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HTC: the most promising ICT brand in Taiwan

October 18, 2010 6:56 pm / 2 Comments on HTC: the most promising ICT brand in Taiwan

Major updates: HTC expects business performance to bottom out in 1Q12 [Feb 7, 2012]

Taiwan-based smartphone vendor HTC expects its business operation in the first quarter of 2012 to bottom out due to a decreased average selling price along with the process of transitioning from old smartphone models to new ones, with consolidated revenues projected to decrease by 31.0-35.9% on quarter to NT$65.0-70.0 billion (US$2.19-2.36 billion) while gross margins and net operating margins are expected to slip to 25% and 7.5% respectively, according to company CFO Winston Yung at an online investor conference on February 6.

HTC expects sales to increase beginning in the second quarter of 2012 along with the launch of several new flagship smartphone models, with gross margins and net operating margins to rise to levels seen in the first three quarters of 2011, Yung indicated.

HTC has been faced with hot competition from Apple and Samsung Electronics in the US market and less competition in the Europe market, but has performed well in the Asia market, especially in China, Yung pointed out.

As smartphones are increasingly popular, HTC will cater to each market segment by launching price competitive models yet with functional differentiation to increase added value to maintain gross margins, Yung pointed out.

While sales performance of LTE (Long Term Evolution) smartphones fell short of expectation in 2011, HTC expects increased adoption of LTE models by mobile telecom carriers in the US, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea in 2012, Yung indicated.

HTC: Financial report (NT$b)
Item	4Q11	Q/Q	2011	Y/Y
Consolidated revenues	101.42	(25.33%)	465.79	67.09%
Gross margin	27.12	down 0.89 percentage point	28.30%	down 1.79 percentage points
Net operating margin	12.71	down 2.15 percentage points	14.77%	down 1.06 percentage points
Net profit	10.94	(41.40%)	61.98	56.77%
Net earnings per share (NT$)	13.06		73.32

Source: Company, compiled by Digitimes, February 2012

– Mid-market Android Meltdown – HTC Warns Big Again [Forbes, Feb 6, 2012]

HTC has issued another massive revenue warning.The company is now guiding 1Q12 revenues to T$65-70 Billion, way below the T$89 Billion consensus expectation. January revenue crashed by 52% YoY. You read that right – in the overall smartphone market where at least volume growth probably was close to 50% in January, HTC sales halved year on year. Operating margins are now heading below 8% in 1Q12. What seemed like a triumphant success story just last autumn is rapidly turning into a bitter rout that has some intriguing parallels with Motorola in 2007.

This follows two major warnings from 4Q11 – warnings that should have lowered analyst expectations to realistic levels for 1Q12. Instead, many leading firms like Sanford Bernstein have continued insisting that HTC will do just fine. The size of the latest sales guidance cut clearly indicates that HTC is suffering from a post-Christmas inventory hangover that is far more serious than Wall Street expected.

…

We see once more how dangerous the impulse to protect strong operating margins can be. It demolished Ericsson‘s once so proud handset division in mid-Nineties, it killed Nokia’s innovation in mid-Noughties, it hamstrung Motorola around 2006.

In 2011, HTC refused to dive deep into low-end smartphone market in order to protect its mid-teen operating margins. It opted to compete head-to-head against iPhone at the high-end.

As a result, HTC now risks losing the handset success it spent half a decade building. Welcome to the club.

The market capitalization showing the real value of HTC, however, is just right on the spot:

US$14.8 billion as of Feb 7, 2012 vs. the US$8.01 on March 1, 2010 when according to the Forbes 2000 list below HTC forged ahead of Acer and Asustek, and thus becoming the source of this original post as “the most promising ICT brand in Taiwan”.
That promise had already been well fullfilled with Acer just at US$3.88 billion (vs. US$7.6 billion in Marc 1, 2010) market capitalization, and Asustek at US$6.2 billion (vs. US$7.57 billion in Marc 1, 2010).
The changes in market capitalization are well reflected by the historical values of the HTC stock over the last 5 years:

End of major updates

The news 4 days ago were HTC Becomes Most Profitable Listed Company in Taiwan [Oct 14, 2010]:

Thanks to increasing popularity of smartphones worldwide, the Taiwan-based High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC), a globally leading vendor of smartphones its under own brand, reported an EPS (earnings per share) of NT$30.29 for the first nine months of this year, unseating MediaTek Inc., a world-caliber handset IC designer, as the most profitable listed company on the island in the period. Launching a couple of hot-selling smartphones, such as Desire, Wildfire, Legend and Incredible, to boost its market shares worldwide, HTC has enjoyed explosive sales growth and remained one of the most successful brands in Taiwan.

…. The firm raked in NT$27.058 billion [US$0.88B] in combined revenue for September, sharply up 129.65% from a year earlier to hit an all-time high. This pushed up its combined revenue and net profits for the third quarter of the year to NT$75.849 billion [US$2.47B] and NT$11.098 billion [US$0.36B], or NT$13.61 per share, respectively. Meanwhile, HTC`s aggregate combined revenue and net profits for the first nine months of the year reached NT$174.756 billion [US$5.7B] and NT$24.735 billion [US$0.81B] …

Update: HTC faces challenge for 2011 shipment goal [July 5, 2011] (emphasis is mine)

HTC has set an internal goal of shipping 54 million smartphones in 2011 but the goal is expected to be difficult to attain because the company will be faced with strong competition from Apple’s new generation of iPhone and Nokia’s Windows Phone 7-based new smartphones in the fourth quarter, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

Based on the ASP of US$359 recorded in the first quarter of 2011, HTC’s second-quarter shipments of smartphones will top 11.5 million units, an increase of 18.6% from 9.7 million units shipped in the first quarter, and better than the company’s projection of 11 million units, the sources indicated.

With demand for HTC’s Android-based smartphones still growing steadily and HTC set to begin selling its naked-eye 3D model, the HTC EVO 3D, in Europe in July, the company is expected to garner revenues of NT$135-140 billion (US$4.7-4.88 billion) in the third quarter with its smartphone shipments reaching 12.5-13 million units, estimated the sources.

HTC is also expected to roll out new models for the year-end holiday season and to fulfill its annual shipment target, said the sources, noting that HTC will be able, at least, to ship 50 million smartphones in 2011, double from the amount shipped in 2010.

Update: Cher Wang and Wenchi Chen (her spouse) are now Taiwan’s wealthiest people worth US$ 6.8B [Forbes, March, 2011]
Update: HTC announces December revenues of NT$33 billion [Jan 6, 2011]

Smartphone vendor HTC has announced that unaudited consolidated revenues for December 2010 totaled NT$33.087 billion (US$1.131 billion). Total consolidated revenues of fiscal 2010 came to NT$278.761 billion [US$9.529 billion], up 92.92 % on year. Consolidated operating income was NT$44.185 billion, consolidated net income was NT$44.696 billion before tax and NT$39.330 billion or NT$48.24 a share after tax based on 815,239,000 weighted average number of shares.

Update: HTC aims to roll out 60 million handsets in 2011 [Dec 10], we may add that this is an almost 100% increase in their market share, from 7.1% in 2010 to 13.6% in 2011, as per the earlier Digitimes Research published forecasts of the device manufacturers

HTC has reportedly informed its suppliers that it will eventually need parts and components for the production of up to 60 million handsets in 2011 compared to shipments of 20 million units projected for 2010, according to industry sources.

Update:HTC Aims to Double Smartphone Sales in 2011 [Dec 8]

… to 50 million units in 2011 from an estimate of 25 million units for 2010, according to institutional investors.

… Worth mentioning is that HTC is likely to announce its foray into the tablet PC segment soon, and will launch its first model in 2011 as its ace in the hole to drive business operations. So far, the firm has kept completely silent on the product launch plan though.

Update: HTC November revenues hit record for second time straight [Dec 6]

HTC has reported consolidated revenues of NT$38.484 billion (US$1.258 billion) for November 2010, hitting a monthly record for the second consecutive time. HTC’s November consolidated revenues were 4-10% higher than the originally expected NT$35-37 billion, according to investors. HTC is expected to generate consolidated revenues of NT$33-35 billion in December, resulting in fourth-quarter figures of NT$105 billion [US$ 3.49B] which is higher than HTC’s forecast NT$100 billion, the sources pointed out.

HTC’s shipments of Android and Windows Phone 7 smartphones have been short of demand and its booming shipments will continue and reach 8.5 million units in the first quarter of 2011, the sources indicated.

Update: HTC acquires office space in Taipei from VIA Technologies [Nov 23]

… The office space is to accommodate HTC’s expanded R&D staff during the construction of its headquarters building 230 meters away from the purchased property, HTC pointed out. The building, with 17 stories and five basement levels, will have a total floor area of 85,620 square meters to accommodate 2,200 employees, with completion scheduled for the end of 2011, HTC indicated. 11 floors of the new building will be used to house R&D capacity, HTC noted.

In related news, HTC is expanding its production capacity at a factory in northern Taiwan, and another in Shanghai, eastern China, with combined monthly capacity to be increased to four million smartphones at the end of 2010, HTC noted. [This will be ~48% of total Taiwan handset output capacity. See the report below.]

Taiwan handsets – 3Q 2010 [Nov 19]:

Taiwan’s handset shipments hit a record in the third quarter of 2010. First-tier handset vendors Nokia, LG Electronics (LGE), Sony Ericsson and Motorola all expanded JDM or ODM orders to Taiwan, and Taiwan’s own-brand smartphone vendor High Tech Computer (HTC) also saw shipments increase, spurring Taiwan’s total handset shipments to top 21 million units.

In April this year HTC was positioned among the Global 2000 ICT companies from Taiwan as follows (source: Forbes Global 2000 Country List [Apr 21]):

The market value has dramatically changed since then for most of those companies (sources: Forbes Global 2000 Country List [Apr 21] and Reuters Stocks [from which market values were taken on Oct 15]:

The red line above corresponds to the ~10% average increase for those ICT stocks, so here we can also see the above the average new increased (or below the average new decreased) value of the companies by looking at the columns themselves (while the data label numbers show the percentage value as of Oct 15 vs. March 1).

It is also worth to look at the exact numbers (by clicking on the link here you will get a PDF which provides all the source data links as seen on the image by the usual hyperlink presentations, so you could have full background, including company overviews):

One could see here that HTC became the #3 most valuable ICT company from Taiwan jumping from the #5 place to the current #3 in just 7.5 months. Meanwhile such well established Taiwanese brands as Acer and Asustek are much behind of HTC. Also all of the PC/notebook ODMs (Original Design Manufacturers), Quanta, Compal, Wistron and Inventec are much behind HTC now. Only Hon Hai Precision Industries, well known outside Taiwan as Foxconn Technologies, is significantly bigger in market value, but Foxconn Technologies is a huge contract manufacturer owning 50+% of the worldwide Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) market. And certainly Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is even more valuable, not surprisingly, because TSMC is the #1 chip foundry in the world.

Ranking (2008 ranking)	Brand	Brand value (US$100 M.)
1 (3)	Acer	12.41
2 (1)	Trend Micro	12.35
3 (2)	ASUS	12.26
4 (4)	HTC	12.03
Source: Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA)

Here is an Oct 23, 2009 ranking from Global Recession Reshuffles List of Top-20 Taiwanese Brands 2009 rankings show China`s rising [Oct 23, 2009]:

The reason? Here are two press releases from iSuppli which might somewhat explain (I will devote a whole post later to this question):

Android Drives Success in Q2 Smart Phone Market by [Oct 14] – Makers of Android-based handsets outperform the market (emphasis is mine):

Droid phone specialist HTC Corp. achieved industry-leading growth, with its smart phone shipments rising by a stunning 63.1 percent in the second quarter compared to the first.

… HTC’s Android success can be traced to wireless operators that want to showcase the capabilities of their upgraded networks by offering handsets with sophisticated features to subscribers. For example, U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Nextel Corp. is offering HTC’s EVO 4G, a feature-packed Android handset that can capitalize on the high speed of its WiMAX-based 4G network. To keep its momentum going, HTC is expected to offer an Android phone that supports Long Term Evolution (LTE)—the other major standard for 4G.

HTC’s share of global smart phone shipments in the second quarter rose to 8 percent, up from 5.3 percent in the first quarter, allowing the company to solidify its No. 4 position in the market.

HTC Intensifies Android Push, Starts Cloud Service [Sept 14]:

HTC shipped 5.4m smartphones in Q2 2010, an 80 per cent increase year-on-year. HTC owes this strong performance in no small part to its Android-based devices which were greeted with both critical and commercial success.

Initially a white label manufacturer catering to operators, HTC changed course two years ago and invested heavily in building its own brand identity, mostly on the high-to-mid end of the market. This led to the launch of Sense, which is aimed at maintaining a differentiator in a market increasingly crowded by Android devices. Screen Digest believes this strategy should prove successful in helping HTC reach 20m handsets shipped in 2010.

The move towards online services might seem surprising at first given the existing syncing options offered by Google as part of Android, but can be interpreted as a way for HTC to build further loyalty through additional complementary services.

Global Recession Reshuffles List of Top-20 Taiwanese Brands
2009 rankings show China`s rising

Microsoft (Ray Ozzie, Steve Ballmer) on the cloud clients

October 9, 2010 5:30 pm / 7 Comments on Microsoft (Ray Ozzie, Steve Ballmer) on the cloud clients

There have been great expectations about what Microsoft will be offering against the incredibly successful Apple iPads. Microsoft ‘s CEO Steve Ballmer was also raising the expectations this summer and only this week has this been calmed down by him telling that:

… what you’ll see over the course of the next year is us doing more and more work with our hardware partners creating hardware-software optimisations with Windows 7 and with Windows 7 Media Center …

… Media Center is big and, when people say ‘hey, we could optimise [that] more for clients’ I think what they generally mean is ‘Big Buttons’. Big Buttons that’s, I think, a codeword for Big Buttons and Media Center is Big Buttons not Little Buttons. I’m not trying to trivialise that – it’s a real issue.

