Is 'Quadroid' the New 'Wintel'? 150
CWmike writes "'Wintel' is the term that for years defined Windows-based computers running Intel chips. Now a similar expression is emerging for smartphones: 'Quadroid,' a term that refers to the Qualcomm chips used inside smartphones running the Android mobile operating system. The term, recently coined in a report by the PRTM consultancy, could catch on, largely because Qualcomm provides 77% of the chips in phones running Google's Android, which is expected to take the No. 2 slot in 2010. And the Quadroid alliance is expected to grow. Like Wintel has for PCs, Quadroid could push down profit margins for smartphone manufacturers, some analysts say. That might seem like a good thing to consumers, but may not be so good for many phone makers."
In a word: no (Score:3)
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http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Wintel
Seems pretty dry to me. News editorialists love to invent portmanteaus and then pat themselves over the back for a self-perceived job well done, but virtually nobody outside of their little news bubble acknowledges it beyond groaning about its overuse. (staycation)
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I don't understand your complaint.
"Win-tel PC" or "Windows/Intel PC" is a perfectly good replacement to describe machines that were once known as IBM PC Compatibles.
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Mine has an AMD processor and runs Linux.
Is it a WinTel?
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In a word: no.
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So it's not an IBM PC Compatible?
Or commodore64_love is mistaken?
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Let's see - does it run ( only ) x86 / x64 instruction set natively? Did you pay the Microsoft tax? Has there been threats and lawsuits between AMD and Intel or Microsoft and Linux that may have affected you or the hardware you've bought or were thinking of buying?
Your answers to the questions above should help you decide if you're on the Wintel platform or not.
The short answer? YES
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"Win-tel PC" or "Windows/Intel PC" is a perfectly good replacement to describe machines that were once known as IBM PC Compatibles.
I guess some people really don't understand the opposition mindset on this one. (see the all caps post below) We're not offended by new words entering the lingo, we're offended by the media artificially trying to inflate words they "invented" by acting like it's been in the wide vernacular all this time, and for acting like everyone else is some kind of neerdowell for not having picked up on it.
I'm asking the media to stop inventing words to fill their 24/7 reporting gaps. (like staycation) Let the rest of
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I don't understand your complaint.
"Win-tel PC" or "Windows/Intel PC" is a perfectly good replacement to describe machines that were once known as IBM PC Compatibles.
It might have been until AMD chips and Linux came along.
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Right.
There have nearly always been x86 chips from other companies. AMD got in the game because Intel actually pushed for them to create a second source. In those days, Hitachi did second source MC68000s for Motorola, too... there was just more resistance to single sourced major components than there is today.
The reason it's called "Wintel" isn't because Windows and Intel are/were the only options. Its because they came to be driving factor behind the evolution of the PC platform, much as IBM had been in th
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For the people, like me, that built and sold Wintel PC's back in the day, it was "Compaq Compatible" for all but a few months.
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Re:In a word: no (Score:5, Interesting)
Wintel duopoly = lower margins for the companies that "make" the computers = greater incentive to take payments in exchange for bundling shitware and/or attempt to 'differentiate' with vendor shovelware.
With cellphones: Same thing; but the customer is cryptographically prevented from uninstalling the crap unless the model is popular enough to attract a really solid mod scene and an easy-to-use custom firmware...
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There is no cryptographic lock on pre-installed software, it's just that there is no interface for uninstalling it. If you root the phone (as easy as installing an app from the Android Market - yes, Google do allow rooting apps on there) you can remove bundled apps but you do have to be careful because like any custom distro removing random things may break something.
Usually there is no real need to remove bundled apps though. You can install any number of free apps to replace customised home screens and ke
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The main reason for removing awful bundled software is internal flash space. That's a slowly vanishing problem, as phone makers spend the extra buck or two and go beyond the 512MB standard of 2009.
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Well in Froyo you can install apps to an SD card anyway.
I think I came to this discussion too late. The GP is modded 4 "interesting" despite being factually incorrect. Honestly, Google have gone far far further than any other phone OS developer by making Android open and easy to modify. Try searching the Market for "root" to see how many apps are available. The app to root the phone is itself in the Market. Rooted phones still get all the updates and features, they are never locked out by Google.
You can ins
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With cellphones: Same thing; but the customer is cryptographically prevented from uninstalling the crap unless the model is popular enough to attract a really solid mod scene and an easy-to-use custom firmware...
