Transmeta Mulls Exit From Processor Market 202
chill writes "C-Net is reporting that CPU upstart Transmeta, once the employer of Linus Torvalds and maker of 'Code Morphing' processors, is contemplating leaving the chip manufacturing business. Already their IP licensing revenue exceeds that of their microprocessor sales, though both are dwarfed by their recurring quarterly losses."
This is what happens in today's "free market". (Score:5, Insightful)
McDonald's and Burger King for burgers.
Coke and Pepsi for cola.
Nike and Reebok for sneakers.
Microsoft and
Dell and HP/Compaq for x86 computers.
ATI and nVidia for graphics cards.
And... Intel and AMD for x86 CPUs...
Fun if you can get the funding (Score:3, Insightful)
One key though: your first release would have to be tremendously successful right out of the gate, if not in sales at least in buzz. Transmeta's first releases were, well, who knows. So I guess they weren't successful.
Next move: sell to Intel for $50 million. Sorry investors! At least you gave Linus a place to work for a few years.
sPh
TM always avoided benchmarks (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead, they always had some loser from marketing spout about efficency, blah, blah, efficency. I still have those emails and they are very funny.
While I worked at a major OEM developing blade servers, we evaluated their processors and the performance was very weak. De-clocking existing proven designs was a better alternative.
As is often the case with weak products, non-disclosure agreements precluded benchmark publication and disclosure of evaluation results.
RIP TM.
Power Requirements (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So, basically (Score:3, Insightful)
At least Transmeta is doing this all above board with actual public licensing of their technologies instead of just sinking unsuspecting companies with lawsuits fired by submarine patents years after the technology has settled into use.
Re:This is what happens in today's "free market". (Score:5, Insightful)
No, trying to break into an existing market with a sub par product is financial suicide. Face it, Transmeta dosn't make anything that people want. Their much vaulted code morphing has never been used, so they have a CPU that can emulate x86 poorly. Where is the value? Why should I buy a system that uses this CPU when for the same price I can get another that works better? Via has them beat in terms of price and wattage, Intel and AMD have them beat in terms of price and performance, in the embedded market the PowerPC and ARM series are better in every way. Let me put it this way, if it was Intel who had released the Transmeta CPU would you still think it was worth while?
I almost made it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually they are 3 Mega Corps but the #3 is usually far behind, but still close enough to get good Profit.
Re:recovery strategy (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are only losing money because of the development costs, then you can make it up on volume as you have more sales to amortize the development costs over. If you're still losing money even without your fixed costs, though, you're completely hosed.
Intel Centrino was reason Transmeta failed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why bother with a company with a relatively short track record compared with Intel's long track record?
No, it was a just bad product. (Score:2, Insightful)
More a case of too much hype too little substance.
Re:Power Requirements (Score:3, Insightful)
The embedded market requires processor chips that have integrated peripherals - serial ports, ethernet, digital I/O, along with glue logic so that low speed flash memory and I/O can be easily attached to it. Transmeta went for the laptop market and only paid token attention to the embedded market.
Dispite the lack of peripheral support, I tried to get information from Transmeta about using their parts in embedded applications. I filled out nondisclosures and market survey qualification forms and got nothing in return.
All this is sad, but not new. They had the arrogance of a company that is certain they are doing things The Right Way and no humility to listen to perspective customers.
They might have been a little more humble and responsive if Linus hadn't worked for them.
The "two player" sneaker market?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is what happens in today's "free market". (Score:3, Insightful)
Naw, they'll just snarf up as many of the good engineers as they can, which is what they've been doing all along. Cheaper in the short run, and more valuable in the long run. What would you rather have -- some IP that you may or may not ever use in an actual product, or the minds that came up with that IP and made it work in the first place?
Re:This is what happens in today's "free market". (Score:5, Insightful)
Java processor? (Score:5, Insightful)
Transmeta (Score:5, Insightful)
and a VIA which just said to the people, we are not fast, but they can handle the stuff you want to do with your HTPCs self made routers, firewalls, fileservers (you name it), we are cheap you can buy our stuff from the next vendor on the net and we will support you, and Transmeta was on a losing ground.
On one hand there was ARM which only sold cores and they did need less power, on the other hand there was VIA with the mentality you can buy our stuff even as a private person, and on the Notebook computer segment there were the Heavyweights Intel and AMD crushing Transmeta left and right.
So where did Transmeta stand there, basically nowhere because they refused people (and there were thousands who wanted to buy that stuff at an affordable price) the hardware, by selling only reference designs and not having others selling decent boards to an affordable price. Add to that that in Europa and other markets you basically could not get the stuff and that interested people were complaining in forums about that situation for years and you have a company doomed from day 1.
Now they want to concentrate on the core selling business, I wish them good luck they will need it, between a very good ARM on one side and VIA which still also sells boards to people if they need them on the other side and an Intel with a very good low to medium power solution on the server/notebook corner of things. Also IBM is in the business or at least other companies selling cores on the based PowerPC design.
Guess it is time to say to Transmeta, goodbye it was nice knowing you. (Hopefully not but there is a high chance)
Re:Meanwhile, in Lost Wages... (Score:2, Insightful)
Geeks can't easily test products they can't easily buy.
Note (shriek, actually) to proc makers:
If you invested enough to make the cpu, offer a damned mobo at an accessable price!
Re:Transmeta (Score:3, Insightful)
thats precisely the problem though. transmeta wasnt cheap. they priced themselves out of the hobbyist market and aimed squarely at laptop manufacturers. their developer support was also very poor. via's isnt great but at least you can make most of the stuff work.