We’re not going to do a revamp of Windows 7 over the course of the next year for that purpose. Whether we should, or we shouldn’t, we’ve put all our energy around doing a great job on that and other issues in the next version of Windows …

See that and more on my earlier blog post which was regularly updated in recent months:
– Windows slates in the coming months? Not much seen yet [July 13 – Oct 6, 2010]

One should keep also in mind that Intel will be ready with sufficiently low-power x86 processors just in Q1 2010 as shown in my another post Intel SoC for Cloud Clients [June 27, 2010].

The major thing, however, is that Microsoft is pursuing a much different and broader strategy than Apple. This is the so called “three screens and a cloud” approach which has been extensively articulated by Microsoft a year ago. Nevertheless, in extensive web discussions about Windows slates vs. Apple iPad issue this clear and quite rational strategy has not beeen mentioned at all. Even such highly appreciated analyst firm as Gartner has not taken the implications of that strategy into account (at least not to a sufficient degree) as evidenced by Gartner: Global Tablet PC Sales to Top 100 M. Units in 2014 [Oct 5, 2010]. See also other recent reports such as:
– iPad leads the tablet PC charge as mini-note shipments plummet, says DisplaySearch [Oct 4, 2010]
– iPad-Killers Take Aim at the Tablet PC Market [Oct 4, 2010]

Therefore, in the post below I will first give a retrospective on the “three screens and a cloud” strategy (Part I.), and then give an overview of the company’s current standing on that strategy from the point of view of the cloud clients (Part II.)

I will also recommend to read additional posts of mine because they are quite closely related:
– Microsoft strengths for the PC -> cloud transition [June 27, 2010]
– Microsoft going multiplatform? [Sept 17, 2010]
– Microsoft to lead standards compliance and implementation? … or how Microsoft is aiming to create a radically new Windows client platform via a set of “whole computer capable rich web” standards. [Sept 20, 2010]
– WHAT? … Windows Live Spaces SaaS moving to WordPress.com SaaS? … It is part of a NEW strategy with Windows Live Essentials 2011 released now! [Oct 2, 2010]

Part I. Retrospective on Microsoft’s “three screens and a cloud” strategy

Ray Ozzie [& Bob Muglia] Day 1 Keynote: Professional Developers Conference 2009, Los Angeles, Calif. [Nov 17, 2009], see also the video recording in the time interval indicated by me with square bracketed numbers in the below text:

… [4:33] whether you’re developing for servers or services or PCs, phones or browsers, all of this diversity means that it’s a very complex software environment out there. Many platforms mean many choices. And whether users or enterprise IT, we all want everything just to work together very, very simply, interoperating as one.

And so across PCs, phones, TV, Web, and cloud, across our many products and platforms, across products serving both consumers and business, we at Microsoft have but one simple strategy, and that is to focus on leverage and seamlessness in everything that we do.

We aspire to deliver compelling, seamless, multi-screen experiences for users, and to enable skills leverage and investment leverage for developers and IT.

Of course, this is the very same vision that I laid out at last year’s PDC right here on this stage, and it’s a strategy embodied in a very simple picture we’d like you to keep in the back of your minds, and that is of [5:45] three screens and a cloud, three primary classes of screens, surrounding the Web as the hub of most everything we do.

Note: Those watching the video will notice that Ozzie was actually using a different picture, and before that a corresponding to that “N Screens and a Cloud”. I’ve put a different one here which I think is more expressive, and also putting the TV and XBox experience to the same screen which will be the case with Kinect delivered, as you could see from Steve Ballmer’s latest speech transcripts excerpted below.

With this picture you can visualize our fundamental belief in a world of Web-centric experiences that are also extended richly through apps on your desktop, through apps on the phone in your pocket, and delivered on the inherently shared big screen on your wall; experiences delivered from clouds in private datacenters or from the worldwide public cloud. [6:19]

More information on the “three screens and a cloud” strategy:
– Microsoft Cloud Services Vision Becomes Reality With Launch of Windows Azure Platform, Microsoft Press Release [Nov 17, 2009]

In his keynote address, Ozzie described the company’s “three screens and a cloud” vision, where software experiences are seamlessly delivered across PCs, phones and TVs, all connected by cloud-based services. Underscoring the IT industry’s shift toward a hybrid approach of online services combined with on-premises software, Ozzie described the programming model for a powerful new generation of applications for both businesses and consumers, enabled by new Microsoft development tools and technologies. He also demonstrated customer and partner commitment to Microsoft’s development platform with Seesmic, WordPress and Cheezburger Network.

– Read this Interview of Ray Ozzie, on Cloud Computing [Dec 22, 2009]
– Exclusive Interview With Steve Ballmer: Products, Competition, The Road Ahead [Sept 24, 2009]
– Steve Ballmer: Vision Forum Keynote [Nov 4, 2009]

Part II. Microsoft’s current standing on the cloud clients strategy

Steve Ballmer European Tour 2010 [Oct 4-8, 2010]: Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, was visiting Sweden, UK, Germany, France and Spain as part of his European tour to drive cloud computing adoption and discuss Microsoft’s innovation in the technology. He was also discussing Microsoft’s consumer strategy, highlighting the upcoming launch of Kinect for Xbox 360 and other products.

Microsoft has provided transcripts and Q&As for the major events on that tour. From this the following excerpts are providing a quite excellent overview of the company strategy regarding the cloud clients (emphasis used there is mine, if one goes through only that then one could have already enough information to grasp the essence of their current standing with the strategy):

Sweden Cloud Keynote, Cloud Day Summit, Stockholm, Sweden [Oct 4, 2010]

… when we talk about new client hardware and software, we’re not talking about clients turning away from the Internet and from standards, we’re talking about new ways in which clients — phones, PCs, and TVs — can embrace the cloud, but bring the benefit of intelligence on the device and the advantages of intelligence in the cloud together, and that’s really what we’ve done with Internet Explorer 9.

… it’s about integrating the smart client with standards from the cloud. … how to use the full advantage of PC hardware to make things go fast, and it treats applications on the device and websites both as first class citizens that can be mixed and matched and run concurrently, and we think that is an important part of the way we embrace this boundary between the cloud wants smarter devices, the cloud wants devices like Windows to know about it, to love it, and to treat cloud applications and client applications similarly and both as first class citizens. And I think by building an Internet Explorer 9 experience that loves the cloud and loves the Windows PC you start to see the direction in which we’re taking that.

Seizing the Opportunity of the Cloud: the Next Wave of Business Growth, LSE in London, UK [Oct 5, 2010]

The Cloud wants smarter devices. This is – it was semi-controversial; I think it is now 100% obvious. When we first started talking about the Cloud there was a view that said ‘yes, OK the devices that we use will all get dumb and all of the intelligence will move back out into the Cloud’. And what we have found is quite the contrary. People want smarter devices but smarter devices that can connect with the Cloud in intelligent ways. We just launched a new version of Internet Explorer 9 that really integrates with Windows. Why is it important? Because it’s about both supporting Cloud standards, HTML5 etc, but by doing a better job against those, by taking advantage of the hardware and hardware acceleration capabilities that are built into the PC.

As we buy smartphones people are writing little front-end applications that can talk intelligently to Cloud services. We are on the verge of launching a new such phone. But perhaps the device that I’m most keen on that will launch this Christmas season, which shows a different kind of relationship between the device and the Internet, is the next generation of our Xbox product, which allows you, with your body and your voice, to control everything that is going on on your TV screen. We say you are your control. And yet all of the important content, and information and interaction with friends is all happening out through the Cloud. So you want a smart device processing ‘me’, talking to a smart Cloud on the back end.

[Kinect video plays]

You will again see more when we actually ship next month, but it gives you a sense of why the Cloud might want smarter devices. You want the ability to do things locally; you want the ability to use natural user interface and process language and voice and action locally. And yet you do want to be able to participate in games and track meets and dance competitions with friends, potentially, around the globe. So we need to think about using the intelligent TV, the intelligent PC and the intelligent phone to participate in this new kind of application that people are really going to want to write.

… [in response to a question about what makes Microsoft’s Cloud computing offering distinctive] On the consumer side of the Cloud, I think we have some strengths and we definitely have some opportunities to improve our market share. Certainly with Windows, with IE, with Hotmail and Messenger, we have some strong positions. And I’ll say on the phone and all of the cloud infrastructure that backs it up, I’ll be pleased to announce our next generation of phone here in another week or two. And obviously the Kinect stuff. I’d say the whole sort of Cloud TV connectivity thing is really early. But if you take a look at what you can do with an Xbox this holiday, I think it’s quite a bit ahead of anything that at least our traditional competitors have.

… [in response to a question about making money out of the cloud while Microsoft has lost a pile of money in the past few years on that]
We had a round in the early 2000s where people were telling us we were wrong to do Xbox. I don’t feel wrong to be doing Xbox with the kind of profit that it’s making and the innovation that we’ve got. I don’t feel wrong about it at all. Does that mean that there aren’t things that I wish we’d done differently along the road and we’d be even more successful and even more profitable? Of course I do. That would be the case almost no matter what.

… [in response to a question about his take on the future of our tablet computing in relation to the Cloud, the growth of Google’s Android operating system and Apple iOS devices hindering the growth of Windows in that region] … the thing for at least most of us in the developed world is: we are going to want to have and be able to afford to have technology in our pocket, on our big screen, and our mediumsize screen. Big screens are great for social activities with multiple people. You saw that a little bit in the Kinect demo. There’s nothing quite like having a bit of intelligence in your pocket. And, you know, on the pocket side, we got out to kind of an early jump. We’ve had competition come back in ways I’m not excited about. Now we’ve got to come back against competition. And I think, with our new Windows phones, we really have a beautiful product.

… The bigger screen form factor slate/tablet, very different discussion. We, as a company, will need to cover all form factors, and certainly we have done work around the tablet as both a productivity device and a consumption device. …

And so exactly where the form factors are and how they evolve – and you’ll see, you know, slates with Windows on them. You’ll see them this Christmas. You’ll see them continue to change and evolve. But if you really want most of the benefits of what a PC has to offer – the ability to create and consume, take documents of all types – a form factor that actually has been tuned for a lot of things over a number of years, we certainly have a superior device, and you’ll see us continue to expand the footprint that Windows does a good job of targeting over time.

But the job one thing, right now, is: we’ve got to get back seriously into the game of phones.

The Future of Cloud Services, BITKOM Conference ( of the German association of IT, Telecommunications and Consumer Electronics Enterprises), Cologne, Germany [Oct 6, 2010]

… the cloud wants smarter devices. When the word “cloud” first popped up two or three years ago, I think the view was with the cloud everything goes and becomes recentralized, and we use very dumb devices at the end of the day, and all the intelligence is in the cloud.

All the data since then is, no, we actually want smart devices, but we want smarter devices that think more intelligently about how to use the cloud.

Our new version of Internet Explorer we support HTML5 and the standards, but we’ve also taken advantage of the power of the PC to speed those things up and run them faster than you could in any other way.

… We’re going to launch a new version of the Xbox here in the next month called Kinect where literally you can control the TV set with your voice and your body motions. Well, that takes some intelligence, but you still want it designed so you can play games and connect with people intelligently across the cloud.

So, it will be a world of a next generation of smart device, a next generation of datacenter, a next generation of software that supports those, and a next generation of applications built on the corpus of information of the Web and the corpus of information of the social graph.

Kinect Press Event, Paris, France [Oct 7, 2010]

… back 10 years ago when we started down the Xbox path, we started and said, look, we’ve got to be very good at videogames, and videogames is a very important, big market. Over that time, we’ve sold over 42 million Xboxes around the world. … with the launch of Kinect and with the broadening out of experiences on the Xbox, based upon the kind of partnership that we’re talking about today with Canal Plus, I think you’ll see a real broadening out of the demographic, and we’ll really think about the Xbox as a family entertainment, TV entertainment center as we go forward.

Kinect will launch in November. You’ll be able to buy it in stores here in France in early November, November 10th. We have had a chance to show it in a few places. … so far the visceral response from people is really quite amazing to have such a powerful sensor technology, recognizing your voice and taking action, recognizing your body, and as we say, letting you be, if you will, the controller.

… As we think about the future of user interface to all devices, the notion of having the machines understand you, your actions, your behavior, your gestures, your writing, your voice, those natural interface techniques, they’re going to be very important across the gamut, from the family entertainment and TV, all the way through to important industrial applications.

… we have 25 million subscribers on Xbox LIVE out of a total of 43 million users. If we can dial up the number of users and the percentage of subscribers and the number of people who buy a sensor, I’m pretty — I’m enthusiastic

… One of the nice things is because we have a live service, we can tune the ability of the system to respond to voice and gestures. We’re getting smarter all the time. Kind of one of the magic of let’s call it the cloud approach, we don’t have to build one technology that recognizes voice the same way for the next — for the next few years; we get smarter the more voices we hear, again with appropriate privacy and all of that ensured.

… [in response to a question about whether they intend to use the Kinect with Windows] Do we plan on using — certainly these technologies will be used in all — at some point in different ways with all three screens. Initially we’ll launch the Kinect with the Xbox. But we do have certainly people in our labs who are experimenting with what I would call appropriate applications for various environments?

