homogeneous culture so, with increased awareness of freedoms
enjoyed elsewhere, I expect lots of Chechnya type unrest and attempted
devolutions in the future. Many in the West who fear them economically
make the mistake of regarding them as a monolithic society - IMO no where
near as dangerous as they are painted.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Robert Myers]

IBM sold Power 440 IP? Are you talking about the AMCC deal? Didn't look
like an outright sale to me - just a license of some IP with a takeover of
some responsibility for logistics & marketing.

<quote>

http://www.siliconstrategies.com/article/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=18901180&_requestid=208096

IBM to sell PowerPC line to AMCC for $227 million (Updated)

Silicon Strategies
04/13/2004, 8:35 AM ET

SAN DIEGO--Applied Micro Circuits Corp. (AMCC) on Tuesday (April 13)
announced a plan to acquire intellectual property and the assets
associated with IBM Corp.'s 400 series of embedded PowerPC standard
products for about $227 million in cash.

AMCC has also taken a license for IBM's Power Architecture. IBM will
continue to manufacture the PowerPC products for AMCC. The agreement
also provides AMCC with access to IBM's advanced CMOS process and
systems-on-a-chip (SoC) design methodology.

</quote>

The fact that there are underlying required licencses associated with
the Power architecture is an important detail (just ask anybody who has
a Unix source code license), but short of IBM completely divesting
itself of the Power architecture, I don't see how much more of an
outright sale the deal could have been.

I don't think their picture
is anywhere as bleak as you paint it and I don't see, with the IBM
infrastructure, why a processor group would have to show a profit on its
own.

"Bleak" is a pretty loaded word.

Power _doesn't_ have to show a profit on its own, and it could continue
indefinitely as the copestone of IBM's high end strategy. IBM has
really gotten smart about open source, and maybe it will be able to
sustain critical mass for Power with it's low-end Linux-only boxes. Or
maybe it won't.

As for Alpha, surely the cost of making the chip could have been fixed -
the fab was ancient by the time Intel agreed to take it over.

Who knows? Probably compared to the cost of what has actually happened
with Itanium, doing whatever needed to be done to bring Alpha completely
into the Intel juggernaut would seem to be a bargain in retrospect. It
probably didn't look that way at the time the decision was made.

Chipmaking has to involve alchemy. What costs are immutable and what
costs are not and how are those costs tied to design? Like I would have
a clue.

I thought ARM *is* the embedded market or are you thinking of the bottom
end of it more?

John Mashey has recently mentioned both the embedded market and
Tensilica more than once as examples of interesting action in computer
architecture, and there are some really hot network processors that have
appeared recently. I don't know what end that is, but I don't think any
of those processors have an ARM heritage.

Revolutions are rare and I don't see why they'd be necessary as a sign of
success. Steady progress with the odd discontinuity works fine for me.

You and Keith, except that I think, given the choice, Keith would
dispense with the odd discontinuity.

How many revolutions are at play here? Automatic computation, c. WWII.
The transistor, 1947. Integrated circuits, 1957. The microprocessor,
c. 1970. The personal computer, (as a real revolution, 1977-1981,
giving the Apple II and the IBM PC a tie). I think we're overdue.

So far they're showing signs of going in the wrong direction - unique
national standards for wireless could be just the start of something bigger
and more destructive... their version of "playing by the rules"?? It's
hardly a homogeneous culture so, with increased awareness of freedoms
enjoyed elsewhere, I expect lots of Chechnya type unrest and attempted
devolutions in the future. Many in the West who fear them economically
make the mistake of regarding them as a monolithic society - IMO no where
near as dangerous as they are painted.

Fortune magazine has a new article on Intel in China and on the
potential competitive threat from a Chinese semiconductor industry
(available on the net, but only with a subscription). The Chinese
apparently already have a home-grown chip that would compete with the
Pentium II.

The bigger picture for China over the longer haul? I have the same
skepticism you do: big, unwieldy society with adolescent ambition and
tremendous infrastructure problems.

RM

 

[chrisv]

The bigger picture for China over the longer haul? I have the same
skepticism you do: big, unwieldy society with adolescent ambition and
tremendous infrastructure problems.

Maybe, but when the "adolescent" weighs 4 times as much as you do, he
doesn't have to be "better" than you to kick your ass, and it's going
to be a loooong time before the costs of making things there approach
the costs of making things in the Western world... They can just
throw (inexpensive) people at all of their problems.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Another thing to think of is that Intel has such a varied product line
up that, no matter what they were asked to produce, Intel would
probably already have their own competing product. Now for some
companies this would not be a problem, but Intel does NOT play nice
with others. They've never really been a company that was good at
partnerships and alliances beyond the "We design and build it, you
sell it" sort of thing.

