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Transmeta Hardware

Transmeta OK'd for Mira Displays 170

Posted by timothy from the definitely-not-dead dept.
viewstyle writes "eweek is reporting that Transmeta's Crusoe chip has been approved by Microsoft for use in the Mira smart displays -- a move that further edges out AMD and Intel from the mobile processor marketplace."
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Transmeta OK'd for Mira Displays More

Transmeta OK'd for Mira Displays

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  • Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Zebra_X ( 13249 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @09:36PM (#5897919)
    Microsoft has been showing less and less interest in being an exclusive "partner" with our good friends at Intel... Maybe MS is taking the Tel out of WinTel.
    • That's too bad because WinRusoe sounds pretty dumb.
    • I certainly hope so. If some of the clientalist linkages between big companies such as M$ and Intel can be broken up hopefully we can get increased competition and thus inovation.

    • Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Hoser McMoose ( 202552 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:54AM (#5899469)
      Good god! Do people STILL believe in this myth of some "Wintel" connection?! Microsoft and Intel have never been more than forced friends, and for the most part they've been more like advisaries!

      The only company that Microsoft can't push around in the PC business is Intel, and the only company that Intel can't push around in the PC business is Microsoft. For this reason alone the two have been trying their damndest to find alternative suppliers. Both companies realize that they are heavily dependant on the other for their own success, but given half a chance to support a third party, they always jump all over it. Intel has been a strong supporter of Linux, while Microsoft has gone out of their way to support AMD and now Transmeta.

      The whole "Wintel" thing exists only because Microsoft and Intel have pretty much been forced to work together, whether they like it or not.
      • For this reason alone the two have been trying their damndest to find alternative suppliers. Both companies realize that they are heavily dependant on the other for their own success, but given half a chance to support a third party, they always jump all over it. Intel has been a strong supporter of Linux, while Microsoft has gone out of their way to support AMD and now Transmeta.

        You have to admit that M$ seems to be married to Intel architecture. When NT 4.0 came out it included support for i386, Alpha,
    • Just like AMD, they're a stick to beat Intel with to get them to come up with a better chip or a better price.

      XBox was going to be AMD based and there has been talk of XBox 2 using AMD. But we all know that Intel will pull a very tempting deal out of the hat.

  • hardly edging them out of the market (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    anyone heard of Centrino? I think the crusoe is definitely a niche market, due to its low power consumption, but the centrino and mobile athlons are much more powerful . . . i hardly think they're being edged out of the market

  • Edges out? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @09:38PM (#5897930)
    Yeah, just the way Linux is "edging out" Windows as a desktop OS, or intelligent comments are "edging out" mindless Linux zealous idiocy on Slashdot.

    Maybe "eeking out a small chunk of a large market and managing to stay afloat."

  • Not exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @09:38PM (#5897931) Homepage Journal
    x86 is only one processor supported by the Mira platform.

    To say that Transmeta is edging out a giant like Intel who has the PXA255 is just wrong. Transmeta doesn't have any edge in this market whereas Intel certainly does.

    • Re:Not exactly. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cookd ( 72933 ) <douglascook@NOSpaM.juno.com> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @02:26AM (#5899163) Journal
      Actually, this is still true.

      Transmeta is now "edging out" (or perhaps more accurately "edging in on") Intel's StrongARM processor, not Intel's x86. Transmeta is putting the x86-compatible Crusoe in places where previously only embedded chips like ARM and MIPs were thriving. (Though the NS Geode has already made some inroads...)

      To boldly go where no x86 has gone before... :P

  • The irony is somewhat chucklesome... (Score:4, Funny)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @09:38PM (#5897934)
    Microsoft's company partnering with Linus Torvalds's company... hee!

  • A bit optimistic? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Spazholio ( 314843 ) <slashdot@l[ ]l.net ['exa' in gap]> on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @09:39PM (#5897940) Homepage
    The Transmeta chip being approved for use in one device hardly qualifies as edging anyone out of the mobile chip market, much less "further" edging them out. Besides, what do we (read as: geeks) have against AMD? I thought we liked them, no?

    • Re:A bit optimistic? (Score:5, Informative)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:06PM (#5898128) Journal
      Besides, what do we (read as: geeks) have against AMD? I thought we liked them, no?

      Obviously you've never used an AMD-based laptop. I have, and I've got the battle-scars to prove it.