And this is why Android devices are a case of "openwashing:" In theory, they're open, in practice, not so much.
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People may love to bag on RMS and GPL3(and it is indeed quite possible that only the chance to Tivoize and "value add" is what got android onto as many carrier-blessed and subsidized handsets as it is now on); but the threat of having plenty of free software and nothing but x86 whiteboxes and hobbyist hackjobs in protoboxes to run it on is hardly pure paranoia...
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Yeah yeah... carriers can't determine if you rooted it or not, provided you reflash the original firmware
Don't know if this is the case for all of them, but on my Fascinate I certainly didn't need to flash any new firmware onto it to get root. As a matter of fact, all I had to do was run an automated script and it was unlocked. There is a sequence of less than a dozen commands to type to remove root again.
Is it perfect? No, not really. That said, I had my phone doing exactly what I wanted within a day of opening the box. I have root, tethering at no additional cost, all the bloatware is removed, and I've
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Boost resells Sprint, but Cricket is actually on their own network. So is MetroPCS. Both are tiny, even compared to T-Mobile, but they're not "resellers" in the send of Boost, Virgin, Creedo, etc.
And yeah, these guys, at least in part, have already shaken up the market a bit. Until this year or so, the cellular market was all fairly artificial competition. Each company would dangle different carrots in front of you to get your business, but the fees and services were nearly identical.
Then some of the small
Actually Windows/Android situation is very similar (Score:5, Insightful)
In a few more words: we're not going to see what we saw with Wintel because people actually have to go out and select Android. Wintel was what you got when you walked into a store and walked out with a computer; most people didn't even know what an operating system was until it was far too late.
You are skipping the early history of Windows. Many people were very much aware of Windows, just as many are aware of Android. It was Intel that they didn't really know about, much like they don't know about Qualcomm. Windows 3 caught on because of huge marketing efforts and a high public demand to turn people's DOS boxes into something graphical and easier to use. People initially had choices, stick with DOS, move to OS/2 1.x (+ Presentation Manager GUI if interested), or buy a Mac. Well I guess SCO Unix and Microsoft Xenix were options too. :-)
As for your thesis that people just wanted a computer and got Windows without really knowing about, well the same is true for Android. Some people want a smartphone and buy some Motorola, Samsung, LG, etc phone without being aware of Android or Google.
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Windows was shipped with IBM(?), and that caused a markedshare to form. Now.... we also have anticompetive practice from Microsofts DOS against drdos, and etc...
Before all that there was tremendous interest in Windows 3 prior to its launch and a lot of people eager to use it once it became available. At the time people were really interested in using a graphical environment rather than DOS. Also at this time Microsoft was telling developers that Windows was temporary, just something for DOS users to use for now, and that the future would really be OS/2 1.x with the Presentation Manager GUI.
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Also at this time Microsoft was telling developers that Windows was temporary, just something for DOS users to use for now, and that the future would really be OS/2 1.x with the Presentation Manager GUI.
It's sort of true, though. Thank god we didn't get PM, we got basically Motif instead. Not that PM is so far from Motif, but it sought to force users to use more mouse buttons and that was dumb. Windows, meanwhile, is practically identical to Motif (in terms of look and feel to the user) because Microsoft was on the Motif WG. But the reason it's true is that Microsoft and IBM both forked OS/2. IBM stuck with OS/2 and the crufty PM and Microsoft built windows and proceeded to rule the world, or the PC world
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No, we're not going to see what we saw with Wintel because, AFAIK, there are no third-party native apps for Android phones. Microsoft could have ported Windows to a MIPS architecture (for instance), but why would they? Windows developers were/are distributing native code that runs on x86 chips: they'd have to at the very least recompile their application to run on Windows MIPS. Users wouldn't understand the issue, and it would cannibalize the platform.
On the other hand, if Android apps run on a VM, then it
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Microsoft could have ported Windows to a MIPS architecture (for instance), but why would they?
Actually, they did. From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
"Various versions of NT family operating systems have been released for a variety of processor architectures, initially Intel IA-32, MIPS R3000/R4000 and Alpha, with PowerPC, Itanium and AMD64 supported in later releases."
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They actually started out with MIPS (back when the "ARC" platform was being positioned as an alternative to x86), but MS's usual plan with NT was to get someone else to maintain (and pay to maintain) the non-x86 versions of NT. So NEC did most of the MIPS work, Motorola did PowerPC, IBM did Alpha, etc.