This sensor, as you will know when you get your hands on one, it actually works very well if you’re about three feet away to about 10 or 15 feet away — one meter to about four or five meters. And if you get too close it encourages you to get a little further back, and if you get too far away — and, of course, the technology will continue to improve, but if you think about at least many PC environments where you’re sitting less than two feet away, this particular technology would need to continue to evolve.

Now, there are plenty of places where the PC might be doing work on your behalf but you’re not sitting next to the PC, and we have a lot of work we’re doing to pioneer some of those applications.

… [in response to a question about what Steve Ballmer sees as job No. 1 among all things Microsoft is doing]

For Microsoft — the family entertainment scenario.

Microsoft is a company that — you know, in a sense I would say we have six different things we’re trying to get done as a company. It’s not the 52 that some people think, and it’s not the three that some of our — or one or two that some of our competitors are after. We’re trying to do great software and experiences for phone, for PC, and for TV, which is really what the Xbox is. It’s broader than just gaming. We’re certainly engaged in search with our Bing search engine; that’s very important to us. We provide tools at work and at home for people to be productive, Office and the like. And then we build platforms that are really enterprise specific and software developer specific for people to build applications and deploy them whether it’s in the cloud or the enterprise datacenter. So, that’s six, it isn’t 10, but it’s not two or three.

Microsoft Days – France [Oct 7, 2010]

The cloud wants smarter devices. A few years back, I think the theory would have been that as things move to the cloud, people are actually going to have less and less intelligence in their devices, and everything is going to operate in the cloud. We’ve seen exactly the opposite happen. We have smarter phones, but phones that are being built with the notion that says they’re going to plug into the cloud from the get go.

We see smarter and smarter PCs being redesigned around this notion of the cloud. What we’ve done in Internet Explorer 9 to speed up the cloud and integrate it with the smart Windows PC is such an example. We showed you the Xbox and the Kinect technology. You couldn’t do that with a dumb client. You can only do it with a smart client, but it’s got to participate in the cloud. So, our clients are being redesigned to be user friendly, easy to take care of and from the get go very cloud-aware.

Next week we get a chance to launch our Windows Phone 7 and the new Windows Phones I think are very good examples of this kind of next generation cloud-oriented, smart phones. We have an application model. I get a chance later today to go judge a little contest of some of the app developers here in France who have been doing applications for Windows Phone 7. We’ve got a new kind of a user interface that assumes that what you really want to do is focus not just on applications, but actually on the people and data that’s most important to you. And so we’ve re-pivoted the user interface consistent with some of the things that we think are possible in the cloud. It’s very different kind of user interface.

Nueva Economica Forum, Madrid, Spain [Oct 8, 2010]

… in the world of the cloud we can think of all of the world’s people and in all of their different personalities as individuals, as employees, as citizens, we want to be able to write new innovations to provide new solutions.

… New devices, there’s new devices coming. We’re always in big competition with other guys out there, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s really a tough world out there.

But we all know there’s a need for new devices. This meeting proves it. There’s a lady here with pencil and paper. I’ll prove I have one, too. I’m not giving her a hard time. (Laughter.) If I lose this paper, my whole week of action items is gone. That would be bad. There must be a digital form that’s better. But no matter what device you pull out today, if you sit there and start typing, it’s not very sociable, it’s not very pleasant, in some cases it’s not even very efficient compared to jotting a quick note.

We have lots of room to continue to invent what does the future of the television look like, what is the future of the PC, the phone, the note-taking device, the reading device.

WHAT? … Windows Live Spaces SaaS moving to WordPress.com SaaS? … It is part of a NEW strategy with Windows Live Essentials 2011 released now!

October 2, 2010 6:37 pm / 6 Comments on WHAT? … Windows Live Spaces SaaS moving to WordPress.com SaaS? … It is part of a NEW strategy with Windows Live Essentials 2011 released now!

The news from Microsoft: WordPress.com and Windows Live partnering together and providing an upgrade for 30 million Windows Live Spaces customers [Sept 27]

Then Paul Kim, the VP of user growth from WordPress.com: Welcome Windows Live Spaces Bloggers [Sept 27]

Then a 3d party correction from the web: Microsoft: Windows Live Spaces already dead, WordPress.com will only get 1% of 30M users [Sept 30] which could be much understated as noted by Paul Kim’s response in the end:

Paul Kim, Automattic’s vice president of user growth, responded: “We don’t have an exact estimate for how many Spaces bloggers will move over to WordPress.com in the next 6 months, but in the first 48 hours we’ve completed close to 50,000 migrations which is very promising.” That number is impressive enough. Real measure will be the next 48 hours or 48 days.

There was a real surge in posting activity on wordpress.com. After 5 days the graph showed the following:

As you could see from the numbers there were approximately three times as many additional postings in the last 3 days of the first 5 days period, than in the first two. That quite probably would mean ~150,000 additional migrations giving the total number of migrations to ~200,000 already in the first 5 days.

So the 1% of 30 million Windows Live Spaces customers could indeed be an understatement, even a great one. Would be interesting indeed to see the numbers in the coming months. Microsoft PR meanwhile made a refinement by saying that those 30 million include the viewers as well, while the number of authors is “just” 7 million.

If the final number of migrated blogs will be in the range of several millions than this will indeed be a huge gain for the WordPress.com. The current number of blogs on that site is 13.9 million, so an increase of 10% to 30% for nothing would indeed be a great win for them.

But what is the win for Microsoft? Their announcement is giving the following reason:

WordPress powers over 8.5% of the web, is used on over 26 million sites, and WordPress.com is seen by over 250 million people every month. Not only that, Automattic is a company filled with great people focused on improving blogging experiences. So rather than having Windows Live invest in a competing blogging service, we decided the best thing we could do for our customers was to give them a great blogging solution through WordPress.com.

The Why is Microsoft giving away web traffic and abandoning users? [Sept 28] question is answered by Tim Anderson as:

Part of the reason may be that blogging itself has changed. The original concept of an online diary or “web log” has fractured, with much of the trivia that might once have been blogged now being expressed on Facebook or Twitter. At the other end, blog engines like WordPress have evolved into capable content management systems. Many blogs are just convenient tools to author web sites.

Microsoft gives up on Live Spaces: blogs to be shifted to WordPress.com [Sept 28] on the guardian.co.uk has a similar reasoning:

You’ve got six months before it disappears into the great Bit Bucket where Geocities has gone. …

Following the news that Vox is closing (on 30 September), and that its parent Six Apart (which created Movable Type) is joining with VideoEgg to create a new company called Say Media, one has to think that the pool of hosted blogging platforms is shrinking rather rapidly. Atthis rate, pretty soon it’s only going to be Blogger and WordPress.

And if that’s what it comes down to, you’d have to say that WordPress has the edge. It’s being taken up by the British government, even for non-blogging websites, where it acts as an effective content management system.

That though may overlook the emergence of “superfast blog” systems such as Tumblr, which strip away a lot of the stuff on the outside – which can make blog upkeep complicated or tedious.

Even so, it’s not clear from here where blogging, as a separate activity, is really going. I still have the sense – as I said last year – that the long tail of blogging is dying. Microsoft’s capitulation over Live Spaces seems an acknowledgement of that (its previous post, linked in that quote above, notes how much of a problem spam blogs and comment spam have been; indeed, when I used to trawl blogs for Technology content, Live Spaces blogs were notorious for being pure splogs or copy/paste jobs).

WordPress.com has done a better job keeping the spam out. The question now is whether it is building its business on top of an iceberg in a warming sea – or on dry land.

And indeed quoting from the referred The long tail of blogging is dying [June 24, 2009] post on the guardian.co.uk (emphasis is mine):

But recently – over the past six months – I’ve noticed a new trend: fewer blogs with links, and fewer with any contextual comment. (I’m defining a blog here as an individual site, whether on Blogger or WordPress or an individual domain, with regular entries.) Some weeks, apart from the splogs, there would be hardly anything. I didn’t think we’d suddenly become dull. Nor was it for want of searching: mining for blog comments, I use Icerocket.com. Technorati.com and Google’s Blogsearch.

Where is everybody? Anecdotally and experimentally, they’ve all gone to Facebook, and especially Twitter. At least with Twitter, one can search for comments via backtweets.com – though it’s still quite rare for people to make a comment on a piece in a tweet; more usually it’s a “retweet”, echoing the headline. The New York Times also noticed this trend, with a piece on 9 June about “Blogs Falling In An Empty Forest“, which pointed to Technorati’s 2008 survey of the state of the blogosphere, which found that only 7.4m out of the 133m blogs it tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. As the New York Times put it, “that translates to 95% of blogs being essentially abandoned”.

I see it: NetNewsWire, my RSS feed reader, has nearly 500 feeds. When one of them hasn’t been updated for 60 days, it turns brown, like a plant dying for lack of water. More and more of the feeds I follow are turning brown. Why? Because blogging isn’t easy. More precisely, other things are easier – and it’s to easier things that people are turning. Facebook’s success is built on the ease of doing everything in one place. (Search tools can’t index it to see who’s talking about what, which may be a benefit or a failing.) Twitter offers instant content and reaction. Writing a blog post is a lot harder than posting a status update, putting a funny link on someone’s Wall, or tweeting. People are still reading blogs, and other content. But for the creation of amateur content, their heyday for the wider population has, I think, already passed. The short head of blogging thrives. Its long tail, though, has lapsed into desuetude.

It is important to realize that Microsoft didn’t get WordPress.com hosting in exchange for this migration. Matt Mullenweg made this quite clear in his last year’s post of WordPress and Windows Azure [Nov 29, 2009]:

Are you moving WordPress.com to Azure?
No. WordPress.com, which is Automattic’s hosted blogging service, is going to stay on its existing infrastructure. Martin Cron from the Cheezburger Network launched a new blog Oddly Specific on Azure, which some people confused with Automattic.

Do you use Azure at all?
Yes, we’ve been testing out their blob storage as an alternative to Amazon S3 and Rackspace Cloudfiles. We don’t currently use it in production.

And nothing has changed since then. The Microsoft: Windows Live Spaces already dead, WordPress.com will only get 1% of 30M users [Sept 30] post is mentioning the following:

As for platforms, Kim responded: “WordPress.com, where these migrating Spaces bloggers are moving to, runs on Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.” In a follow-up e-mail, Kim responded: “We don’t plan to host any of these blogs on Windows Azure at this time.”

So there should be some additional gains for Microsoft in order to pass millions of authors and tens of millions of readers, as well as the advertising revenue attached to that. And indeed there are:

1. Microsoft’s lost eight years online: More than $6 billion down the tubes [Aug 13] which particularly stating that:

In fiscal 2010 ending June 30, Microsoft reported an operating loss of $2.35 billion on revenue of $2.2 billion for its online services division .

… [see the previous financial year data to see how there is an accumulated loss of more than $6 billion] …

[ZDnet’s conclusion:] Microsoft has generated no return on its Internet ventures. It has been nearly a lost decade for Microsoft online. Looking at the profit and losses, you could make an argument that Microsoft would have been better off avoiding the Internet. Strategically, that argument is absolutely crazy. On the financial front, shareholders may just want a dividend. Things could change. Perhaps Microsoft’s online investment has helped it with the transition to cloud computing somehow. As things stand today, the Web is one big money pit for Microsoft.

So saving some money with Windows Live Spaces migration is an important point for Microsoft, although not the major one as we would see further on.

2. What Microsoft is abandoning now is the thing of the distant past. One can easily understand that when reading again a 3d party authorative source Why are 30 million Microsoft refugees headed to WordPress.com? [Sept 28] (emphasis is mine again):

Microsoft had very good founding concepts for MSN Spaces in 2004 that later overlapped with Facebook. At the time I first met with Microsoft managers about its online services strategy, I was an analyst with the now defunct JupiterResearch. Microsoft product managers outlined a clear and compelling strategy about people publishing content for whom they know. The Web is too big, they rightly asserted. What matters is contenting your stuff to people who would be most interested in it, like family, friends and coworkers. I liked what I heard.

Four years ago, I compared Six Apart’s Vox to Windows Live Spaces. In August 2006, I wrote at the now defunct Microsoft Monitor blog: “Features are highly comparable. Both services are free, ad supported and provide mechanisms for blogging, sharing photos, music or videos and connecting to a widening circle of friends and family.” Vox is shutting down in two days. Windows Live Spaces will be gone in six months. Is it coincidence that these two services with similar design goals and features are shutting down around the same time? I think not.

Facebook has fulfilled most of the same philosophical and development goals articulated by Microsoft managers six years ago. In early 2007, Facebook had about 30 million subscribers — about as many as Windows Live Spaces today. Facebook now claims more than 500 million subscribers, although some people dispute they are all active. Facebook users share photos, status updates and other content with a circle of friends, family and other known or accepted relationships, which is exactly what Microsoft wanted to accomplish with Spaces and connected Live services.

3. Microsoft has reworked all of its Internet and web related strategies. I’ve already reported a few of that (but will report much more very soon). See these posts on my blog:
– Microsoft strengths for the PC -> cloud transition [June 27]
– Mobile search SaaS battle [June 28]
– Windows slates in the coming months? Not much seen yet [July 13]
– Microsoft going multiplatform? [Sept 17]
– Microsoft to lead standards compliance and implementation? … or how Microsoft is aiming to create a radically new Windows client platform via a set of “whole computer capable rich web” standards. [Sept 20]

4. Their on-line services strategy part has just been completely rearranged by Windows Live Essentials 2011 available for download now [Sept 30]. The key elements of this change are (only some of the emphasis is mine here):

Windows Live Essentials 2011 was designed and built to connect your PC to the services you use every day. We’re also announcing today that Dell will be the first global PC manufacturer to ship PCs with Windows Live Essentials 2011 and Windows 7 pre-installed, just in time for your holiday purchases. Many other PC manufacturers are also planning to make Windows Live Essentials 2011 available and we’ll continue to keep you updated as they start releasing.