      AMD makes decent stuff, but they don't seem to realize that putting out huge quantities of heat is a problem in and of itself... This hasn't made them a favorite when it comes to portables. Besides, it's not like AMD is a giant in the embedded market.
      • Honestly, I'm writing this on a 1.2 Ghz laptop as we speak. And it's not one of those mamby-pamby low heat ones. This bastard burns. But most laptops I've seen nowadays get just as hot. Provided I don't try to rip many CDs at the same time, it stays just below scorching. I don't think the heat problem is limited to Athlons.

        • Re:A bit optimistic? (Score:2, Informative)

          by CTho9305 ( 264265 )
          Check this [hightekpc.com] out... a laptop cooling pad.
        • That's definitely true. Intel Penium 4 M chips max out at almost 35W! Just 5 years ago that was a LOT for a desktop chip! The hottest AthlonXP mobile chips come in a comparatively "cool" 25W, which is still enough to melt some components in the small confines of a laptop. Even Intel's new Pentium M, designed from the ground-up for low-power, consumes up to 25W of power at the top-end (though the slower speed/low voltage chips consume less than 10W).

          Generally speaking, power consumption of laptop chips

        • Provided I don't try to rip many CDs at the same time, it stays just below scorching. I don't think the heat problem is limited to Athlons.

          I'm writing this on an Intel Celeron (P3) 1.2GHz Notebook... It runs for hours upon hours, with all sorts of programs running in the background, and it's just barely warm to the touch... That's with a very small fan that runs very slowly most of the time.

          The only time it gets rather warm is after a couple hours of maxing out the processor. But even then, it's never

      • My coworker has been battling his Compaq laptop over heat issues associated with his AMD CPU for the last two months. After three or four service arrangements, they are giving him a free upgrade. AMD laptop CPUs run so hot, even heat shields and redesigns couldn't save his laptop (and my old one, as a matter of fact, but that's a different story - damn you HP).
        • Compaq just has a habit of making laptops that overheat, and attempting to beat the customer into submission with sluggish support people who make you go through the whole rigamarole every time the box breaks again.

          I had a PIII laptop a few years back that went in for service five times (and cost me about two man-weeks of support phone calls). I finally gave up, and sent certified letters to the president, and VP of the laptop division. A couple of days later (I lived in Houston at the time), the laptop
    • I personally hold something against AMD for pulling up some great juxtaposition with Intel a couple of years back. When the Athlon first came out, they attacked Intel saying that MHz wasn't everything, and that you had to look at the performance of the product.

      It held true for a while, when Intel was stuck with Rambus. Then the P4 moved to DDR and higher-speed FSB, and the Intel was faster, MHz-and-performance wise. AMD responds by using the great power of Marketing, hack cough hack, to brand the XP+ Proce

  • Intel's Not Out Yet (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsmith-mac ( 639075 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @09:40PM (#5897951)
    Don't count out Intel quite yet. The Pentium-M is still one of, if not the best mobile pure x86 processors out there. The rumor that Intel is additionally working on an ultra-ultra low-power version of the chip(600mhz, smaller L2 cache) would further prop themselves up in the Mira market, with their brand name tagging along for the ride. Transmeta has had a lot of problems so far breaking in to the US market, and I don't see them winning that easily so soon, especially with Chipzilla on the lookout.

  • This could really help Transmeta out (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SlashdotMirrorer ( 669639 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @09:41PM (#5897954)

    With the dot-com bust giving Transmeta a hard time, an approval by Microsoft could be just what they need to get back on their feet and out of bankruptcy.

    Maybe this will be a lesson learned for the GNU/Linux community as well, to support the companies that use open source and contribute back to the movement. Everyone's all about freedom, but nobody seems to want to pay the price for it. Apparently Transmeta has seen this and is moving on to greener and more friendly pastures. Good for them I say, and I'm looking forward to the product.

    Think about that the next time you Bittorrrent the latest release of Redhat [redhat.com] instead of purchasing it. What would you do if they decided to switch over to Microsoft? You'd all be screwed then.

    • Everyone's all about freedom, but nobody seems to want to pay the price for it.

      That's quite a blanket statement. Open source advocates pulled Mandrake's ass out of the gutter once when they needed it. Red Hat is doing just fine with their subscriptions... they don't even _need_ the OS revenue IMO.

      Open source is open source. It's meant to be free as in speech AND free as in beer. Those trying to sell it realize that and take the associated risks.

      I've given money on several occasions to open source ca
    • Everyone's all about freedom, but nobody seems to want to pay the price for it.

      Yeah, real nice use there of a catchy soundbite to obscure the reality. Try this instead:

      Everyone's all about free software, but nobody seems to want to pay the price for it. (Well, duhhh ??)