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Your facts have gotten in the way of my opinions. I am therefore calling upon my deity, Ithykarogle, to smite you with his mighty vuvuzela. You may say that this deity does not exist, and that a vuvuzela is a flimsy plastic toy, but again, my opinions are stronger than your facts.
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If memory serves me correctly wintel wasn't just a term describing that the two products worked together but that there was a much tighter relationship aimed at stifling the competition in both markets. At first the term was one expressing their relationship but later it was one highlighting the angst of the industry because of the success in keeping all competition out.
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Your average consumer still doesn't know what an OS is.
We still had more than a few years of people building buying and selling Sinclairs, Commodore, Amstrads, Amiga, etc
but it took Wintel to take it main stream.
I think mobiles will go one of 2 ways Android or iOS unless something else comes along to blow them away or the competition catches up.
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People will walk into a phone store and ask for "a smartphone".
There was a time when you walked into a computer store, and saw just Apples, Commodores, and maybe Ataris or Cromemcos or Kaypros. Later on, you saw PCs, Macs, PCs, Amigas, PCs, maybe an Atari ST, and more PCs. Today, you see PCs, unless you're in one of the rare stores with Macs. And the Macs are all over in the "special people" corner of the store.
This isn't the case, yet, with Smartphones. But consider reality: you go into a phone store today
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I got an HTC Vogue with Win Mobile as a "free" upgrade from Verizon.
The writing is on the wall. (Score:5, Funny)
So does that make the Nokia-MeeGo combination a NoGo? I don't like the sound of that!
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Android -> Quadroid => Hemorrhoid.
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Ah but that's about MeeGo on a Nokia being a 'no go' because Maemo is uh...a 'go'... Where as I am talking about MeeGo on a Nokia being a NoGo or was that a no go... uh what was I talking about again?
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Recognition will come in time. I think what he was saying was that it's a good thing that you can remember once you've seen it. It's a likeable character, and characters stick in people's minds. I often wish Tux was drawn a bit more creatively for that purpose. The idea of Tux is a good one - it's just that the classic illustration of him just sitting there on his butt isn't exactly endearing.
That said, at least in the US, I think Verizon is doing a LOT to drive Android's popularity. People are now say
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It's already well known in geek circles. The green robot's made prominent appearances on TV ("Fringe" just this week). There are green robot toys all over the place. I get 375,000 hits for "Android Mascot" on Google... even more than I get googling my name (80,800)... the mascot is a great marketing gimmik.
bad for consumers as well. (Score:4, Interesting)
When the race to the bottom occurs, and everyone's trying to grab marketshare rather than profit, OEMs are going to crap out ever more unreliable, useless hardware. The whole thing's a mess.
This isn't good for consumers. the Android software ecosystem WILL suffer. custom UI skins will be more bloated and useless, apps will become more and more fragmented, and I'm not sure if consumers are going to be willing to put up with it.
Re:bad for consumers as well. (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is this happening?
Samsung, LG, HTC, Moto et al. seem more interested in a race to the top providing the best high end phone. Even in Wintel land, its a race to the top with Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and so forth competing for the best product in each price category. Heuwei and others seem more interested in providing the best low end phone possible.
Sorry but your argument is bad.
Competitive environments don't support races to the bottom, only highly restricted environments support products that are deliberately underpowered, striped of features or just not fit for purpose
No, it isn't good for certain one-size fits all competitors. It's excellent for Android customers. UI's sort themselves out as some thrive, some die and orders establish themselves in the same way that various technologies fought on Windows, all can co-exist but one or two become dominant. I'm not a liberatard but the market really will sort this one out.
Try saying fragmentation a few more times, at least you wont sound like more of a fanboy. The fragmentation myth has been disproved time and time again, I mean tweetdeck had all of two android developers for the hundreds of handsets (in reality they coded for 4 versions of Android, 1.5, 1.6, 2.1 and 2.2). If you don't know how interpreted code works and why android uses this model you shouldn't be participating in this conversation.