This would be what would prevent Intel from getting a lot of business from
other semi mfgs, if Intel were to set itself up as a contract fabber. Too
many enemies which it would need to convert into customers. For some of
them, it's bridges might already be irretrievably burned.

Yousuf Khan

 

[George Macdonald]

<quote>

http://www.siliconstrategies.com/article/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=18901180&_requestid=208096

IBM to sell PowerPC line to AMCC for $227 million (Updated)

Silicon Strategies
04/13/2004, 8:35 AM ET

SAN DIEGO--Applied Micro Circuits Corp. (AMCC) on Tuesday (April 13)
announced a plan to acquire intellectual property and the assets
associated with IBM Corp.'s 400 series of embedded PowerPC standard
products for about $227 million in cash.

AMCC has also taken a license for IBM's Power Architecture. IBM will
continue to manufacture the PowerPC products for AMCC. The agreement
also provides AMCC with access to IBM's advanced CMOS process and
systems-on-a-chip (SoC) design methodology.

</quote>

In this article the same day:
http://www.reed-electronics.com/electronicnews/article/CA410159?text=ibm+and+power+and+ip
the headline is "IBM Adds AMCC to Power Everywhere Lineup" - same $227M but
a different angle on the same story. It also says "to license IBM
intellectual property and acquire a *portion* of IBM's 400 series of
embedded PowerPC standard products." I'd say, from this perspective, this
looks more like an announcement of a partnership with investment by the new
partner.

The fact that there are underlying required licencses associated with
the Power architecture is an important detail (just ask anybody who has
a Unix source code license), but short of IBM completely divesting
itself of the Power architecture, I don't see how much more of an
outright sale the deal could have been.

"Bleak" is a pretty loaded word.

Power _doesn't_ have to show a profit on its own, and it could continue
indefinitely as the copestone of IBM's high end strategy. IBM has
really gotten smart about open source, and maybe it will be able to
sustain critical mass for Power with it's low-end Linux-only boxes. Or
maybe it won't.

But if it brings in services deals, who cares? I'm not sure what the
current situation is but just a coupla years back there were several *big*
corps who backed off on their "distributed server" initiatives and
recommitted to a "big iron" strategy. There's a certain comfort in having
a centralized computing glass house. Quite honestly I don't know how any
corp manages to run a corporate computing environment based on distributed
Windows 2K/2003 Servers - it's a bleedin' nightmare... plug 'n' play, point
'n click?... yeah RIGHT.

You and Keith, except that I think, given the choice, Keith would
dispense with the odd discontinuity.

How many revolutions are at play here? Automatic computation, c. WWII.
The transistor, 1947. Integrated circuits, 1957. The microprocessor,
c. 1970. The personal computer, (as a real revolution, 1977-1981,
giving the Apple II and the IBM PC a tie). I think we're overdue.

From my POV, Apple was insignificant in the corporate sphere... and it took
a while for even the PC to gain real trust, creative P.O.s
notwithstanding. Miniaturisation is great but other than
that....bah!... convenient but certainly not a quantum jump.

Fortune magazine has a new article on Intel in China and on the
potential competitive threat from a Chinese semiconductor industry
(available on the net, but only with a subscription). The Chinese
apparently already have a home-grown chip that would compete with the
Pentium II.

I believe they've had that chip, or some development on it, for a couple of
years now - not really going anywhere fast. I'm sure they can do it but if
it's an indigeneous only solution, it's of little interest to me... unless
they arrive at something which fits your "revolution" criteria. If they
think they can unilaterally carve out new standards to avoid licensing IP,
e.g. on connectivity, and turn around and impose them on the rest of the
world, they are in for some serious realignments of strategy.

The bigger picture for China over the longer haul? I have the same
skepticism you do: big, unwieldy society with adolescent ambition and
tremendous infrastructure problems.

They're already building suburban executive "residential parks" with themes
based on a few major western up-market "dormitories" - can't remember the
exact ones but they've cadged a design layout which resembles some toney
inner London area... and one from NY IIRC. When the peons get a glimpse of
how the other half lives - watching the Lexus, Cadillacs and BMWs sweep
past as they hack a piece off the lump of coal in the street to keep them
warm for the night - who knows... could bring back the little red books and
a "cultural revolution"... again.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Robert Myers]

In this article the same day:
http://www.reed-electronics.com/electronicnews/article/CA410159?text=ibm+and+power+and+ip
the headline is "IBM Adds AMCC to Power Everywhere Lineup" - same $227M but
a different angle on the same story. It also says "to license IBM
intellectual property and acquire a *portion* of IBM's 400 series of
embedded PowerPC standard products." I'd say, from this perspective, this
looks more like an announcement of a partnership with investment by the new
partner.