      Not everyone who is in favour of open source buys into your heavy community gig, man. There's no moral obligation on anyone to give cash to anyone just because they're doing something labelled "open source". There are good ways to make

    • Think about that the next time you Bittorrrent the latest release of Redhat instead of purchasing it. What would you do if they decided to switch over to Microsoft? You'd all be screwed then.
      Err. Does not compute. Other people have pointed out (once again!) that one company is not going to make or break Linux. But really, the idea of Red Hat switching to linux makes to little sense as to not even deserve a response. Err, yeah, I'm ignoring you. So there.

  • yes, edged right out ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mattdm ( 1931 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @09:41PM (#5897964) Homepage
    ... edged right out of their tiny 15% and 80% market niches. Tremble, AMD and Intel, tremble.

  • Linus? (Score:4, Funny)

    by UnknownQ ( 84898 ) <samcole@qheadqu a r t e r s .com> on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @09:43PM (#5897974) Homepage
    Does Bill Gates know that Linus Torvalds works for Transmeta?
    • Of course not. The richest man in the world doesn't read new-paper, especially the ones related to his industry, he doesn't check the news on the web, he doesn't read /. (yeah right !), and he just invests in companies without doing any background research.

      How did you think he become that reach, by checking things out ?

    • Re:Linus? (Score:5, Funny)

      by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:11PM (#5898160)
      Does Bill Gates know that Linus Torvalds works for Transmeta?

      Well he does now ya big tool! You know the big G reads ./ regularily, who do you think started the goatse trolls (Ballmer does most of the work but Bill's in it too). Well there goes the approval and AMD can't expect squat from M$.
      Thanks a lot!!
  • I like Transmeta's product, but at this point one has to concede that maybe things haven't gone as well as Transmeta execs and shareholders had expected. The idea of putting Transmeta's low power product into embedded devices certainly has technical merit, but is this a well thought out approach, or a desparation swan song? Personally, I think Transmeta should have gone for the embedded market right off the bat. Or perhaps they did, and I simply don't know. Can anyone clarify?

    • Re:Swan Song? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @12:44AM (#5898826) Journal

      Going for the mobile market is indeed a mistake.

      They went for the blade-server market, which was not a mistake.

      Embedded (under certain circumstances) is not a mistake either, but it's a very competitive market.

      They've ignored the quiet PC market, and that was a huge mistake.

      OK, here comes the clarification. The power savings of TMTA chips don't matter much for mobiles, because the power profile is dominated by the monitor and other devices, not the CPU. The one advantage the chip does offer for mobiles is low heat disipation, but they didn't pitch that. Instead, they marketed enhanced battery life and when that (predictably) didn't materialize, they started to look like Enron execs.

      The power savings matter a great deal for server farms, because when you jam 1000s of CPUs into a room, all those watts add up quickly, and you also reduce the cost of cooling the room. In general, when TMTA's chips are scattered all over the place, the heat dissipation and power savings don't matter that much. When the chips are packed together in small spaces, then it matters, which brings us to...

      ...The quiet PC. The low heat allows TMTA chips to run FANLESS. This wasn't emphasized enough by their marketing or engineering departments, and as a result there are virtually NO PCs being made with TMTA's chips, and there are no inexpensive motherboards using a TMTA chip. That market has been conceded entirely to VIA's mini-itx [mini-itx.com] boards. This is a real shame, because apparently the TMTA chips can (in theory) perform better than VIA's chips and do so without a fan. Also, TMTA squandered its geek appeal by making it very difficult for anybody to experiment with their chips. I haven't seen any SBCs with a TMTA chip in them for under $600. The chip itself is available for $90 in single units, but there is nothing to plug it into. Since Intel chips cost about the same, I don't see any argument for why TMTA can't get somebody to make inexpensive MoBos. That is an oversight that must be corrected.

      If you look at the mini-itx.com site, you'll see that most of the projects are hobbiest kitsche. I imagine that most of the projects at the original Homebrew Computer Club were like that too; but one of them was the first Apple. Unless TMTA gets its /\55 in gear, it will end up like Zilog instead of Motorola.

      It's very, very ironic that Linus works for a company that has failed so miserably to understand the importance of hackers and the "garage" in driving the industry. I haven't heard him say anything about advocating within TMTA to make their hardware more open. Notice, I mean open in the sense that you should be able to buy components separately and tinker with them; I'm not asking TMTA to give up any copyrights or patents.