… Windows Live Essentials 2011 was designed from the ground up for Windows 7. You can pin your applications to the taskbar and use jump lists to quickly get to common tasks. The ribbon brings common tasks to the front, letting you filter photos, change your font, or publish to your favorite services in a single click.

For parents, Windows Live Family Safety gives you the tools to help keep your kids safer on the Internet.

… If you have more than one PC, or a PC and a Mac, Windows Live Mesh helps you sync your files and folders across your PCs and connect back to your PC from virtually anywhere.

Excellent overview: Windows Live Mesh 2011 [Nov 22]

… Use Window Live Photo Gallery to share photos with your friends on SkyDrive [this is now the one Microsoft on-line service outside of Windows Live Essentials], Flickr, SmugMug, Facebook, and more.

… Create a video using Windows Live Movie Maker and instantly publish it to YouTube.

… Stay in touch with your friends on Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace using the new Windows Live Messenger.

… Use Windows Live Writer to update your blog on WordPress.com [with Essentials 2011 it is the default], Blogger, TypePad, and many more blogging services.

… Use Windows Live Mail to keep track of your email from Hotmail [this is now the other Microsoft on-line service outside of Windows Live Essentials], Gmail, Yahoo, and more.

… Together with Windows 7 and the new Internet Explorer 9 beta, Windows Live Essentials completes your Windows experience and connects your PC to the services you use every day. Try it out and let us know what you think!

My final conclusion: Microsoft is not abandoning its eight years of on-line investments (which produced $6B+ loss so far) but splitting that among its classic strategic business lines. What we see now by Windows Live Spaces SaaS moving to WordPress.com SaaS and with the introduction of Windows Live Essentials 2011 is for the current (Windows 7) and the next generations of Windows clients. Windows clients will continue to be free of any advertisements and hence there is no service should be in Windows Live Essentials which could only be financed through advertisement revenue. With Flickr, SmugMug, Facebook, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, WordPress.com (with Essentials 2011 it is the default], Blogger, TypePad, Gmail, and Yahoo mentioned as important partner services, there is a clear demarcation line between Windows Live and 3d party services. In addition Windows Mail is that part of Windows Live Essentials which integrates both the 3d party web mailing services (Gmail, Yahoo etc.) and Microsoft’s own Hotmail Service. Hotmail thus remains the critical on-line service for Microsoft as well as the Live Messenger service of the Windows Live.

This is a very nice and rational on-line services strategy for the Windows clients. Please note that Microsoft Bing services are offered on their own, and those are the ones which should be supported by advertisement revenues in the long run. Also the Hotmail and Live Messenger services could be covered — at least partially — by advertising revenues in the long run. And certainly there is SkyDrive and Office Web Apps on SkyDrive which are in fact services that could mostly be covered by the Microsoft Office business line. BTW this is also true to a certain degree for Hotmail and Live Messenger.

Look at the Windows Live site for more information! You will even more clearly see that Microsoft did not lost its mind by migrating Windows Live Spaces to WordPress.com in such a “no return” way.

Marvell ARMADA beats Qualcomm Snapdragon, NVIDIA Tegra and Samsung/Apple Hummingbird in the SoC market [again]

September 23, 2010 2:32 pm / 11 Comments on Marvell ARMADA beats Qualcomm Snapdragon, NVIDIA Tegra and Samsung/Apple Hummingbird in the SoC market [again]

Follow-ups: – Marvell SoCs to win both Microsoft and Nokia for Windows Phone and Windows 8 platforms (after the Kinect success) [Feb 1, 2012]
– First real chances for Marvell on the tablet and smartphone fronts [Aug 21 – Sept 25, 2011]

While in the last 2 years Qualcomm Snapdragon, then NVIDIA Tegra and Samsung/Apple Hummingbird (Samsung’s S5PC110 and Apple’s A4 via Intrinsity’s acquisition) got by far the biggest public attention in the System-on-a-Chip (SoC) space it has been Marvell’s ARMADA the real winner all along.

Follow-up: Marvell to capitalize on BRIC market with the Moby tablet [Feb 3, 2011]
Follow-up: Kinoma is now the marvellous software owned by Marvell [Feb 15, 2011]
Follow-up: ASUS, China Mobile and Marvell join hands in the OPhone ecosystem effort for “Blue Ocean” dominance [March 8, 2011]
Follow-up: High expectations on Marvell’s opportunities with China Mobile [May 28, 2011]

Update [Jan 17, 2011]: Report: iPad 2 to use fast graphics chip [Jan 17, 2011] (emphasis is mine)

The iPad 2 will sport powerful, new graphics hardware, along with a higher-resolution display, according to a report.

That graphics chip would be Imagination’s SGX543, according to Apple Insider.

If this rumor is on the money, it is, indeed, a potent graphics technology. Imagination describes the POWERVR SGX543MP as allowing “up to 16 cores…in a high-performance, multiprocessor graphics solution without performance or silicon area compromises.” This graphics tech would be used in conjunction with a dual-core ARM processor, as CNET previously reported.

And Apple’s next-gen iPhone 5 would also feature this chip design–the so-called Apple A5 processor.

“This makes sense,” said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst at the Linley Group, a chip consulting firm. “The A5 processor must have at least dual Cortex-A9 CPUs (central processing units) to be competitive with [Nvidia’s] Tegra 2 and other current smartphone CPUs,” Gwennap said in response to an e-mail query. The Cortex-A9 is a design being used by most major ARM chip suppliers, such as Texas Instruments, Samsung, and Nvidia.

Gwennap continued. “The single-core SGX543 does not have enough graphics performance to keep up with Tegra 2, but a dual-core SGX543 should be within the same range. Even a dual-core SGX543 would fall well behind the graphics performance of Marvell’s new Armada 628, which should be in phones in 2H11,” he said. (Imagination also has the SGX545.)

Addition [later]: Marvell’s tri-core ARM chip has near-PS3-level graphics [Sept 2010], since Sony Playstation 3 GPU has 250 million triangles per second performance vs. ARMADA 628’s 200 MT/s.

Update [Nov 4]: Marvell ARMADA with sun readable and unbreakable Pixel Qi screen, and target [mass] manufacturing cost of $75 on this blog [Nov 4]

Update [Nov 2]: Sehat Sutardja: An Engineering Marvell by IEEE Spectrum [Nov 2, in print Oct 27 but with the title of Marvell Inside] is describing the extremely deep electronic engineering mentality lead with its CEO as the secret recipe for success from the very beginning:

Sehat already had plans for the first product: a better read channel for disk drives. It sounds incredibly specialized and it is, but it’s also one of the drive’s key components. The read channel takes the analog signal coming from the magnetic head as it scans the disk, converts the noisy signal to digital, and puts that information out onto the bus that will take it to the computer. Existing read channels used a bipolar transistor on a complementary-metal-oxide semiconductor substrate (BiCMOS), but Sehat planned to use only CMOS. That way the channels could be manufactured by a chip foundry like the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., so Marvell wouldn’t have to build its own fab. Using CMOS also meant that the device would consume less power. This would, however, present an engineering challenge: Existing CMOS read-channel designs were much slower than BiCMOS.

… they convinced Seagate Technology to take a chance. Ken Burns, an executive at Seagate, told them that the company’s next-generation drive would need a read channel at 240 Mb/s—could Marvell deliver? … They told Burns yes. In less than three months the Marvell team hit the 240-Mb/s mark, and Seagate became Marvell’s first customer. … Today, in terms of units sold, Marvell has about 60 percent of the market for hard drive systems-on-a-chip.

“This little start-up, with one product line, put Texas Instruments out of the read-channel business,” Ohr [an analyst with Gartner] says.

Now we have a new ARMADA SoC processor product from Marvell which is making that lead even more evident:

Marvell Raises Technology Bar Again with World’s First 1.5 GHz Tri-Core Processor Delivering Dual Stream 1080p 3D Video for Smartphones and Tablets [Sept 23] – Game Changer: Ultra-low power, ultra-high performance ARMADA three-core processor first to feature 3D graphics performance with quad unified shaders for 200 million triangles per second delivered on mobile devices

Marvell ARMADA 628 has indeed an impressive set of features on a single die. To quote from the press release (emphasis is mine):

Key Features

World’s first “tri-core” application processor
– Up to 1.5 GHz for the two main cores and 624 MHz for the third low power core
– “Heterogeneous multiprocessing” with “hardware-based Cache Coherence”
– 1 MB System Level 2 Cache
– Platform leading multimedia capabilities, including support for both WMMX2 and NEON acceleration; and a highly optimized pipelined VFPv3 floating point engine
– Member of the ARMADA family of processors for easy software porting

1080p dual stream 3D video applications (30 FPS, multi-format)

Ultimate 3D graphics performance with quad unified shaders for 200 million triangles per second (MT/s)

High performance, integrated image signal processor (ISP)

Ability to project images on multiple simultaneous displays
– 2 LCDs
– 1 HDMI
– 1 advanced EPD [like the ones used in E-Ink based e-readers, e.g. Amazon Kindle] controller

Peripherals support: USB 3.0 Superspeed Client, MIPI CSI, MIPI DSI, HDMI with integrated PHY, UniPro, Slimbus, SPMI

Addition [later]: Marvell’s tri-core ARM chip has near-PS3-level graphics [Sept 2010], since Sony Playstation 3 GPU has 250 million triangles per second performance vs. ARMADA 628’s 200 MT/s.

We should emphasize two additional facts from the press release:

The new ARMADA 628 tri-core processor incorporates a number of advanced processing and power management features. The tri-core design integrates two high performance symmetric multiprocessing cores and a third core optimized for ultra low-power. The third core is designed to support routine user tasks and acts as a system management processor to monitor and dynamically scale power and performance. The tri-core architecture provides superior performance and lower power over dual-core designs while maintaining industry compatibility and leadership – ensuring a richer, faster and smoother experience than any other ARM-based processor available today.

… In addition to the tri-core CPU, there are six additional processing engines to support stunning 3D graphics, 1080p video encode/decode, ultra high fidelity audio, advanced cryptography, and digital photo data processing – for a total of nine dedicated core functions.

Additional information from Linley Gwennap‘s Marvell Debuts Tricore Architecture [Sept 23] infonugget: The chip is manufactured in 40 nm geometry [note, this is the first such mobile processor from Marvell publicly announced], all three processors use Marvell’s high-end Sheeva PJ4 design, the third CPU uses however a different circuit layout, based on the same synthesizable core, but optimized for lower speed and lower power, the new chip is fully compatible with ARM’s Neon instruction set (unlike the previous versions of the PJ4), the 3D graphics performance [200 MT/s] is more than four times of the current high-end ARMADA 610 [45 MT/s], and the introduction of an optimized third CPU is an innovative feature which should deliver better battery life than a dual-CPU chip that simply shuts down one CPU. According to Linley Gwennap:

To maximize battery life, the processor uses the smaller CPU most of the time, but it can shift to the powerful dual CPUs when maximum performance is required. The new Marvell processor is currently sampling and due to enter production next March.

With the current availability of the samples to the customers it is “just” the time needed to create the high-volume, consumer market products for the mass availability. Because the ARMADA 628 is a member of a whole family of processors designed for easy software porting it is not a great engineering challenge to develop the new devices based on this new and “marvelous” SoC. Hopefully the device vendors are also well ahead in their business development activities for ultra-low power but at the same time ultra-high performance handheld products in the smartphone and tablet space. If not yet then they will have enough market experience for early next year when all the supply (in addition to the hopefully mass-produced by that time ARMADA 628 SoC) and distribution arrangements could be organised by them.

How the competition is standing up against this leadership offering? Badly, since there is nothing comparable to ARMADA 628 in a 1-2 years timeframe ahaead of us:

Qualcomm: 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon devices to arrive at end of 2011, 1.2GHz in Q1 [Sept 8]
Qualcomm 1.5GHz Snapdragon due end of 2011, not Q1 [Sept 8]

NVIDIA CEO: Tegra 3 almost done, Tegra 4 on the way, expect a new Tegra annually [Sept 21]
NVIDIA Finds Its Rhythm: Tegra 3 Imminent with Annual Updates [Sept 21]
which titles may sound quite competitive but in fact these are just mumblings by their desparate CEO as evidenced by these two videos from an unrelated press conference (obviously the CEO was just using the opportunity to “fend-off” the upcoming annoucement known to him already):
– NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsen Huang talks about Tegra [Sept 21], with a very low quality voice recorded by someone in the audience
– the other one, with a better voice record, embedded in the above mentioned NVIDIA Finds Its Rhythm: Tegra 3 Imminent with Annual Updates article which is making it obvious that the only real specific what was said was:

Tegra 2 is just our first entry (into the mobile market), Tegra 3 is almost done, Tegra 4 is being built. Just think in the context of the NVIDIA rhythm. Every single year, there will be a new Tegra.

Nothing more!

Finally regarding comparable high SoC processor plans from Samsung/Intrinsity[Apple] combo there is no new information at all. The Hummingbird chip (Samsung’s S5PC110 and Apple’s A4) is even no match to the #2 (after ARMADA 628) Qualcomm 1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon, also in the sampling phase right now.