In the end it still comes down to "do or not do". Wintel is still on top because it does more then any other OS (Linux rules the servers because it does more then any other *nix). Windows does nothing, well lets not kid ourselves, its a bloated, buggy, unreliable piece of crap but it runs all my work programs, games and anything else I throw at it. This will be the same on mobile OS's, in a years time there will be a lot that Android does that other mobile OS's don't do, already my Moto Milestone w/Android 2.2 is more like a desktop machine in a form factor that is convenient to make phone calls on.
Re:bad for consumers as well. (Score:4, Insightful)
Where is this happening?
Samsung, LG, HTC, Moto et al. seem more interested in a race to the top providing the best high end phone. Even in Wintel land, its a race to the top with Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and so forth competing for the best product in each price category. Heuwei and others seem more interested in providing the best low end phone possible.
The race to the bottom is about the platform itself, not about a few individual manufacturers and their high-end models based on Android. If it turns out in a few years that you have 95 craptastic el-cheapo Android phones on the market for every 5 high-end ones, you guess what most people will be buying. The cheap craptastic ones. It's would be just like Wintel land, where the vast majority of laptops sold are sub-$700, and all of them have crappy build quality, crappy batteries, crappy screens, etc. People buying a laptop just look at the GHzs and the GBs and then choose the least expensive option they can find. That's a race to the bottom for you: flooding the market with so many cheap options that price and volume become the leading factors in the design of your product.
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And this is what is wrong about the argument.
This has not happened in the PC market nor in the current mobile phone market. There has been a slight shift towards high end devices of late. Despite Manufa
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Actually, in 2009 the average US price for non-netbook laptops was $550. On the other hand, what you get for $550 from Dell or HP is about the same as what you get for $1000 from Apple, for all practical purposes. If consumers demand a better screen or more metal and less plastic (though the high carbon plastic they use is pretty good, even if it's not as thin), you'll pay for it.
Most people are looking for a tool, not a fashion statement. Things that lead to a more usable system sell; things that don't win
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Wrong.
This is the, "Shitty build quality and shitty drivers and shitty OS extensions" are bad. Those come from a race to make devices as cheap as possible trying to make up the difference through economies of scale.
That is BAD for consumers. When everyone does it, consumers have no choice.
Choice is good(When the choice was "Windows Mobile" or Symbian, the market for smart phones -sucked-), but, Google hosed their licensing with Android. They should've picked a license that allowed them to both keep the w
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Try saying fragmentation a few more times, at least you wont sound like more of a fanboy. The fragmentation myth has been disproved time and time again, I mean tweetdeck had all of two android developers for the hundreds of handsets (in reality they coded for 4 versions of Android, 1.5, 1.6, 2.1 and 2.2). If you don't know how interpreted code works and why android uses this model you shouldn't be participating in this conversation.
Yes, I know how interpreted code works. Android uses this model because they're selling on multiple CPU and GPU platforms.
Yes, tweetdeck can get their simple twitter app out and be done with it with only two devs.
ON THE OTHER HAND
Rovio's listed some LESS THAN A YEAR OLD PHONES as being incompatible with Angry Birds. ANGRY FUCKING BIRDS. My brother's iPhone 3G can play Angry Birds just fine, and it's over two years old. My well over one year old iPhone 3GS can play Angry Birds just fine. Why does the my
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Here's the thing.... Apple only looks at the top. Blackberry doesn't seem to consider the top worth looking at (eg, their latest offerings seem a little too 2008 for me).
But most real cell companies are used to offering dozens of different models. So yeah, Motorola and HTC and Samsung are pushing for the top.. on a phone or two. But they're also releasing a bunch of mid-range Android phones as well... every month we see something new from Motorola and/or HTC.
The high end phones can sell well, sure. But they
No not really (Score:4, Insightful)
A race to the bottom for margins doesn't mean quality as well. In most competitive industries you find that will it does allow for cheap, crap, items it also allows for reasonable, good, items. Look at desktop PCs. Graphics cards are extremely cutthroat. Prices are wonderful, consumers can get a powerful midrange card that does great on modern games for less than $200, and even approaching $100. However those cards can be perfectly well made. You can find cards with lifetime warranty in that range. You can get cheap, ultra low end cards of course, that are neither very powerful or well built, but you don't have to. Higher send stuff is still made, including some ridiculously high end stuff.
Consumers benefit when manufactures are encouraged to lower profit margins. After all, from a consumer point of view, profit is just money wasted. The best situation for a consumer is that a company earns no profit, all money is going to cover the cost of the good. It is not good when a company can charge a massive margin for no reason. That is just wasted money for a consumer.