      For example, in theory, you can emulate any CPU by writing your own code-morphing software. Now, I defy anybody to find the documents that tell you how to do that.

  • It's good to see Transmeta making it's name more common but there are many options out there and (sad to say) Transmeta's name up against Intel and AMD is unlikely to sway consumers away from the two giants. But it's good to see more competition (it's the best part of capitalism).
    • What they need to do is forget about getting their brand name out there. Just get the chips into the devices and let the ODMs worry about their own brand name. Especially for a thin client like Mira, processing power is the least of the problems; any chip will do. Transmeta will never win going head to head with Intel in the consumer market. They've got to make their chips attractive to ODMs and that's through pricing and production capacity. Unfortunately Transmeta fails it on on both accounts.
    • Competition is good, but Intel has a good track record through buying companies / technologies like when they bought the Alpha technology, used about half of it, and parked the other half with big patents on it so that the competition wouldn't be able to use it.

      Hopefully this won't happen with Transmeta because there is enough money behind it (with Allen et al...).

  • What is Mira? (Score:5, Informative)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @09:49PM (#5898021) Homepage Journal
    It seems like this question has been asked several times in this thread.

    Here's the short version:

    Mira (Smart Display) is a small, tablet-like device that becomes a remote terminal to a Windows XP machine. It uses wireless networking to create a Virtual Private Network (VPN) with the XP host. When connected, the Mira device can use all functions of the host PC.

    Here's Microsoft's version:

    http://www.microsoft.com/windows/Embedded/ce.NET/e valuation/news/fromms/mira.asp [microsoft.com]
    • Except stream video, right? I mean, I cant take a Mira (is that like an italian saying Mirror? Hey ma, bring me the mira) and go watch FMV while off the stand?

      Ive seen the omfg thats sooo cool videos but I have to wonder about it. It seems I couldnt have it on my primary PC and I would need a compact PC w/ a Mira display to be worth while. Also, doesn't it use 802.11b + windows remote desktop action to do what it does?

      And arent they available for sale? I coulda sworn when I was masturbating to all th
    • Let's see ... we have

      Winmodems
      Winprinters
      WinLAN cards
      WinWiFi cards

      and now ... Winterminals heheh

      all of it technology ideas and processes not invented by MS but repackaged and "decommoditized" (i.e. stolen).

      Thieve on MS!!

  • whoop-dee-doo. anyone read the article? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by herrd0kt0r ( 585718 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @09:59PM (#5898078)
    the thing reads like a press release, for crying out loud! not only are relatively minor points blown out of proportion in terms of significance (wow, transmeta gets approval. big deal.), but old information and disinformation are used alongside statements that really don't make much sense.

    case in point:
    A smart display requires a PC running Windows XP to operate and monopolizes the PC while it runs. A Tablet PC serves as a stand-alone computer.

    If Transmeta can push the Crusoe into both smart displays and the Tablet PC, the feat will be proof that the market sees the Crusoe both as an embedded and as a general-purpose CPU. Over time, Intel Corp.'s Pentium series and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s K6 processors have been forced out of general-purpose PCs and notebooks and into the engines driving embedded devices. But the Crusoe still powers several Japanese ultralight notebooks.

    a. thanks for dumbing down the definition of "smart display." thanks also for restricting its relevance to the article and parties involved. 8P

    b. if transmeta gets its pizacrap crusoe into smart displays and tablet PCs, it gets its chip into smart displays and tablet PCs. that's all. if it works _well_ in both, and sells _well_, _then_ the market will be saying something.

    c. sorry man, this is really bothering me: pentiums and the k6 line were "forced out" of the general PC segment because NEW, TASTIER and BETTER processors were introduced by their makers. for crying out loud, it's not like they were dumped from the PC market because of transmeta (ABANDON SHIT!).

    d. BUT THE CRUSOE STILL POWERS SEVERAL JAPANENIAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAA! wtf? the statement following the previous one makes it seem like the crusoe is the little mac of the mike tyson's punch out of the processor world. it outlasted everyone else! including intel and amd! it powers JAPANESE NOTEBOOKS!

    that's because transmeta hasn't put out anything else that can best the line it's been offering. yeah, they're small in terms of size n power draw, and yeah, i'd like them to succeed cause you know, they were all ooohh-oooohhh! mysterious before they launched (remember their website?). but anyone with a modicum of literary aptitude should be able to read this article for what it is: big. donkey. dong.
    • b. amen to this. craptacular little chip. a 1ghz crusoe needs hardware assistance to play WMV9 and can't play a DVD over the airwaves via 802.11? I mean, maybe not like, a block away, but in the same house you should be able to manage it. :P

      c. I love that ABANDON SHIT thing. I almost laughed out loud. That book is fucking hilarious.

      anyway you're right the crusoe is a battery saving pimp, I just don't see any advantage using it over the 200MHz strongarm or whatever. I mean you should be able to use that

  • a move that further edges out AMD and Intel from the mobile processor marketplace.