When considering the competition one should also consider that Marvell has even high-impact end-customer initiatives as parts of its long-term strategy:

– Moby for education/learning and healthcare/medical (see also their $75 tablet project with Pixel Qi and OLPC, mentioned before, as the natural evolution for Moby)

Follow-up: Marvell to capitalize on BRIC market with the Moby tablet [Feb 3, 2011]

– Plug Computer with only 2 watts of power dissipation (complete for the below spec) for typical applications such as a high performance home server, multimedia server, web proxy etc. The latest CES 2011 release [Jan 5, 2011] is stating even more:

Marvell's Plug Computer 3.0 announced on CES 2011 with a 2 GHz ARMADA™ 300 processor, Embedded Wi-Fi, Bluetooth enabled, 512MB flash, 512MB DDR2, 1.8 inch HD, 1 USB 2.0, 1 Mini USB, 1 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Ethernet, and SDIO slot.

From streaming the latest winter vacation video to a connected TV in the bedroom, to enjoying favorite music on a Wi-Fi enabled receiver in the living room, Plug Computer 3.0 makes enjoying media on intelligent devices throughout the home easier and on-the-go more enjoyable than before.

The release of Plug Computer 3.0 opens up additional applications and usage in key new markets: Smart Grid, Home Automation, Medical Monitoring, Multimedia Content Sharing, Security and Access Control, Industrial Automation, Agricultural, Mesh and Grid Computing.

More information

* Quite important note for the information given above and below: Marvell has developed and continuing to develop two types of synthesizable cores: PJ1 and PJ4. Unfortunately there is no public information on that except the appearance in various processor products. These cores allow different kinds of core optimisations (an example is the 3d CPU vs dual high-peformance ones in ARMADA 628) and various ARM Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) implementations (as seen below in our product catalogue references). This is a highly competitive differentiator for Marvell.
Update: the PJ1 was also called 88SV331x, and the codename for it “MOHAWK”

on Marvell by Marvell: A Next Generation Semiconductor Company – History of Marvell CPUs – ARMADA* [overview of the current offerings, not updated yet with ARMADA 628] – Awards
Marvell Unveils High-Speed CPUs for the Enterprise [Apr 28, 2008]: the “Discovery Innovation Series” MV7800 type embedded processors introduced in single core versions with frequency of 0.6 – 1.2 GHz and dual core versions with frequency of 0.8 – 1.0 GHz. A month later (see the next item) it is disclosed that the high-speed CPUs are the Sheeva PJ1* variants.
Marvell Sheeva Embedded CPU Technology Set to Drive Next Generation of Consumer, Mobile and Enterprise Applications [June 2, 2008], Marvell Introduces SoCs to Boost Digital Home Gateway and PC Performance: [June 2, 2008]: Sheeva PJ1*-based “Kirkwood series” 88F6000 SoCs announced as samples available. “Marvell’s new SoCs will initially come in three versions, the 88F6180, 88F6192 and the 88F6281, with the 88F6281 capable at running of speeds up to 2 GHz, while consuming an ultra-low sub 2 Watts of power.”
The Untold Story of Marvellʼs Processor Development, by Linley Gwennap, Principal Analyst [Aug 2008]
Marvell offers their ideas on design for low power [Oct 10, 2008]
Marvell Unleashes Powerful New Applications Processor for Mass-Market Digital Consumer Devices [Jan 8, 2009]: PXA168 as the high member of the current, upto 1.2 GHz Sheeva PJ1*-based ARMADA 100 series announced as “sampling now”.
ARM SoC launched with Linux support [Jan 8, 2009] – this article gives a good overview of the Sheeva PJ1* products from the first “Discovery Innovation Series” MV7800 type embedded processors introduced in May 2008, then the “Kirkwood series” 88F6000 SoCs, also for the embedded market in June 2008, and then to the PXA168 application processor of January’09, later renamed ARMADA 168.
Marvell Empowers Mass Market TD-SCDMA OPhones with PXA920 Chipset [Sept 8, 2009]: the introduction of Marvell’s one of the most strategic SoC products, the integrated (on a single die) 2.75G (EDGE), 3G (TD-SCDMA) and 3.5G (TD-HSDPA and TD-HSUPA) communication processor with an upto 0.832 GHz Sheeva PJ1* core, the PXA920 for the Chinese market. This got also another name later, Pantheon. It is quite important to realize the strategic intent behind this product, quoting the real customer behind:

“We believe that the PXA920 solution will help us realize China Mobile’s vision of sub-1000 RMB [~$150, unsubsidized] TD OPhones in the near future,” said Bill Huang general manager of China Mobile Research Institute. “Marvell has worked with us from the start of the PXA920 program and we are excited by the rapid progress we have made towards realizing this milestone. China Mobile will work closely with Marvell and handset eco-system partners to deploy the PXA920 and we look forward to the rapid launch of next generation TD-SCDMA OPhones based on the Marvell PXA920.”

Update: That opportunity was realized only 2 years later. See:First real chances for Marvell on the tablet and smartphone fronts [Aug 21, 2011]

New Marvell HD Media Processor System-on-a-Chip Brings Award-Winning Qdeo Processing to Next-Generation Consumer Electronics Devices [Sept 16] : the introduction of 88DE3010 High Definition (HD) Media Processor System-on-a-Chip (SoC) with two Sheeva PJ1* cores at up to 1.2 GHz, a month later also getting a new name, ARMADA 1000. This was also the last Sheeva PJ1* variety SoC introduced so far.
Marvell Launches ARMADA – New Application Processors for Next Generation Mobile Computing and Intelligent Connected Devices [Oct 19, 2009]: rebranding of Sheeva based products and introducing the first Sheeva PJ4*-based product in the family, the ARMADA 510 having a frequency of 1.2 GHz and with “sampling to customers this quarter”. With this Marvell introduced ARM v6 / ARM v7 capability and also was one of the industry’s first running ARM v7 instruction set. This was also an important milestone for Marvell’s new Sheeva-based product strategy (emphasis is mine):

The ARMADA family of application processors sets a new standard by offering CPU cores with PC-class performance, support for Adobe Flash technology and Blu-ray functionality. Additional features include complete broadband connectivity for the next wave of innovative electronics, spanning price points from low cost consumer gadgets all the way to premium performance devices. Customer adoption has been rapid: to date, Marvell ARMADA application processors have won more than 50 design wins.

On ARMADA by Anand Lal Shimpi: Marvell’s ARMADA: Custom Designed ARM SoCs Break 1GHz [Oct 19, 2009] — please note that the only objection raised here, “The biggest issue I can see with Marvell’s PJ4 is that it doesn’t support ARM’s NEON SIMDfp instruction set” is not existing any more with ARMADA 628.
Marvell Introduces ARMADA 300 — Setting New Embedded Computing Performance Standards [Dec 16, 2009]: the latest members of the Sheeva PJ1*-based embedded “Kirkwood” series processors, the 88F6282 and 88F6283 are introduced as the ARMADA 300/310SoCs. The high-performance ARMADA 300 with frequency of 1.6 – 2.0 GHz, low power ARMADA 310 with frequency of 0.8 GHz and 1.0 GHz. Quoting the press release:

The ARMADA 300 series offers more than 2.0 GHz processing horsepower in a sub 2W power envelope [it is even less for the ARMADA 310: “under normal load, this device operates on average in less than one watt power consumption envelope” said Sahat Sutardja, Marvell’s CEO at the March 4, 2010 Earnings Call] for the entire System on Chip – a level of performance never before seen with this class of processor – and the flexibility, interfaces and price points that fit the needs of today’s digital economy.

Marvell Changes the Game Again – New ARMADA 610 Application Processor First to Bring 1080p Full-HD Encode and Decode and 3D Multimedia Performance to Mobile Connected Devices [Jan 5, 2010]: the introduction of the second Sheeva PJ4*-based member of the ARMADA family. The ARMADA 610 has been designed for mobility, features a 1 GHz CPU, has an integrated 3D engine which renders 45M triangles-per-second (via a complete floating point pipeline and unified vertex and fragment/pixel shading) for an immersive gameplay experience with the ability to drive the latest in 3D enabled user interfaces, a lot of integrated peripheral controller on the same die etc. It is targeted at “eReader, Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), tablets, smartbook/netbooks, connected portable media players, smartphones, and new personal information appliances.” Subsequently it was “designed to use extremely low power while maintaining high processing performance [2.42 DMIPS/MHz] and attractive price points for manufacturers.” It was “currently sampling to early customers.”

Marvell Announces Another Breakthrough in Chip Technology: World’s First Quadruple Core Processor for ARM Instruction Set [Jan 6, 2010] (emphasis is mine):

Based on the same CPU architecture as the Marvell® ARMADA™ 500 and 600 processor series, Marvell’s quadcore implementation can deliver gigahertz-plus processing per core and is designed for customer-specific products such as mass consumer market and high volume gaming applications.

“Introducing our quadcore technology to the world represents a pivotal moment in CPU development for the consumer electronics industry,” said Ms. Weili Dai, Marvell’s Co-founder and Vice President and General Manager of Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.’s Consumer and Computing Business Unit. “Today’s media-rich consumer applications are already pushing the limits. By making quadcore capabilities available to our customers we will enable the newest generation of cutting edge devices that consumers will always demand — more horsepower, higher performance, better battery life, and more attractive price points than ever before for mass consumer market adoption.”

Marvell has a long history of delivering multicore technology to customers for use in a broad variety of applications ranging from pachinko machines, printers, gaming, networking, gateways, all the way up to computing-intensive enterprise applications. This announcement of the first implementation of quadcore technology for the ARM ecosystem further demonstrates Marvell’s ability to deliver high performance, flexible technology that meets the silicon requirements of numerous tier-one customers, regardless of the end application.

“With the introduction of the ARMADA line of processors, we see the wide variety of devices that Marvell’s application processors can power,” said Rob Enderle, Principal Analyst for the Enderle Group. “Before ARMADA, the ARM ecosystem was thought to be limited by performance barriers. Now, with this announcement of its quadcore technology, Marvell is showing the world the ARM ecosystem’s true potential while cementing its position among the leaders in advanced CPU development for mass market consumer applications.”

Marvell’s quadcore solution is designed to meet customer specific requirements for mass consumer market opportunities. For more information about Marvell quadcore technologies please visit www.marvell.com or contact a sales representative.

Marvell Unveils 1.6GHz Quad-Core ARMADA XP Platform for Enterprise-Class Cloud Computing Applications [Nov 8] (emphasis is mine):

… the Company will demonstrate its quad-core processing, enterprise-class cloud computing platform, Marvell® ARMADA™ XP (Extreme Performance). The ARMADA XP is the fastest ARM processor available on the market today for enterprise class applications. The new platform integrates four Marvell designed ARM compliant 1.6GHz CPU cores along with a host of I/O peripherals to offer one of the highest levels of integration in the industry. By employing advanced design methodology and process technology, the ARMADA XP is optimized to consume strikingly low power at 1.6GHz, delivering the best performance per watt [16,600 DMIPS performance at less than 10 watts see below in the “Key Features” section] to empower emerging cloud computing applications ranging from high performance networking and web servers to high volume home server products like Network Attached Storage (NAS) and media servers.

Marvell’s introduction of a powerful solution for enterprise-class cloud computing applications is a very important milestone in the mobile Internet revolution—cloud computing mobile servers like those powered by the ARMADA XP are the key link in what I envision to be a seamless, unified ecosystem of mobile connected devices, information appliances and smart ‘furnishings,'” said Weili Dai, Co-Founder of Marvell. “Marvell’s leadership in mobility, consumer, storage, enterprise networking and Wi-Fi products completes the circuit, delivering a powerful end-to-end total solution to anyone connected to the new global mesh, from consumers to small business and the enterprise.”

The ARMADA XP supplements the Marvell Plug Computer initiative by enabling a new class of mobile servers to serve the growing performance demands of connected consumer devices like smartphones and tablets. The new quad-core further builds on the success of the Marvell® Discovery™ Innovation and ARMADA 300 series by maintaining software compatibility to offer existing Marvell customers significant advantage in terms of reduced development cost and faster time to market.

About ARMADA XP series

The ARMADA XP is based on Marvell-designed ARM v7 MP compatible CPU offering 1.6GHz processing per core performance, delivering 16,600 DMIPS to make high performance computing affordable for mainstream applications. It integrates 2 MB of L2 cache and supports 64-bit DDR3 memory interface with ECC at 800MHz clock rate to enable a high throughput memory sub-system design. The ARMADA XP is a highly integrated System-on-a-Chip (SoC) that combines quad x4 PCI-express (PCI-e) interfaces, multiple USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet ports, SATA ports, security engine and other I/O peripherals to make system designs simple and economical. With ARMADA XP’s advanced power management architecture, it offers the industry’s best performance per watt to alleviate the challenges of energy and cooling costs faced by enterprise and server class systems.

Key Features

Industry’s first quad-core ARM processor for enterprise applications

Up to 1.6GHz processing performance for each ARM v7 compliant core

16,600 DMIPS performance at less than 10 watts

“Heterogeneous multiprocessing” (SMP/AMP/Mixed) with “hardware-based Cache Coherence”

Up to 2MB system level two cache

Supplements the ARMADA family of single, dual-core and tri-core processors for easy software porting

64-bit DDR2/DDR3/DDR3L memory interface with ECC support at up to 800MHz clock rates

4 PCI-e Gen 2.0 units

4 enterprise class Gigabit networking ports

Up to 16 high speed Marvell SERDES lanes with multi functionality (PCI-e, SATA, SGMII, QSGMII)

Multiple USB ports

Ultra low power consumption with advanced power management capabilities

Comprehensive Development Tools Marvell offers complete development platforms for the ARMADA XP enabling customers to start system development without waiting for hardware. Development platforms are available including software drivers and board support package.