Also for the most part with cellphones, relatively low quality is ok since they aren't things people keep. Technology progresses too fast and people want the new gadget. Fine, but that means that building a phone to last 10 years when it will be used for 1 is silly.
Now when phones settle down, when they stop changing at such a breakneck pace, then yes, would be nice to maybe get a phone and keep it for many years. However I don't see that happening any time soon, particularly since phones are partly fashion and thus you need ot be new and trendy all the time in most peoples' minds.
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A race to the bottom for margins doesn't mean quality as well. In most competitive industries you find that will it does allow for cheap, crap, items it also allows for reasonable, good, items.
Often a race to the bottom does involve quality as well though too. It depends on whether the buyer can tell the difference between a quality and non quality product and whether they will pay for the difference. If the consumer can't tell the difference, which is the case in most electronics for most consumers, then the race to the bottom drops the profit margins leaving the sellers looking for more profit. If they can cut corners and reduce their costs without the buyer knowing the difference, they will. T
Highly unlikely (Score:2)
If the Android ecosystem gets involved in a race to the bottom, their customer base will defect en masse to iPhone, RIM, Palm, or whatever Nokia is doing. And the Android manufacturers understand that quite well. So I think a race to the bottom situation is highly unlikely.
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It's happening right now! The latest lineup of Android devices are trending cheaper. Not staying at the same price level. Not to mention, how many stories do I read on gdgt or engadget about the latest stinker Android tablet that's slated to be an "iPad killer" with a 7 inch resistive touch screen display?
No, customers won't defect en masse to another phone platform. You're assuming that consumers are rational. This is very much wrong. Consumers don't care about getting the best for their dollar. So
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SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop it you motherfuckers. Just fucking stop it. Stop with the ass-grabbing buzz-wording over-hyping bastardizing-jargon based marketing bullshit! I'm sick of it and you all need to police yourselves from now on because I simply don't have the resources to slap the shit out of every last one of you like you deserve.
FUCK.
Re:SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!! (Score:5, Funny)
Stop it you motherfuckers. Just fucking stop it. Stop with the ass-grabbing buzz-wording over-hyping bastardizing-jargon based marketing bullshit! I'm sick of it and you all need to police yourselves from now on because I simply don't have the resources to slap the shit out of every last one of you like you deserve.
FUCK.
The best part is, you can substitute this article for any other on Slashdot, and this post still works just as well!
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*Gag* [twitch] (foam)
I feel like I am trapped at a Quality Assurance meeting with an endless powerpoint presentation and no door!
Re:SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!! (Score:5, Funny)
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Props for not ranting as AC!
_heads to the fish market for wet trouts_
Dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this moniker is dumb and pointless. Wintel meant two things - you were buying x86 compatible hardware preinstalled with Windows. There were multiple OS options when the term was coined, and it concisely meant that the machine was not preinstalled with OS/2, just MS-DOS, etc, but Windows specifically. Intel meant that the machine was Intel x86 compatible, which, again, was important at the time when the architecture of the machine mattered because many x86 programs did not even run in Windows.
So for starters, "Qualcomm" is a misnomer, because it is actually an ARM chip, and that is the important part. Android doesn't run on only Qualcomm chipsets, but on ARM compatible devices.
Second, people don't get a choice of OS and / or CPU architecture when they purchase a phone. There is no mixing and matching. Thus referring to the phone by its chipset is totally pointless.
Third, just because it's Qualcomm doesn't give any idea of the actual hardware. Does it have a FPU, GPU? What's the processor speed? We don't gain any important information from knowing that it is a Qualcomm chipset.
Everything that a consumer needs to know can be described in the name of the OS at this time when it comes to Smartphones, which is why "Quadroid" is lame and useless.
Precisely (Score:2)
This is also why you never hear the term "Wintel" anymore unless from an outdated tech journalist, an ARM zealot, or perhaps a strange Mac zealot. It holds no meaning anymore. Almost all PCs are effectively Wintel and ALL are x86 which is why someone will just say "a PC" and it is assumed. To the extent you hear anything it is about the OS and then only in the case the OS is not Windows.
This is just tech journalists being stupid.
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er you've not worked in enterprise IT have you, or maybe its just something us strange Aussies say.
MS server techs are universally referred to as 'wintel' (as distinct from unix, mainframes etc.)