    Uh, you wish.

  • Hold on a minute... (Score:3, Funny)

    by dbarclay10 ( 70443 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:12PM (#5898171)
    Since when does Microsoft "approve" what hardware can and cannot be used with its software?

    Oh, wait ...
    • Anytime a device manufacturer wants to use a Microsoft trademarked logo ("Mira", "Smart Display"), Microsoft gets the right to decide whether the device meets certain requirements.

      "Designed for Microsoft Windows XXXX"
      "Intel Inside"
      "100% Java compatible"
      etc.

      All of those stickers and labels and icons that you have on your computer got there because they passed certain requirements that the trademark owners felt were necessary.

      Anyone could have created Transmeta-based Smart Display workalike but they couldn
    • You can not purchase Windows XP Media Center Edition [microsoft.com] and install it on a custom PC, you have to purchase an MS approved bundle from HP, Dell, or Gateway (perhaps there are more out now).

      .:diatonic:.
  • I find it deeply concerning that a chip maker has to seek permission from an illegal software corporation in order to develop for a piece of hardware.

    I wonder what Transmeta had to do to get it okayed? Perhaps Linus had to sign some document saying he wouldn't write or accept any kernel patches which would allow Linux to support the display.

    • Any company wishing to develop a remote desktop solution for Microsoft is free to do so with any hardware they want to do. They can license Windows CE or whatever OS they want and implement their own version of the Remote Desktop Client. They can't call it Mira though.

      Mira is a lot like PocketPC and is marketed as an "instant wireless screen in a box" to hardware vendors. Microsoft has invested some devs and time into generating a "Mira kit," that a hardware vendor can use and tweak to run on their own

  • Nope, AMD and Intel are still in it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dielectric ( 266217 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:20PM (#5898211)
    Intel has the new XScale, and AMD has their Alchemy processors (MIPS32) for the Mira displays. AMD demoed the Mira running with the Au1500 recently, and ran better/faster than the PXA stuff from Intel. I saw it, it was reasonably cool.

    The sad thing is, they're just re-inventing X-terminals. Mira is just a dumb display, the magic still happens on some big, beefy iron in the background. Everything old becomes new.

  • Dumb display (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jeffrey Baker ( 6191 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:25PM (#5898238)
    I don't get this "smart display" business. It sounds like a display with a CPU, some memory, and a wireless network interface, and a battery. In other words, it is a full-blown computer. Maybe (probably) the operating system is crippleware, but it sounds to me like you could put some proper software on there and use it like a wireless X11 terminal. Bonus: remote X11 users don't "monopolize the PC while they are running".

  • Transmeta earnings show stability, success (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:33PM (#5898289) Journal
    The net revenue for Transmeta in 2002 was $14.1 Million (1.5 Q1, 6.4 Q2, 6.3 Q3).

    So far in 2003, Transmeta has reported a net revenue of $6 million. (these numbers taken from Transmeta press releases [transmeta.com])

    These numbers are paltry compared to the industry giants Intel and AMD (especialy Intel), but they do reflect stability and massive growth since Q1 2002. No, Transmeta is no direct threat to Intel or AMD, but they deserve to be taken seriously nevertheless. The underdog is always forced to innovate, and market hype can swing an extra $2 to $3 million in revenue towards a company like Transmeta. Remember, we all laughed at AMD, too.

    As for all of the negative comments, cmon, what do you expect? This is Slashdot afterall, and the creator of Linux works in a rather prominent role at Transmeta. This is exciting and encouraging to us Linux geeks.

  • Is Slashdot really being hit that hard for bandwidth that you need to shorten your headlines, just to save a few bytes? ;)

    And I think this is great news. I don't really like Intel's stranglehold on the processor market, especially since AMD has processors that are equal if not better in most respects (the P4, with it's huge pipeline, sure takes a hit if it fails the branch prediction) but yet Intel is still considered the only "serious" choice to many people.

    So, any company that has the balls of steel

  • Satan making a deal with an Angel to release a new fancy line of religious based clothing?

    This really isn't nothing new, Microsoft is willing to get into bed with anyone they can make money with, and that gives them Market Share. Intel has wanted control for a while, and the Tablet PC has shown a need for a wider variety of platforms.