Availability

Marvell’s ARMADA XP will be on display at the ARM Technology Conference on November 9-11, 2010 at booth #200. The ARMADA XP is currently sampling to customers.

Official Marvell product catalogues

ARMADA 100 the current Sheeva PJ1*-based, “cost sensitive” application processor products (showed along with the preceding PXA3xx – Monahans which came with Intel’s XSCale aquisition). Frequency: 0.4 – 1.2 GHz (the upper limit is missing on the ARMADA* overview page). Instruction Set Architecture (ISA): ARMv5 / XScale.
ARMADA 300 the Sheeva PJ1*-based embedded processors, currently the ARMADA 300/310SoCs (high-performance ARMADA 300 with frequency of 1.6 – 2.0 GHz, low power ARMADA 310 with frequency of 0.8 GHz and 1.0 GHz), which came in addition to the “pre-ARMADA” Discovery (single core with frequency of 0.6 – 1.2 GHz and dual core with frequency of 0.8 – 1.0 GHz) and Kirkwood (single core with frequency of 0.6 – 2.0 GHz and dual core with frequency of 0.8 – 1.0 GHz) series of PJ1* based products. Instruction Set Architecture (ISA): ARMv5.
ARMADA 500: the high-end Sheeva PJ4*-based application processors for high performance consumer devices such as netbooks and smartbooks (now would rather be called slates, tables etc.). Currently the ARMADA 510 SoC with frequency of 1.2 GHz. Instruction Set Architecture (ISA): ARM v6 / ARM v7. One of the industry’s first running ARM v7 instruction set.
ARMADA 600: the high-end Sheeva PJ4*-based application processors bringing high performance to the most compact form factors, such as smartphones and embedded mobile devices. Currently the ARMADA 610 and ARMADA 618 of 1.0 GHz SoCs (check for documentation on ARMADA 628). Instruction Set Architecture (ISA): ARM v6 / ARM v7. One of the industry’s first running ARM v7 instruction set.
ARMADA 1000: for digital entertainment application processors, i.e. “the next generation of connected full-HD consumer devices, delivering immersive viewing experiences and offering a variety of networked applications at mainstream price points”. Currently the Sheeva PJ1*-based two-core ARMADA 1000/88DE3010 High-Definition Media Processor with frequency of upto 1.2 GHz. Instruction Set Architecture (ISA): ARMv5 / XScale. TDP: 5W (see: Nixeus Fusion XS Brings Marvell into the DMA Market [March 11, 2011]
ARMADA XP: for enterprise-class cloud computing applications, i.e. “empower emerging cloud computing applications ranging from high performance networking and web servers to high volume home server products like Network Attached Storage (NAS) and media servers”. Quite probably based on Sheeva PJ4* cores, with one, two and four core versions, and a corresponding variety of I/O peripherals on the same chip.
In the ARMADA XP Product Brief (quite worth to look at) you can find a broader target market defined as: “With its broad offering of 5 pin compatible chips, the ARMADA XP is ideally suited for applications ranging from high-performance networking, wireless infrastructure and web servers to high volume products like NAS, home servers, laser printers and other embedded applications.” This is also showing that the ARMADA XP series SoC is a companion to Marvell’s embedded products as well (shown under embedded for this reason as well), i.e. the Sheeva PJ1* based Discovery, Kirkwood and ARMADA 300 series. The ARMADA XP series of Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) is ARM v7 (ARM v6 is not mentioned why it could — quite probably — have an enhanced Sheeva PJ4* core).

<!–[if gte mso 9]> 12.00 <![endif]–><!–[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE <![endif]–><!–[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]–> <!–[endif]–>88F6000 SoCs

Microsoft to lead standards compliance and implementation? … or how Microsoft is aiming to create a radically new Windows client platform via a set of “whole computer capable rich web” standards.

September 20, 2010 2:25 pm / 12 Comments on Microsoft to lead standards compliance and implementation? … or how Microsoft is aiming to create a radically new Windows client platform via a set of “whole computer capable rich web” standards.

This is the question and the final conclusion I came to after studying all the details related to the announcement of Microsoft and Top Sites Celebrate the Beauty of the Web With Internet Explorer 9 Beta Release [Sept 15]. Let’s see the accompanying fact sheet Windows Internet Explorer 9 New Features at a Glance which has the following grouping and the related to my question major statement excerpts about the IE9 Beta (emphasis used within the excerpted text detail is mine):

Hardware-accelerated graphics

As an example of how Internet Explorer 9 takes advantage of the power of the whole computer, the rendering of graphics and text has been moved from the central processing unit (CPU) to the graphics card (the graphics processing unit or GPU), using the Direct2D and DirectWrite sets of Windows application programming interfaces (APIs). Hardware-accelerated text, video and graphics mean that your websites perform like applications installed directly on your Windows-based computer.

New DOM and new JavaScript engine

The newly optimized document object model (DOM) in Internet Explorer 9 provides dramatic speed improvements by interacting more efficiently with Chakra, the new JavaScript engine. Chakra interprets, compiles and executes code in parallel by taking advantage of multiple CPU cores. Although each of these is significant on its own, combining these changes, along with using hardware-accelerated graphics, makes the browser all-around fast.

F12 developer tools

Clean site-centric design makes sites shine and integrates them with Windows 7:

Clean browser user interface Pinned Sites JumpLists Windows Aero Snap for your websites Thumbnail preview controls

Icon overlays Notification Bar New tab page One Box Address Bar Top Result

Feel the confidence and trust that you are in control with Internet Explorer 9:

Download Manager with SmartScreen filter integration Add-on Performance Advisor Hang recovery

Compatibility View Automatic updates Group Policy support

Write interoperable markup with HTML5 and Internet Explorer 9:

Extensive support for HTML5, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), Cascading Style Sheets Level 3 (CSS3), ECMAScript5 and DOM provides a new set of capabilities that will help enable developers to write one set of markup and know that it will work and look the same in all modern browsers. Internet Explorer 9 was designed with support for industry standards built in to help ensure that the same markup works the same across browsers.

• HTML5 support. Internet Explorer 9 builds on the work done to implement HTML5 features in Internet Explorer 8, and adds several compelling features. Support for the video and audio elements enables native, hardware-accelerated video and audio content on a Web page without the need for a plug-in. Developers can now insert a video or audio clip onto their page as easily as they do images. Plus, support for the canvas element enables easy and dynamic graphics rendering, all while taking advantage of hardware acceleration through Windows and the graphics card. In addition, support for the selection APIs enables programmatic selection of text on a page, and HTML parsing improvements help make HTML authoring more versatile.

• DOM Level 2 and Level 3. Internet Explorer 9 adds support for more of the Document Object Model Level 2 (DOM L2) and Level 3 (DOM L3), and improves DOM L2 support over existing implementations. These DOM additions are taken from several DOM specifications, including DOM L2 and L3 Core, DOM L2 Views, DOM Element Traversal, DOM L2 and L3 Events, DOM L2 HTML, DOM L2 Style, DOM L2 Traversal and Range, and WebIDL (interactive data language).

• SVG. As the SVG standard has developed, developers have been requesting native support in Internet Explorer, and it is available in Internet Explorer 9. Support for SVG in Internet Explorer 9 enables powerful, attention-grabbing visuals with incredible detail, all without the need for a separate download or plug-in. Like all the graphics, text and media features in Internet Explorer 9, SVG in Internet Explorer 9 takes advantage of hardware-accelerated graphics.

• CSS3. Building on the work that was done in Internet Explorer 8, which is fully compliant with the Cascading Style Sheets Level 2.1 (CSS2.1) specification, Internet Explorer 9 adds support for many components of CSS3, enabling even more flexibility and functionality for Web designers and developers. Internet Explorer 9 introduces features from several CSS3 modules, including the Backgrounds & Borders Module, Color Module, Fonts Module, Media Queries Module, Namespaces Module, Selectors Module, the Values & Units Module, and support for the Web Open Font Format (WOFF).

• ECMAScript 5. The JavaScript implementation in Internet Explorer 9 is enhanced with many features defined by the latest edition of the ECMAScript standard. New ECMAScript 5 features introduce significant improvements to the JavaScript language and increase developer productivity. In addition, the Internet Explorer 9 DOM is designed to natively support ECMAScript 5, providing a consistent and natural programming model for developers when programming the Internet Explorer 9 DOM from JavaScript.

With things like that it is clear that Microsoft is aiming at a radically new Windows client platform creation which is based on the latest “rich web” standards capable of taking advantage of the power of the whole computer. In that sense what has debuted now as Internet Explorer 9 Beta is not less than:

the fist implementation of that new Windows client platform, and also
the live laboratory of platform development alongside with the development of new “rich web” standards.

The final questions are certainly how efficient is the current implementation and how much the latest “rich web” standards are covered by IE9 Beta?

To answer those two question let’s turn to the technology media leaders on the web having the opportunity to analyze the new release not less than week before it has been released by Microsoft:

Engadget Internet Explorer 9 Beta review [Sept 15] concentrated on completely redesigned fuctionality and performance, not advancements in the standards space (btw a pretty complicated issue):

IE9 bested Firefox 3.6 in lots of the tests, but Chrome still won out in them all. … What doesn’t really come through in those benchmarks is the browser’s hardware accelerated graphics. … There isn’t all that much in terms of graphics-heavy HTML5 sites at this point in time and Flash 10.1 already relies on the GPU, but we did try Microsoft’s Test Drive suite of sites in a number of different browsers. The JavaScript-based Amazon Shelf demo … is pretty stunning; on the M11x with the GPU activated, the demo ran at 60fps (about 55fps when we turned a page in a book). With the GPU off, the experience was a bit more sluggish – it ran at 16fps and 9fps when turning a page. … How does that Amazon Shelf demo work in other browsers? Both Chrome 6.0.4 and Firefox 3.6 don’t take advantage of the GPU, so even when it was turned on it notched 6fps. The results were much better in Firefox 4 Beta 5 which is optimized for GPU acceleration — it hit the 60fps mark

ZDNet Internet Explorer 9 beta review: Microsoft reinvents the browser [Sept 15] tried to answer questions readers were typically asking: Is it fast enough? Is it compatible enough? Is it cool enough to win back former IE users who have switched to other browsers, first to Firefox and more recently to Google Chrome? And will this shiny new browser be able to rehabilitate the tarnished Internet Explorer brand? From ZDNet’s review there was again answer only to my performance question (emphasis in the quoted text is again mine):

The single biggest performance boost in IE9 comes from its support for hardware acceleration. Because IE9 runs only on Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7, it can be tuned to offload some rendering tasks to modern graphics hardware, which often has more raw processing power than the rest of the PC. (Microsoft claims that current browsers use only 10% of a PC’s power, which might be a bit of hyperbole.) It’s clear from daily use, though, that hardware acceleration really does make a difference in rendering text, images, and graphics. As a result, Microsoft finds itself in an unaccustomed position, out in front of other browsers, which are furiously trying to play catch-up.

I tested the IE9 beta alongside Firefox 4 beta 5, which was released in September 2010 and is the first Mozilla offering to support hardware acceleration. I also tested it against the most recent beta of Google Chrome 6, which doesn’t use the GPU for rendering. (Google has reportedly placed that feature on its roadmap for Chrome 7.) … The biggest performance differences, not surprisingly, were apparent on Microsoft’s own graphics-oriented tests at its IE Test Drive site. On the FishIE Tank example, which uses the new HTML5 Canvas tag, here’s how the three browsers compared: … IE9’s frame rates stayed high as I kicked up the number of animated fish in the virtual tank. Performance remained smooth and glitch-free even when I moved the window across multiple monitors and docked it to the side of the display using Aero Snap. Firefox 4, by contrast, was able maintain high frame rates for short bursts, but moving the browser frame caused performance to plummet and even froze the display for long periods. Using Firefox, frame rates plummeted dramatically when I selected the most demanding settings (500 and 1000 fish). …

For a more independent performance test, I enabled all three browsers for YouTube’s HTML5 channel and tried playing a handful of high-definition videos at 720p and 1080p resolution. All three browsers performed admirably within a window and at full-screen resolution. IE9 and Chrome 6 were able to maintain full-fidelity playback even when tearing a tab out of the browser pane and dragging it to its own window. Firefox 4, on the other hand, failed this test, stopping the playback and starting the clip over when it landed in a new window.

The other new performance-enhancing component in IE9 is the new Chakra JavaScript engine, … ran the SunSpider benchmark using only the most recent beta releases of IE9, Firefox, and Chrome. The difference between each browser is only about one-tenth of a second, and that composite result includes dozens of complex operations. The independent JSBenchmark test produced similar results, with the IE9 beta running 21% faster than the latest Firefox 4 beta but 29% slower than the latest test build of Google Chrome 6. The conclusion? JavaScript performance isn’t a significant differentiator between modern browsers, and IE9 can hold its own with any Webkit-based browser on this score.

Based on these two indepedendent reviews (and a lot of others with similar findings) I can conclude that performance-wise Microsoft is on track to create the radically new Windows client platform. From the point of view of upcoming “rich-web” standards, however, I should do my own investigation. That will come in the next post in this blog.

Microsoft going multiplatform?

September 17, 2010 11:32 pm / 6 Comments on Microsoft going multiplatform?

Microsoft Has No Plans To Make Another Smartphone, Exec Says [Sept 16] wrote The Wall Street Journal yesterday. Is it big news? Some say so. Wired’s reaction to the internals of that article is the most notable one: Microsoft’s New Mobile Strategy: Software for Every Platform [Sept 17].

