Business, Financial & Legal - Page 313

Someone over at Google might be having one too many at lunch recently. For some reason they have sent a cease and desist order over to Cyanogen.
If you are not familiar with Cyanogen it is a software that allows you to root your Android Phone.

So why would Google do this? My thoughts are that someone jumped the gun on this and in typical corporate lawyer fashion; they do not understand the technology or method so they jump in it as a threat. Why do I think this? Well take a look at the order from Google and you will easily see it.

The order is asking the developer of Cyanogen to stop distributing the closed-source Google apps like Gmail, Maps, and YouTube as these are meant for "Google Experience" devices. All sounds ok so far, that is until you discover that Cyanogen is targeted those same devices and not at non Google Experience products.

The developer of Cyanogen is working to start up talks with Google to see if he can not only talk some sense to them but to actually find out what they are really talking about.

Ah the game of leapfrog is so much fun, your ahead, I'm ahead. It never stops. This game is even more fun for the IT industry. The four major players (well three actually) fight for position in the market place. Each wants to be "first" at something. For example AMD was able to say they have the "First" Native Dual and Quad Core CPUs. Intel can say they were "First" to 32nm. ATi (AMD) can say they were "First" to use Physics on the GPU and the First to leverage the GPU as a processor. NVDIA...First with PhysX and Full scale GPGPU support...

Well you get the picture. So, why do I bring this all up? Simply because Intel is announcing that they will have a 22nm process for 2011. This means that by the time that AMD (Global Foundries) is hitting bulk production of 32nm CPUs, Intel will be cranking out a full node smaller.

They are getting to this size with a reduction in leakage thanks to a new version of their Hi-K Metal Gate (HKGM) material. This reduction in size (and leakage) means more energy and heat efficient CPUs. A reduction in process also means being able to pack more transistors into the same space, which of course means more functionality.

Of course all of this comes as we see Intel gearing up for a Q4 production of the new 32nm Gulftown Hexa-Core CPU. Intel is also showing off its new Sandy Bridge 32nm architecture. All in all it looks like a pretty good future for Intel.

Hmmm, you know that we do not like FUD here. We try our best to qualify rumor from verifiable facts. That having been said we have some interesting news this morning.

It is about the much talked about GT300. You see there is a rumor that nVidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang will be heading out to TSMC very soon to talk about yield, pricing and a few other finer points. Now this all on its own is an interesting item, but when you add in the fact that a few of the OEMs I talk to are also saying they have meetings with Huang about the GT300 coming soon, you have a good likelihood that we may see a GT300 very soon.

How soon? Well that is the tricky part. According to a few of my contacts I am hearing that yields are around 40-50%. These are not substantiated as I do not know anyone that works directly for TSMC. However, the idea of a Visit to TSMC by Huang would usually mean a couple of things. Either the yields are below where they need to be for a launch. Or they are there and it is time to finalize price.

I am leaning toward the later as everything I am hearing puts the launch around the beginning to middle of November with retail availability in mid-December. Again, bear in mind that this is information that I cannot confirm but some of the evidence at hand would seem to back it up.

I think it is time for another award around here. This one goes to Steve Jobs. That is right, the master mind behind Apple. Apple is arguably one of the most successful marketing companies on the face of the planet. They could hype a pair of old shoe laces into something revolutionary and spectacular. They know the market they are playing to and know how to cater to their frenzy.

So when Steve made the comment "Originally, we weren't exactly sure how to market the Touch." many people thought he was joking or simply covering something up. I do not think ANYTHING at Apple is ever even considered without knowing how market it and exactly who it is marketed to. The comment came in response to questions about why a camera was not included with the iPod Touch. Apple chose to shove a low end camera into the iPod Nano instead.

Jobs said in the same comment "What happened was, what customers told us was, they started to see it as a game machine." I am not sure how this is true when the iPhone was not see that way until the 3G S. Granted the touch has all of that now.

Still this week's award for most foolish (and obvious) inconsistent statement goes to Steve Jobs.

Ok on the rumor meter we are keeping track of the ones that come true and the ones that do not.

For this update we have;

No new iPod Touch (delayed launch) - could be due to camera issues reported earlier

New iPod touch is out but not with the camera mentioned. So far it is a small update (using similar hardware to the iPhone 3G S) prices will shift down a little 8GB will be $199 32GB $299 and 64GB will be $399.

iPod Nano - Getting bigger screen and Nike + improvements not larger capacity

iPod Nano is getting a camera and microphone (on the 8GB version) instead of the iPod Touch, and FINALLY FM Raido. Of course the Zune HD will have HD radio so the Nano is going to be behind in that regard. The Nano did indeed get an update to Nike +, and also has a voice over control.

HD video to the iPhone - Rumor is help up by Harmon Kardon listing HD output as an option on one of their dock products.
Nothing on this yet.

iPod Classic - Getting a 160GB flavor
True 160GB will come out at $249.99 spot

As the camera was the "One more thing" I have serious doubts that the iPod Touch will get a camera any time soon. We will have more as things develop.

Hmmm, methinks AMD might have a new marketing strategy. So think on this...AMD cannot compete one on one with Intel. If you put them up clock for clock there is very little chance that an AMD CPU will beat the correspondingly clocked Intel CPU.