    That's why MS has Office for MacOS, and has flirted with releasing similar products for Linux (I think it was Office 97 that had Linux Executables available, though I don't r

  • Overpowered? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mrklin ( 608689 ) <.ken.lin. .at. .gmail.com.> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @12:41AM (#5898814)
    While Transmeta Crusoe is lower powered (both in terms of electrical and processing), isn't it an overkill to use it to run Windows CE when a myriad of lowerer-powered chip (MIPS, StrongARM, etc) will do?

    By the way, the C3 chip produced by VIA Technology will do the same job just as well.

  • It's basicly a extend-o-monitor. It monopolizes your whole XP computer which is stupid. I mean come on guys, these things are like 700-1000$ and they can't license it to share. I have heard of a new Windows "home server" specificly for these. I think that was in the info at the CompUSA stand?

    What's the point though? Without the PC, they're useless! It's not like you can use them as a "super" PDA either--the "specialized" WinCE only connects to a base computer making them useless for anyone like stude

    • Ugh... It "Monoplizes" your computer ON PURPOSE so that some 'tard in the other room can't fork you over. It's like taking YOUR monitor for YOUR computer with you into the next room.

      Having one to control my media PC instead of having to snake a 75' monitor cable and the crappy IR keyboard over to the couch would be great!

      You are right about the price though. They should be around $250 at most.
  • Hey, not to troll, but has anyone actually *used* a transmeta-based computer? To summarize:

    They suck. Hard.

    I love the design goals of the crusoe, and the idea/engineering behind it is great. But after using a transmeta crusoe based laptop as my primary computer for around a year, I have come to the conclusion that they are just not in the same class as AMD and Intel offerings. Response is extremely sluggish, power efficiency (admittedly more of a function of the unit then the processor alone) isn't th

  • Value chains and commodity goods (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Paul Johnson ( 33553 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @07:37AM (#5900097) Homepage
    When you have a value chain, such as the one that goes into a PC (processor, mobo, memory, video card, OS etc) then there is a specific amount of money available per final unit sold. If you are in that chain then you want as much of that money as possible. The more that the rest of the chain takes, the less there is available for you. So you, along with everybody else in that chain, want two things:
    1. You want your component to be a high-priced proprietary item with no alternatives.
    2. You want everybody else's components to be low value commodities so that their prices go down and their profit margins get squeezed.

    In the case of Intel and MS, both Intel and MS want there to be active competition for the other. Hence MS will support competitors to Intel in order to drive down CPU prices, and Intel will support Linux in order to drive down OS prices. Both will support a multiplicity of mobo makers, hard drive makers, video chipset makers and anyone else in order to keep those areas as low-priced commodities. I suspect that the current duopily in the graphics chipset market is causing both of them some concern. If either Nvidia or ATI win the bulk of the market then they will be able to start charging proprietary prices (to some extent they already are at the higher end) and thereby take away money from both Intel and MS. From the POV of ATI and Nvidia of course they want lots of competition for both Intel and MS, which helps to explain why both of them are taking the trouble to support Linux when the Linux share of the desktop graphics market is still under 1%.

    Paul.

  • a move that further edges out AMD and Intel from the mobile processor marketplace

    Ah yes, another good story followed with the usual leading Slashdot-spin tagline. These have become the new Jon Katz.

    Microsoft is not Intel exclusive. Windows CE officially supports PowerPC, Hitachi SH4, and MIPS, in addition to chips from Intel. And they also support some of Intel's non-x86 chips: ARM and StrongARM. These processors have been supported for Windows CE since at least 1997.
  • Ok, so I must have been living under a rock...

    Smart displays? Which monopolize the computer when connected? What are they talking about?!?

    Tablet PCs serving as ordinary computers, yes, I follow that much. (why on earth someone would try marketing a laptop with a twistable display as the next big thing is beyond me, but never mind that for now).

    Can some fellow slashdotter please enlighten me in the mysteries of the smart display?

    What is it? And what was the reporter smoking when he wrote that it would
    • A "Smart Display" It is a remote display ONLY. It is not a complete computer.

      When "connected" to the host machine (Via a wireless protocol), the host machine is not usable as 100% of the human/OS interaction is re-routed to the remote display. (The desktop monitor, if on, will show a sort of blank screen so no one can see what you are doing remotely). Though you could obviously still network to the machine as usual. This is the same way that the windows networked "Remote Desktop" in WIndows XP works today

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