The Reed Electronics article does read quite differently. I knew I'd
live to regret getting all my education in trade schools. Can't guess
which is the more accurate rendering.

But if it brings in services deals, who cares? I'm not sure what the
current situation is but just a coupla years back there were several *big*
corps who backed off on their "distributed server" initiatives and
recommitted to a "big iron" strategy. There's a certain comfort in having
a centralized computing glass house. Quite honestly I don't know how any
corp manages to run a corporate computing environment based on distributed
Windows 2K/2003 Servers - it's a bleedin' nightmare... plug 'n' play, point
'n click?... yeah RIGHT.

Check this out:

http://www.platform-solutions.com/docs/S2887rha.final.pdf

From my POV, Apple was insignificant in the corporate sphere... and it took
a while for even the PC to gain real trust, creative P.O.s
notwithstanding. Miniaturisation is great but other than
that....bah!... convenient but certainly not a quantum jump.

This is a bit of history I wouldn't have to count on google to find for
me...if only the details (like who and where) weren't so fuzzy in my
mind. It was, in any case, one of the principals to the story who
reported that "I (He) told him (me) that it [Visi-Calc] would sell if it
would run on the Apple II." The link between the success of the Apple
II and VisiCalc is a commonplace of computer legend, even without my
foggy memory.

_That_ makes a revolution? Well, yes. For a few thousand dollars, you
could buy a machine that, in many cases, would pay for itself quickly
merely by doing the monthly budget projections. It took only one
demonstration to sell just about anybody who had ever had to do a page
of numbers that had to add up as rows and columns. And that _was_ the
basis of the PC revolution. And that _was_ a revolution.

Nobody bitched that I left out the IBM 360.

RM

 

[keith]

Err, unless my eyes are deceiving me, I mentioned that 6805 and 8051
ARE the "really low-end/low-cost" stuff. PIC falls into this category
as well, even if the top-end PIC chips cost $20-$30 in volume.

You didn't mention PIC as a "top selling ISA", but did ARM. ...then went
on to name 8051 and 6805. I'd venture to say there are far more PICs and
8051s (Billions and Billions) served than ARMs.

I'd say that it does, with the possible exception of certain high-end
niche markets. Certainly there are still 64-bit Unix workstations being
sold, but almost all of those are being abandoned. Sun is hurting in
this market badly, SGI is getting out of it altogether and HPaq is doing
the same with their PA-RISC and Alpha lines. I suppose there still are
HP's Itanium workstations, but from what I've seen they aren't exactly
racking up record sales by any stretch. That pretty much leaves IBM's
Power workstations as the last bastion of new, high-end Unix
workstations.

It looks like that's where thigns are headed, but today there are still
boatloads of Unix "workstations" around.

Of course, I guess a lot of this depends on just how you classify
"workstation" vs. "desktop". Depending on that classification the exact
marketshare for any one ISA could vary greatly.

Yes, I guess we're going to have to define "workstation" again (though I
don't think this group has ever agreed on what constitutes a
"workstation").

And don't you forget it!

"Stand in the way", or spell? ;-)

 

[Tony Hill]

You didn't mention PIC as a "top selling ISA", but did ARM. ...then went
on to name 8051 and 6805. I'd venture to say there are far more PICs and
8051s (Billions and Billions) served than ARMs.

I did indeed forget about PIC, but it falls into that same category as
the 8051 and 6805, ie yes billions and billions are sold, but they are
REALLY low-end stuff and don't really play into the same markets at
all.

ARM at least sells in some things like handhelds, set-top boxes and
gaming consoles, putting at least in shooting distance of the high-end
CPUs.

The important distinction here is that you don't really see anyone
selling application software for 8051 or PIC, it's all pretty much
customer, application specific embedded stuff. With ARM, on the other
hand, I can go out and buy MS Word for PocketPC and that sort of
thing.

It looks like that's where thigns are headed, but today there are still
boatloads of Unix "workstations" around.

Sure, they are still around because 64-bit for x86 wasn't an option
until last year. I suspect that a lot of these will get replaced in
relatively short-order (at least as compared to the old Unix servers).

I haven't seen any numbers, but I would be quite surprised if any less
than 75% of all workstation revenue came from x86.

"Stand in the way", or spell? ;-)

Both! :>

 

[George Macdonald]

Check this out:

http://www.platform-solutions.com/docs/S2887rha.final.pdf

Interesting. I don't play in that space so some of the terminology is
kinda cryptic and I'm not sure what the benchmarks at the end are saying.
I'm not sure what it adds to what is already well known about trying to
emulate one architecture with another which wasn't explicitly designed for
the emulation... and emm, EPIC would not seem to suggest itself as an ideal
solution but what do I know? The only real question I have is: who's
going to build it?

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??