So if you are AMD what do you do? Well you start by pricing your products lower than the other guy and say that Dollar for Dollar you have the better product. Now that marketing strategy is great, but really will only last so long. So what else can you do?

To put it simply to take CPUs with Cores and Cache that do not meet full QC. This is not to day they are bad, just that they do not meet full QC. You market these as less expensive products so as to mitigate the normal loss you would have with these "failed" parts.

Now this is a good enough solution as you can sell them for less to the consumer but it is not enough to combat Intel and its dominance. To do that you need an extra...edge. This comes in the form of small BIOS tweaks that magically turn on extra cores and cache that is disabled. Suddenly that X3 you bought is a Quad and that Cacheless Athlon II X4 is a Phenom II X4. Not a bad move at all, but a tad sneaky.

Still when you are dealing with a performance powerhouse like Intel you need all the help you can get. You are still not beating them clock for clock but you are able out price them in a very underhanded way.

The future looks bright for ATi, Microsoft and DX11. Windows 7 is receiving some of the best press that MS has received in the last 5-7 years. This is a great comeback after the technical press and bloggers condemned Windows Vista before it even hit the shelves. Of course this has all changed.

DX11 is taking off much faster than DX10 did and we have even seen some game developers postpone games to recode their engines to take advantage of the new DX. We know of roughly 4 games that should be DX11 and available at the time that Windows 7 Launches.

Two of these titles Grid and DiRT are popular games that should help to bolster sales of Windows 7 for gaming. But on the opposite side we have ATi already showing off DX11 hardware and with highly anticipated titles (like Grid and DiRT). Meanwhile nVidia might show off DX11 capable hardware in September. ATi has already promised DX11 hardware on the shelves for the Windows 7 Launch.

We also see faster driver support from hardware manufacturers. At the same time in Vista's life many hardware companies were still waiting and reluctant to port their existing drivers over. Not so with Windows 7. Many products are already shipping with working and stable drivers for the new OS despite it not actually available for purchase yet.

All of this spells a very good holiday season for these three companies as tech enthusiasts scramble to get DX11 hardware, games and OS as quickly as possible. Unless nVidia can get something out in working form very soon they might lose some of that money this year and have to wait for next.

nVidia is going after AMD and their "Dragon" platform. To do this they are leveraging the new Intel P55 Chipset.

You see they really do not have a complete platform solution like AMD did and now they are rapidly building one.

Referred to as "Power of 3" in the PR Slides that have gotten out into the public eye, nVidia claims that P55 with built in SLI support is perfect for their new SLI + PhysX design.

They start off with a mainstream board that has 1 full x16 PCI-e 2.0 slot and a 2nd x4 electrical slot for an additional PhysX enabled GPU. The next level is the performance level. This has at least two x16 physical slots that can adjust to x8 each with SLI. The board should also have one additional x4 electrical slot for a PhysX enabled card.

The top tier is the Extreme, this will have up to 3 x16 PCI-e Slots with full x16 in each provided by nVidia chips like the BR-03 or NF200. This will allow for 3-way SLI. But the Extreme board will usually also have a fourth x4 slot for,...you guessed it; a PhysX enabled GPU.

Asus has maintained its lead over Apple in RESCUECOM's reliability report for the second quarter running.

Now the report is interesting as it only deals with trouble calls that are placed with RESCUECOM directly. This makes it at the very least inaccurate in terms of true reliability.

Still we can see an interesting localized trend here. Asus has been increasing its market presence beyond of the Ad-in and component segments for the last few years. They are increasingly a one stop shop for many, many products. These products on the whole are well put together and designed for the average consumer. Typically when a manufacture does this there are growing pains involved.

These pains are usually product reliability ad service related. Asus seems to have somehow avoided these and are pushing good quality out of the gate.

Of course Asus has had its share of problems, they have recently had to change the way their support site works (it is now its own separate site) and revamped their customer support as whole to keep up with the massive presence in the market.

Only time will tell of Asus can maintain the apparent high-quality of their products. But if they do I imagine that we might see a few new Apple adds about it.

AMD had some good news this morning. It seems that although they are running far behind Intel in the CPU market and behind nVidia in the desktop GPU market they are the leader in the Discrete Mobile GPU market.

This is an interesting turn of events since nVidia has been shoving its higher end mobile GPUs into everything it can. The reasons for the change are probably less complex than you would think.

The biggest reason is going to be the lingering effect of the defective bump material that is still hurting nVidia. Since the effects of this appeared to be confined to the mobile GPU space it has only impacted consumer confidence in this small area.

AMD for its part was quick to take advantage of the situation and managed to release a few 40nm parts that offer good performance/power/cost ratios. This caused more than a few OEMs to take note and make the switch to AMD products. With a larger number of AMD GPUs and low consumer opinion of nVidia mobile products AMD managed to grab a nice 53% market share. This is a 36.5% increase in market share in the first six months of 2009.

If AMD can turn this new consumer confidence to their advantage (and not sit back and relax) they can possibly gain market share in the desktop market as part of a trickle effect.