Microsoft’s Tivanka Ellawala told the WSJ that the company’s done with smartphone hardware (beyond in-house prototypes, presumably): “We are in the software business and that is where our business will be focused,” he said. That means no follow-ups to the Kin social media smartphone, definitely; no resuscitation of the Courier e-reader/tablet project, probably; and a new focus on making apps for other platforms, quite possibly.

Then there is a reference to “Microsoft blogger Paul Thurrott confirmed the rumors on Twitter”:

Shhh…. It’s true: Microsoft is working on iPad apps. [Paul Thurrot is a Penton Media technology analyst creating all the content of the SuperSite for Windows]

By the rumors it is meant what has been written in the WSJ blogpost as:

He [Tivanka Ellawala ] made the remark in response to a question about rumors that the Redmond, Wash.-based behemoth is working on a new phone.

So we should still get more information, rumors or otherwise, to accept Wired’s interpretation which essentially means that Microsoft is becoming a multiplatform software vendor.

Until we have that further information we should collect the already existing evidence indicating such a direction for Microsoft:

1. Market neccessity. The Wall Street Journal is coming again handy with the news that Retailers Turn to Gadgets — Best Buy, Others Stock Up on Handhelds for Holidays as TVs, PCs Lose Luster [Sept 14]:

The new priorities are plainly evident in the changing strategy of Best Buy Co., the nation’s largest electronics retailer by revenue, which is now morphing into a mobile gadget specialist after decades of promoting the latest in big-screen televisions, desktop computers and high-fidelity stereos. Best Buy … said it will showcase devices such as Apple Inc.’s iPad tablet computer and Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle e-reader* this holiday season. … internal estimates showed that the iPad had cannibalized sales from laptop PCs by as much as 50%.

Note on the Kindle (*): This is showing perfectly well the reality that iPad is not cannibalizing single-purpose e-reader sales, so the FUD described in my Undermining E-Ink and single-purpose E-readers [Aug 23, updated till Sept 17 and beyond] could have very little effect on the market.

Subsequently Engadget has relayed these news as iPad has halved laptop sales, claims Best Buy CEO [Sept 17], while Wired went as far as declaring Best Buy Chief: iPad Cannibalizes Laptop Sales by 50% [Sept 17].

2. Microsoft has already a well developed “multiplatform” strategy for its Software + Services approach. Look at their latest summary of Microsoft cloud computing & cloud services – So much more than just BPOS [Aug 23]. Microsoft Office Web Apps and Windows Live Essentials are the most visible manifestations of the AJAX multiplatform technology underlying these applications. We know only – in fact for almost two years already – that a C# to JavaScript tool, called Script# is an essential part of that. And there are continuous improvements in both set of applications, see the MSDN blog of the Microsoft Office Web Apps team, as well as the Inside Windows Live and the Windows Live for Developers blogs.

While the current Office Web Apps (an only 2:37 long video) has much more functionality than the current Office Mobile version we should understand that the highly portable AJAX code beneath Office Web Apps could relatively easily be tweaked for any strategic smartphone or media tablet/pad platform.

3. The current Windows 7 platform will stay with x86 only as has been shown in my posts here: Microsoft strengths for the PC -> cloud transition [June 27] and Windows slates in the coming months? Not much seen yet [July 13]. At the same time there are a number of indications that the next Windows 8 platform might extend to the ARM architectures as well. All the speculations are based on the fact that Microsoft Licenses ARM Architecture [July 23]. Interpretations are abound. See: New Microsoft, ARM licensing agreement; Could a Windows Phone tablet be coming? [July 23 with updates], or a digest of several of them: What can Microsoft do with ARM chips? [July 23].

4. Internet Explorer will be even more closely tied to the Windows platform, so Microsoft’s browser will not become multiplatform as per Sinofsky on IE9, Windows Live, and more (Q&A) [Sept 16]:

Browsing is the thing that a lot of people do, obviously. What we really wanted to make sure of is that when you get Windows you get the very, very best browsing experience, period. Among all the people who make browsers, we’re uniquely committed to doing a great job for Windows, which is the platform that the vast majority of people use when they are browsing.

We think there is something there and that you shouldn’t be constrained by a least common denominator across operating systems.

It’s a fact that we are not encumbered by trying to do browsers on all of the operating systems that have very small numbers of users. Other people can do that and that’s great, but with that come a set of decisions and a set of hard challenges.

And Windows Live is an essential extension of that:

We think that the combination of Windows plus Windows Live–and of course with the latest Internet Explorer–offers what we think of a complete Windows experience. It connects Windows up with services that you care about and it also provides rich experiences for photos, for movies, and for Messenger. There’s some really exciting and innovative things in it and they also tap into the power of hardware. Movie Maker and Photo Gallery are all hardware accelerated and do a really great job using accelerated video and accelerated graphics in general. It’s that whole complete experience. It’s the things we have been doing in the very immediate term with Windows Live–connecting it up to Facebook and over 100 service providers.

5. In the broad “productivity solutions” space Microsoft is already going multiplatform: Microsoft and Nokia form global alliance to design, develop and market mobile productivity solutions [Aug 12]

… the two companies will begin collaborating immediately on the design, development and marketing of productivity solutions for the mobile professional, bringing Microsoft Office Mobile and Microsoft business communications, collaboration and device management software to Nokia’s Symbian devices. These solutions will be available for a broad range of Nokia smartphones starting with the company’s business-optimized range, Nokia Eseries.

… Next year, Nokia intends to start shipping Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile on its smartphones, followed by other Office applications and related software and services in the future. These will include:
– The ability to view, edit, create and share Office documents on more devices in more places with mobile-optimized versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft OneNote
– Enterprise instant messaging and presence, and optimized conferencing and collaboration experience with Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile
– Mobile access to intranet and extranet portals built on Microsoft SharePoint Server
– Enterprise device management withMicrosoft System Center

Since just a week ago the Microsoft executive in charge of this alliance changed the seats and became Nokia’s new CEO – see: Stephen Elop to join Nokia as President and CEO [Sept 10] – this agreement will not only be carried out in the full but also might significantly be extended in the future. See also a good summary of that turn of events: Will Microsoft And Nokia Team Up To Take On Apple, Google? [Sept 15].

Conclusion: as one could see from the above 5 points Microsoft is already multiplatform or at least multiplatform capable in a number of key application segments, while in the core Windows segment it might become multiplatfrom with the next Windows 8 version.

Be aware of mainland China and Taiwan stronger manufacturing links in ICT

September 2, 2010 12:35 pm / 2 Comments on Be aware of mainland China and Taiwan stronger manufacturing links in ICT

A current article from Knowledge@Wharton is drawing our attention to the fact that mainland China and Taiwan are fast becoming essentially one in the important ICT sector, and this will further increase their global influence. See: Computer Compatriots: Taiwan and China Draw Economically Closer [Sept 1]

We are talking here about things like the already existing fact that more than 90% of notebook and netbook computers manufactured worldwide are from the combined manufacturing bases of Taiwan and mainland China. Things like that will be significantly increased in the future due to the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) that Taiwan and China signed in June.
Important updates:
– ECFA to Further Drive China`s Procurements in Taiwan [Jan 5, 2011]: “Last year China organized 13 official buy-Taiwan groups, which together purchased products worth about US$20 billion. This year the projected groups may focus their purchases of 539 duty-free items as on the ECFA fast-track gainer list. The first group to arrive in 2011 will be from Liaoning, said to be led by provincial governor Chen Zhenggao and slated to arrive in Taiwan in mid-February.”
– Taiwanese Banks Lend Over US$31 B. to Clients in China [Oct 11]: “Some say that large enterprises in Taiwan borrow from domestic banks and then transfer part of the loan to affiliates in China. So, including such transferred loans, China would have borrowed more than NT$1 trillion or US$31.25 billion from Taiwan. However, some say that the value is unknown for the exact amount of loans flowing to Taiwanese firms in China through their parent companies in Taiwan is not tallied.”
– ECFA to Bring Strong Boost to Taiwan`s Economy [Sept 21]: “In its initial period, ECFA calls for the removal of tariffs on more than 800 items on an “early-harvest” list in three stages over a two-year period. The list includes 530 items included at Taiwan’s request (worth an annual US$13.8 billion in shipments to China) and 267 items included at China`s request (worth an annual US$2.86 billion in shipments to Taiwan). ECFA will also further open up cross-straits financial dealings. … Given Taiwan`s growing dependence on the Chinese market, the institutionalization of economic relations across the Taiwan Straits is vital to the continued development of the island`s economy.”
– Cross-Strait Investment Protection Agreement May Be Signed by Year End [Sept 17] — With cross-Taiwan Strait Economic Cooperation Agreement (ECFA) having taken effect, Taiwan and China can start talk on investment protection agreement.
– Taiwan should emulate investment strategies of local governments in China, says Acer founder [Sept 29]: “The Taiwan government has been encouraging international enterprises to set up regional headquarters and R&D centers in Taiwan for a while, but has said more than it has actually done for incentives it offered and promises made. … Shih also recommended that Taiwan-based manufacturers shift some of their resources to own-brand business operations and those related to proprietary intellectual property so as to avoid price competition.”

ECFA is prompting both sides to capitalise on this opportunity. Only the Taiwanese interest is, certainly, well manifested in the public media:
– Ministry [of Economic Affairs in Taiwan] works to attract major ICT and auto firms [July 4]
– Ma expects Taiwan to become a regional trade hub after ECFA [Aug 18]

This is all despite of the current political and economic interests, ties:
– Inconvenient impacts of Taiwan-PRC ECFA [Aug 5]

3d Parties are aiming to capitalise on the opportunity as well, which could only enhance the role of new mainland China and Taiwan cooperation further:
– Beyond Geopolitics – The Case for a Free Trade Accord between Europe and Taiwan [July 8, 70 pages]
– ECFA could open way for EU-Taiwan FTA [July 8]
– ECFA could be Taiwan’s window for trade deals: [a European] think tank [July 29]
– Israel welcomes ECFA as good for business [Aug 26]

Keep in mind, however, that ECFA is quite controversial from general social and public interest point of view. There are even some unexpected contradictions for outside observers unaware of the peculiarities of the “internal” situation. To demonstrate that, here is a notable exerpt from Taiwan: Let’s go poking around under the rock of ECFA [Aug 24] blog post, written after the Legislation Yuan of Taiwan approved the ECFA agreement on August 17:

After Hong Kong signed CEPA, it has become the city with the largest wealth inequality in the world. We don’t want an ECFA that let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Some general background information on the “players” and the “play” (not ECFA in particular):

– Taiwan: About Taiwan [April 11, 2008]

Over the past 20 years, Taiwan has become the world’s fourth largest ICT (Information and Communication Technology) hardware producer and holds #1 ranking WW ICT product market share with more than 10 particular products (e.g. Notebook PC, Desktop PC, Computer Motherboard, Computer Server, CDT monitor, LCD monitor, Optical Disk Drive, Digital Still Camera, WLAN, Mobile Phone, and PDA etc.) By estimation, 75% of PCs installed in the world with Windows OS are produced by Taiwanese IT companies. Today, the entire production base has mostly migrated to mainland China due to low cost in labor and land factors. However, the Taiwanese entrepreneurs are dominating at least 75% of the ICT hardware production value produced in the PRC (People’s Republic of China). Impressively, Taiwan is also the fourth largest semiconductor industry in the world. Naturally, Taiwan is a major procurement center (One-Stop-Shopping) for global ICT companies.

– Taiwan [from wikipedia]
– Distinctive Characteristics of China’s Path of ICT Development: A Critical Analysis of Chinese Developmental Strategies in Light of the Eastern Asian Model [May 12, 2008]
– Adapting to the China Challenge: Lessons from experienced multinationals [Sept 20, 2007]
– Sons of The Yellow Emperor Go Online: The State of the Chinese Digital Diaspora [July 2, 2010]

SoC advances for client, server and mobile basestation level

August 25, 2010 10:48 am / 1 Comment on SoC advances for client, server and mobile basestation level

Hot Chips 22 (for now, later at Archives) has shown for the first time that System-on-Chip (SoC) technologies are moving beyond their usual realm of relatively small performance and/or dedicated applications, right into the leading edge mainstream.

Update #2:
– Acer adopts AMD CPU for tablet PCs [Nov 25]

Among Acer’s announced initial batch of tablet PCs, a 10.1-inch Windows 7-based model is believed to use AMD’s Ontario APU codenamed C-50, according to sources from notebook players.

… The dual-core C-50 APU, which consumes only 9W of power, is currently priced at about US$55-60 and includes an integrated Radeon HD 6250 graphics chip [and also UVD dedicated hardware acceleration for HD video including 1080p resolutions, see later].

– Live and interact in total mobility — Tablets according to Acer [Nov 23]:

… support of its goal to simplify content consumption – a strategy which began with the development of Acer’s multimedia sharing system, Clear.fi. Acer’s strategy is based on the concept of sharing multimedia content and enjoying it across any device, and Tablets are ideal devices for this purpose.

A 10.1” Android tablet for a superb mobile and home entertainment experience … Designed for HD entertainment, this tablet comes with a high resolution, high color contrast display, allowing you to play or share HD video with your friends wherever you are. … Available April 2011

7” Android Tablet: the epitome of mobility … On the 7” (1280×800) 16:10 aspect ratio full touch screen, you can enjoy games, photos, videos while keeping up with your emails or your favourite social networks. Video chat or record a video with the front-facing HD camera. With HDMI support, hooking it up for a big screen video experience is easyier than ever! … Available April 2011

10.1” Windows Tablet: Versatility in a tablet form factor … an extremely innovative solution that combines touch screen user-friendliness with the comfortable experience of a physical keyboard. In fact, the tablet comes with a docking device that includes a full-size keyboard and more connectivity options to enhance the user experience. … Thin and light (only 15 mm and less than 1kg), and with a 10.1”, high resolution display, it’s easy to carry around and really unobtrusive. This tablet ensures outstanding entertainment and a superior touch experience. … Available February 2011

– Acer debuts 10.1-inch Windows 7 tablet: AMD-powered, inbuilt 3G, coming February 2011 [Nov 23]

Update #1: AMD’s upcoming SoCs first described on Hot Chips 22 are hybrid CPUs/GPUs called by AMD Accelerated Processing Units (APUs)
– AMD Benchmarks Zacate APU [Sept 13]:

… the parts that will begin shipping in Q4 2010: Zacate for mainstream notebooks (18W TDP) and Ontario for netbooks (9W TDP).