Maybe a regional thing (Score:2)
I do enterprise support for a large research university in the US. We call them "PCs," "Macs," and so on. Never heard Wintel used and we actually DO have Solaris SPARC units at work. More or less when someone says "PC" it is assumed they mean "x86 platform running Windows," unless there is a quantifier like "Linux PC" in which case x86 is still assumed.
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no we don't use it to refer to end user PCs. We use it to refer to the MS server stack and OS, and the guys who work in that environment.
e.g. 'people can't connect to exchange - call the wintel techs'. Seen it everywhere - conversations, ticket system queues and reports, department names (e.g. Servers, Wintel vs Servers, unix), resumes (listing skillsets etc.)
guess maybe its just still prevalent in Oz but not where you are.
Competing systems (Score:2)
Somehow I skipped the most important part of what I was going to say. At that era in computing, everyone and their brother was producing home computers. I can't be bothered to look at an actual time line to make sure these were all contemporary to the term "wintel", but to throw out same names:
Apple Macintosh, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, Timex Sinclair, Tandy TRS-80
None of those machines were compatible with one another in any way, and each of those machines had a unified OS
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I don;t see a difference between your statement that buying Wintel meant x86 compatible HW and saying Quadroid means buying ARM HW. And if Intel had suddenly switched all its CPUs to some other arch, it still would have been Wintel. Because that meant more than the specifics of the HW.
Just becuase you say Intel doesn't give you an idea of the HW either. Is it 1 core or 8? Does it have hyperthreading... how big is the cache? Blah blah.. some e
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Wintel did not always mean IBM PC compatible, BTW. In Japan, the NEC PC-98 was once common. Other examples include SGI Visual Workstation 320/540. These are all now obsolete, of course, and support for these was abandoned in XP.
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I think this moniker is dumb and pointless. Wintel meant two things - you were buying x86 compatible hardware preinstalled with Windows.
Nope! It means that it was virtually impossible to justify buying anything but Windows and Intel due to collusion by those two parties. Well, that was the assertion anyway, I think that's one of those things that was never conclusively proven? Anyway, lots of people built their own Wintel because the competition was anticompetitively being kept down and buying them was difficult and fraught with complexity.
So for starters, "Qualcomm" is a misnomer, because it is actually an ARM chip, and that is the important part. Android doesn't run on only Qualcomm chipsets, but on ARM compatible devices.
So for starters, "Wintel" was a misnomer, because it is actually an x86 chip, and that is the importan
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'DroidArm sounds cooler.
If Qualcomm+Android = Quadroid... (Score:3, Interesting)
The world needs to know. This is important!
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And how about a Windows phone? Qualdows Phone System 7 Mobile Series for Handhelds?
Qualdows Phone System 7 Mobile (Score:2)
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Samsung-built ARM for iPhone... and Samsung Wave! (Score:2)
What's the Samsung-built ARM stuff in an iPhone? Sapple? Samphone?
The world needs to know. This is important!
The ARM processor used by the iPhone 4 (Apple A4)...is the same than the used by the Samsung Wave (Samsung S5PC110A01).
At least according to an annalysis by cnet: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20007162-64.html [cnet.com])
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The ARM processor used by the iPhone 4 (Apple A4)...is the same than the used by the Samsung Wave (Samsung S5PC110A01).
At least according to an annalysis by cnet: ...
No, that would be the same core not the same processor. You can see in the images linked that it's only a very small fraction of the total SoC that's common to both. It's a bit like calling a Xeon the same processor as a Core 2 Duo - it basically is, but that glosses over the gigantic details of everything else in the chip, and they're not
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A4ne.
Right, because the ~25% remaining are irrelevant (Score:5, Interesting)
This is absurd - (A) to not even refer to the main processor in this meaningless marketing term, and then (B) to exclude (or mislabel!) nearly a quarter of the market...
I'm not a conspiracy kind of guy, but seriously - is Qualcomm behind this transparent marketing grab or what???
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I'm not a conspiracy kind of guy, but seriously - is Qualcomm behind this transparent marketing grab or what???
No.
I work for Qualcomm, and we think this is stupid.
(Seriously, PRTM... "Quadroid"? Really?)
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Good to know, I hated to think there was a marketing team anywhere that thought this was a good idea. I don't know who raised this trial balloon but it seems to be punctured pretty well now.