Both APUs will have a pair of low-power Bobcat cores and an AMD DX11 GPU. AMD isn’t publicly confirming how many cores the GPU side will have but both will share the same die manufactured on TSMC’s 40nm process.

AMD’s 9W Ontario part clearly goes after Atom in the netbook space (and Bobcat’s out-of-order architecture should ensure performance success), Zacate is going to go after the ~$500 mainstream notebook market. To prove its point AMD setup a Core i5 notebook and a Zacate test platform running City of Heroes at the same settings …

– AMD’s Zacate APU Performance Update [Sept 15]:

… AMD gave us full access to the Zacate platform to do whatever we wanted. AMD wanted us to be completely comfortable with the Zacate comparison. We downloaded the Batman Arkham Asylum demo off of Steam and loaded it on both the Zacate and Core i5 systems.

… The actual gameplay was noticeably quicker on Zacate and the numbers show a 45% performance advantage. This is huge. To sanity check that data we fired up City of Heroes on both machines and played around with them. … On average we saw a 55% improvement over the Core i5 system. … AMD wanted to highlight the DirectCompute performance of Zacate and let us publish the first results from the platform running the N-Body Simulation benchmark: 23 GFLOPS on Zacate and 8.8 GFLOPS on Intel Core i5-520M.

… At the end of the day my take on Zacate (and Ontario) hasn’t changed: these two APUs have the potential to make the low end netbook/notebook market interesting again.

The most glaring examples of the learnings on the Hot Chips 22 were:

Lifting the veil on the hybrid processor-graphics chip in the new Xbox 360 [Aug 23]. This SoC technology has enabled the new Xbox 360 S device’s power consumption and noise significantly reduced, not to speak of the price, which is now $200 for a 4GB version. Because of this Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 S [is a] smash hit, although some are questioning the durability of this trend, attributing it rather to previous Xbox replacements and expecting the bigger trend of the video game industry being down to come into play later. See: Xbox 360 Sales Surge, but Is It an Anomaly? [Aug 16].

AMD Discloses Bobcat & Bulldozer Architectures at Hot Chips 2010 [Aug 24]. These are brand new architecture cores which soon will be integrated into different SoCs, with sub 1 W Bobcat coming into the Ontario SoC (with a yet undisclosed GPU core) aimed at netbooks, ultra-low voltage tablet (slate etc.) and notebook devices the earliest. This might happen by the end of the year, or in Q1 2011.
More information:
– AMD update from IFA 2010 [Sept 6]:

AMD plans to ramp production here in 2010, with systems available in early 2011. So here at IFA 2010, we’re both demonstrating the capabilities of low-power AMD Fusion APUs, and providing a little more information on the individual products. “Brazos” is the codename for the notebook, netbook and desktop platforms that will be built from the APU. But the APU itself comes in two flavors based on performance and (low) power draw:

An 18-watt TDP APU codenamed “Zacate” for ultrathin, mainstream, and value notebooks as well as desktops and all-in-ones.

And a 9-watt APU codenamed “Ontario” for netbooks and small form factor desktops and devices.

Both low-power APU versions feature two “Bobcat” x86 cores and fully support DirectX11, DirectCompute (Microsoft programming interface for GPU computing) and OpenCL (cross-platform programming interface standard for multi-core x86 and accelerated GPU computing). Both also include UVD dedicated hardware acceleration for HD video including 1080p resolutions.

– AMD’s Bobcat mobile architecture will play it straight [Aug 27]: “Bobcat will smoke Atom clock-for-clock in raw performance, but the performance per watt picture is a bit less clear. This is because it is quite apparent that AMD will have a harder time keeping its power consumption down than Intel does with Atom. … Bobcat is more of a threat to Atom in the netbook and laptop segments than it is in the kinds of appliance-type niches that Intel is now aiming its Atom-based SoCs at. And nobody is going to try to squeeze Bobcat into a smartphone form factor anytime soon”.
– AMD Bobcat & Bulldozer Hot Chips Presentations Online [Aug 25],
– AMD Sets New Mark in x86 Innovation with First Detailed Disclosures of Two New Core Designs [AMD press release, Aug 24],
– AMD Bulldozer and Bobcat Hot Chips Press Kit [Aug 24]
– ”Bulldozer” 20 Questions, Round One [AMD, Aug 23]
– Keeping AMD’s 2011 Code-Names Straight [Aug 24]
– AMD’s Bulldozer Architecture Preview: New from the Ground Up [Aug 24]
– AMD Heats VISION – Hot Chips 22 [Aug 24]

Mindspeed to Present Next Generation of 4G Base Station Technology at HOT CHIPS 22 Conference [Mindspeed press release, Aug 23]. Here the essence is:

“3G and 4G network operators are looking to migrate to a more flexible cellular landscape, which can accommodate compact base stations, such as microcells, picocells and metro femtocells. Mindspeed has designed the Transcede family of baseband processors to enable tomorrow’s network architects to deploy powerful 4G macrocells and ‘small cells,’ which are built on a common framework.”

Launched earlier this year at the 2010 Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain, the Transcede family of SoCs integrates an unprecedented 26 programmable processors into a single device, including two ARM^(R) Cortex A9^(R) multi-core symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processors, ten CEVA^(R) digital signal processors (DSPs) and ten DSP accelerators that support the complete wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA), LTE or WiMAX (Layers 1, 2 and above) processing needs of single- and multi-sector base stations.

More information:
– Transcede 4000 Series Product Brief [Jan 24]
– Documentation

Undermining E-Ink and single-purpose E-readers

August 23, 2010 1:16 pm / 3 Comments on Undermining E-Ink and single-purpose E-readers

The Mobile Broadband reality by Akamai

July 29, 2010 9:02 pm / 1 Comment on The Mobile Broadband reality by Akamai

Akamai, the leading CDN, has just released Q1 2010 report on the state of the Internet [July 23] which contains quite interesting actual information on average and average maximum connection speeds from 109 mobile carriers around the world. Only networks where Akamai believes that the entire system is mobile were included.

Note: Akamai defines these speeds as follows:

The “average maximum connection speed” metric represents an average of the maximum measured connection speeds across all of the unique IP addresses seen by Akamai from a particular geography. The average is used in order to mitigate the impact of unrepresentative maximum measured connection speeds. In contrast to the average measured connection speed, the average maximum connection speed metric is more representative of what many end-user Internet connections are capable of. (This includes the application of so-called speed boosting technologies that may be implemented within the network by providers, in order to deliver faster download speeds for some larger files.)

Akamai considers a provider having broadband level service when the average connection speed is more than 2 Mbps. From this point of view it is quite interesting that the countries mentioned as being in the forefront of 3.75G (HSPA+) and 3.9G (LTE) implementation (see: “4G” WiMAX vs. 3.75G HSPA+ [July 24] and WiMAX/WiBro <=> TD-LTE and LTE in general [June 28]) had in Q1 much less than that “broadband level” average connection speeds. Moreover, out of 7 results 6 are somewhat lower than 1 Mbps and only one is somewhat higher than 1 Mbps:

Country	Provider	Average (Kbps)	Maximum Average (Kbps)
Japan	JP-1	946	4180
Norway	ND-1	867	3121
	ND-2	867	3121
	ND-2	1186	3875
United States	US-1	846	1912
	US-2	829	2103
	US-3	979	2496

Please note that Akamai is not providing the names of providers. Considering their “mobile only” rule for inclusion it is obvious that Japan’s one entry could very likely be NTT DOCOMO (because it is the largest), as well as that one Norway’s two entries could probably be Telenor. At the same time it is quite obvious that TeliaSonera is definitely missing here since there is no entry for Sweden (and also because TeliaSonera is not a “mobile only” company). On the other hand it is quite obvious that Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile US could well be one of the three US “mobile only” operators included into the Akamai report. (Note: Akamai has included only 3 operators when in a country were more than that.)

It is also interesting to compare these countries in the forefront of 3.75G-3.9G to less well developed countries. I’ve chosen for that the so called Eastern European countries and added to them Austria being in quite close geographic proximity. In addition marked those which were above the numbers of “forefront countries’” with red-ink. As one could see there are quite a few cases when the numbers are higher.

Country	Provider	Average (Kbps)	Maximum Average (Kbps)
Austria	AT-1	2553	10769
	AT-2	1886	6292
Croatia	HR-1	931	3567
Czech Republic	CZ-1	626	2588
	CZ-2	415	2024
	CZ-3	1320	3561
Estonia	EE-1	611	2775
Hungary	HU-1	1145	5315
	HU-2	1280	5037
Lithuania	LT-1	1203	5516
	LT-2	760	3205
Moldova	MD-1	730	2858
	MD-2	1269	4907
Poland	PL-1	3444	10298
	PL-2	750	2947
	PL-3	508	2637
Romania	RO-1	375	1899
Russia	RU-1	4248	13686
	RU-2	586	1933
	RU-3	498	1570
Slovakia	SK-1	105	418
	SK-2	2225	6112
	SK-3	7175	20394
Slovenia	Sl-1	1074	5514
Ukraine	UA-1	175	569

Akamai has noted this as well when doing worldwide evaluation of the results when one Slovak provider (SK-3) came atop (they have excluded the UK-3 provider having the highest result “due to their suspected usage of a mobile gateway architecture, which inflated their calculated per IP address usage”). Akamai has made the following remark related to that:

However, it must be noted that a number of mobile network providers make heavy use of mobile gateways and proxies that will result in higher average and average maximum speeds being calculated by Akamai, as these speeds reflect gateway/proxy-to-Akamai communications rather than mobile device-to-Akamai communications. (These top providers may be making use of such an architecture.) Akamai is investigating methods of mitigating the impact of these gateways/proxies on the source data sets that will be used for future editions of the State of the Internet report.

Let’s see the what kind of networks those Eastern European providers have:

• Austria: 1 with HSPA+ @ 42 Mbps, 1 with HSPA+ @ 21Mbps, 2 with HSPA @ 7.2 Mbps (all with HSUPA)
• Croatia: 1 with HSPA+ @ 21Mbps, 1 with HSPA @ 7.2 Mbps, 1 with HSDPA @ 1.8 Mbps (the first two with HSUPA)
• Czech Republic: 1 with HSPA @ 14.4 Mbps, 2 with HSPA @ 7.2 Mbps (two with HSUPA)
• Estonia: 2 with HSPA+ @ 21Mbps, 2 with 1 with HSPA @ 7.2 Mbps (the first two with HSUPA)
• Hungary: 1 with HSPA @ 14.4 Mbps, 1 with HSPA @ 7.2 Mbps (all three with HSUPA)
• Lithuania: 3 with HSPA @ 7.2 Mbps (tw0 with HSUPA)
• Moldova: 1 with HSPA+ @ 21Mbps, 1 with HSPA @ 14.4 Mbps, 1 with HSPA @ 7.2 Mbps (the first one with HSUPA)
• Poland: 3 with HSPA+ @ 21Mbps, 2 with HSPA @ 7.2 Mbps (four with HSUPA)
• Romania: 2 with HSPA+ @ 21Mbps, 2 with HSPA @ 7.2 Mbps (three with HSUPA)
• Russia: 1 with HDSPA @ 7.2 Mbps, 1 with HDSPA @ 3.6 Mbps, 1 with HDSPA @ 1.8 Mbps (none with HSUPA)
• Slovakia: 2 with HDSPA @ 1.8 Mbps (one with HSUPA)
• Slovenia: 1 with HSPA @ 7.2 Mbps, 1 with HDSPA @ 3.6 Mbps, 1 with HDSPA @ 1.8 Mbps (the first one with HSUPA)
• Ukraine: 1 with HDSPA @ 3.6 Mbps
Source: HSPA Operator Commitments survey by GSA [June 30] (registration required)

Please note that only those marked with red-ink have mobile technologies which might explain their (sometimes much) better results.

Final conclusion? Only one I could draw from this: the current networks of “forefront countries” should indeed be more congested than some of the mobile networks of even Eastern European countries. This means that they should indeed be in the forefront of 3.75G and 3.9G adoption!

E Ink: Consolidated revenues, December 2010 (NT$b)
December	M/M	Y/Y	2010	Y/Y
3.68	12.32%	136.02%	25.179	56.69%

Month	Sales	Y/Y	Month	Sales	Y/Y	Month	Sales	Y/Y	Month	Sales	Y/Y
Sep-10	1,567	6.6%	Jun-10	1,068	(0.2%)	Mar-10	1,268	77.6%	Dec-09	1,314	108%
Aug-10	1,141	(15.3%)	May-10	1,243	45.8%	Feb-10	1,186	102.4%	Nov-09	1,558	263.8%
Jul-10	982	(27.5%)	Apr-10	1,042	13.8%	Jan-10	1,262	154.6%	Oct-09	1,301	128.3%
Q3CY10	3,690		Q2CY10	3,353		Q1CY10	3,716		Q4CY09	4,173

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