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Good to know, I hated to think there was a marketing team anywhere that thought this was a good idea. I don't know who raised this trial balloon but it seems to be punctured pretty well now.
Yeah...
We [Qualcomm] backed up Android early on because we saw, in the union of Google and Linux, the Next Big Thing to take on what was at the time an extremely Apple-dominated market... But it would be a mistake to think that we threw our whole weight behind it. We threw a little party when the first "Google Phone" from HTC came out and the (relatively small) Qualcomm Android team announced their success, then we got right back to work making chips for everybody else in the world.
Besides, we designed t
And others (Score:2)
Then we got right back to work making chips for everybody else in the world.
Right, like for instance the next iPhone... I was pretty sure that was going to go to a Qualcomm chip to support Verizon (and GSM too).
I've always liked Qualcomm (well as much as you can like a supply of chips), so keep up the good work!
Android in Cars (Score:2)
I know MS has got WinCE in a variety of cars like some BMWs.
If Dodge starts to use Android, and they put it in any of their cars with high performance engines then will they call it "hemiroid?"
Proof you're not a robot (Score:2)
CAPTCHA: Bullshit - crossing a bull terrier with a shitsu
Nonsense (Score:2)
While Windows + Intel is a double vendor lock in (technical mostly from Windows, but emotional also from Intel), Andriod can run on different CPUs and Android-apps can run on different CPUs so there is no such vendor locking. The goal of using Linux as Android basis was to be flexible when it comes to CPUs. And the Dalvik/Java-platform is also a thingy to support different CPUs. So it is something completely different.
Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the sense that it's a retarded portmanteau word then yes, it most certainly is.
they're already as much that as they will ever be (Score:2)
mobile phone manufacturers do essentially this: they buy arm chips, display units and stick them to a board, flash sw and stick the product into a cardboard box for sale.
qualcomm has just been a decent supplier for this period of time, with available supplies.
it would be more preferable to talk about the ARM revolution. but talking about that is so old news you wouldn't get any hits with it.
Qualcomm has nowhere near the monpoly Intel had. (Score:2)
For example the entire GalaxyS line of smartphones does not run on Qualcomm chips, they run on Samsungs. The GalaxyS is on track to be the best selling mobile phone world-wide, ever. This is not even counting the Galaxy Tab. And next year the GalaxyS2 is rumoured to be out.
That is just one example. Anyway the point is Qualcomm is in a good position but they have nowhere near the power Intel had in the day. It is relatively simple to run the Android platform on any processor type.
What are they talking about? (Score:2)
While Qualcomm is major player, it hardly has a market share of Intel: Samsung sells a bunch load of phones and they have their own platform. Motorola Droid/Milestone and its newer versions are all based on TI OMAP platform. Lots of new phones will be released with Nvidia Tegra 2. Several Chinese phones are Marvell Armada (former Intel XScale) based. The platform makers are in stiff competition so their margins can't be too high. And unike Microsoft, Google doesn't charge a lot for its OS (you know, it's f
It might "seem like" a good thing? (Score:2)
The implication, I guess, is that it's not really a good thing for consumers? Umm, why? Turning phones into a commodity forces manufacturers to compete on price and quality, which in turn drives down their profit margins. Yes, it's probably not so good for phone manufacturers, but it's DEFINITELY a good thing for consumers.
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:2)
Windows-based computers running Intel chips
Wouldn't that be "Intel chip-based computers running Windows?"
Nah, more like a muscle (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The third-party software scene, on the other hand, is pretty much a joke on anything that isn't x86 or, gradually, AMD64, so the only exotic survivor is IA64 in a few niche environments.
Now, the fact that Android is designe
Re: (Score:2)
The third-party software scene, on the other hand, is pretty much a joke on anything that isn't x86 or, gradually, AMD64, so the only exotic survivor is IA64 in a few niche environments.
And even that support will be abandoned in the next releases of MS products.
Re: (Score:2)
Android went the same way as NT: it was initially designed with full portability in mind, didn't provide NDK for native code, and was available for two different CPU architectures (ARM and x86, you can still find android 1.6 distribution for eeePC). All programs were supposed to run equally on all platforms.
Google, however, quickly realized that there is no market for anything but ARM, and NDK is a must (especially with no JIT for Dalvik available until Froyo - meaning very bad application performance).
Th
I'm with you (Score:2)
I won't stand for this kind of market-baggery!