- Saturday, 21 November 2009
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Intel says it will be MID king
RESPONDING TO ARM's efforts to muscle its way into the world of mobile computing, Pankaj Kedia, Intel's MID(dle) man, recently spoke to the INQ about the firm's plans to stand its ground, with Moorestown the key weapon in its arsenal.
Kedia, who spends much of his time working with companies to promote Intel's silicon, was particularly excited about Chipzilla's recent partnership with LG Electronics to release a Moorestown based mobile internet device (MID) running Moblin 2.0.
"Moorestown will give you the opportunity not only to experience the Internet in its full glory but will also have voice capability" said Kedia, adding "I call it the ‘Next Smartphone', the smart smartphone". According to Kedia, Intel's smartphone will have it all; Internet, gaming, personal navigation, multimedia, the full Monty.
Kedia was a bit secretive when it came to divulging the specs of Intel's new platform, but after the INQ threatened him with a Chinese burn, he conceded to say Moorestown guzzled only a tenth of the power Menlow does, attributing this to re-architecturing and repartitioning as well as Langwell's board-level power management.
"We have a lot of intelligence and innovation in Lincroft and in Langwell" he said adding Langwell was capable of controlling the system - including display, storage, etc - in a way which also allowed it to switch things off if they weren't being used.
Moorestown is slated for launch by 2010 but Kedia would not be drawn into telling us when LG's MID might be hitting shelves, simply repeating that it would be "by 2010" and that the firms had been working on the device for over a year already.
The INQ then asked Kedia if Intel was really ready to go head to head with ARM.
"We are not targeting the phone space as the mainstream phone space" he answered, emphasising Intel's primary focus was to deliver computing, performance and "rich Internet based services" to the next generation of smartphone. "We happen to deliver voice because users want it, but the focus is on the smarts" claims Kedia.
When we pointed out he hadn't actually answered our question, Kedia decided to hedge his bets, simply stating "it remains to be seen whether firms like Arm can deliver Internet and computing as well in these kinds of spaces".
Of course, it wasn't long before Kedia decided to pull the magic "compatibility" word out of his Intel hat, telling the INQ the firm was committed to bringing its x86 software compatibility to the MID space. This, he claimed, would allow users to "run the Internet in its entirety, all the websites, all the video codecs, all of the plugins, all of the image formats" on a pocketable device.
"ARM, in general, is not compatible at the architectural level and is not compatible at the implementation level" said Kedia who went a step further to add "Arm 9 to Arm 11 is not instruction set compatible. That's a fact!"
We put it to Kedia that even if ARM didn't pose too much of a threat to Intel, the MID market hardly seemed poised to take off in a big way, so what was all the fuss about?
Kedia answered the Internet was still something of a tethered experience and was still in the very early stages of getting unleashed.
"It took 15 years to go from zero to 100 million cell phones" he said, adding that from 1998 until today, the mobile market had leapt from 100 million devices to 1.3 billion devices globally. Kedia reckoned MID adoption would happen much faster, saying "It will happen in three to four years, not 15 years. We are in year one, year two".
What about pricing? we asked. Would MIDs, the PC in your pants, be super expensive, super-smart phonebooks or would they be cheaper than cheap dumb-books? Kedia's answer: "Different target user, different product".
Well, that narrows it down a bit, doesn't it? µ
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I'm not a computer programmer, and I definitely don't know much about Java or Flash, but I'm pretty sure HTML doesn't much care what architecture it's processed on. I'm guessing it's the same thing for the other two.
Unless there's something I'm majorly misunderstanding, the Intel dude is talking out of his hat. Intel chips MIGHT be a better fit than ARM chips, but I call BS on this whole "the Internet is x86-based" idea.
Just as a corollary, Internet sites are mostly run by Linux-based servers, so Windows and Apple stuff shouldn't be able to cope, right? Except they do cope.
I guess he's alluding to the fact that things like the Flash plug-in for ARM are somewhat behind their x86 counterparts version-wise, so ARM users are indeed currently denied a certain amount* of what's on the web. It would take quite a big market-share turnaround by ARM and others to persuade Adobe et al to prioritise them any more than at present.
* What that certain amount is (or whether it's any sad loss) is questionable, obviously.
What he means is try running You Tube on an Arm based system or an Iphone for that matter. You quicly understand why sites like that and others require an x86 based system.
1) Full Flash is already in the works for ARM and Adobe have press released as much.
2) ARM9 (generally ARMv5TE) and ARM11 (ARMv6) processors are fully instruction set compatible. This Intel droid clearly has no clue about the ARM architecture.
3) The YouTube application on an iPhone works just fine. On other ARM based systems YouTube via the web will work just fine when Adobe release the full Flash 10 ARM port.
X86 compatible means it will run like a dog, at least that has been the experience heretofor. Also applications aren't compatible from one company's version of ARM to others from what I understand. But will be interesting as ARm products enter this category of products. Experience has how with Netbooks that there is a high return of Linux based systems because people couldn't run their favorite Windows apps, lets see if this is the same in the mid market.
even though we have PPC Apples and x86 PCs in the family, Youtube is very rarely used even on those. (note Flash runs on PPC OSX so the Intel guy is plain wrong!).
I regularly use my (have no idea what the CPU is) cheapo java MIDP phone with gmail, gmaps and opera mini to fully access everything I need on the internet.
There are nearly 2.5 billion java phones not 1.3 billion. (the Intel guy must be quoting an old report there).
My definitely not x86 phone is fantastic.
Note: back in 1999, I had a Nokia communicator with AMD x86 cpu in it running the Nokia GEOS operating system and back then I could access email, read word documents etc on the device, and I could surf the web, and VNC into work and control servers.
This guy is just trying to drum up some business for Intel's future product, but this "full internet experience" feature will mean nothing to most people. Very definitely rates as "meh".
Nobody wants to read just plain HTML now-a-days. They want to see dynamic content, which requires plugins, and watch videos and animations. These run like the "Slowskys" on ARM platforms -- be in Blackberry or iPhone. In fact, my annoying Blackberry doesn't even respond to simple key presses or scrolling often.
So x86 performance and plugin compatibility matters.
Also most of the world still browses the internet most of the time on their PC, not phones. So most plugins will continue to launch for x86 first, then ARM.
The open questions are battery life, OS (Moblin) compatibility, form factor etc. But for performance/compatibility, x86 vs. ARM is a no brainer in favor of x86.
Let's be perfectly honest here. Windows is primarily an x86/x64 Operating system with ia64 as a minor, MINOR player.
If Intel puts their muscle behind this and actually succeed the second time around (yes, this is Intel's second attempt; remember the XScale CPU?) then ARM will find themselves quickly pushed out of their cash cow market. Remember what runs on x86: WINDOWS
If ARM is going consider being a contender 5-10 years down the road in the mobile and MID market, they need to:
License the x86 instruction set and "join the crowd" - which is a win-win for Intel from a licensing and market acceptance perspective
OR
CLOSELY Partner with Microsoft and compile Windows on ARM as a full-fledged product (not Win Embedded, CE, or Mobile) and do it FAST. This solution could position ARM as *the* contender in the MID market to reckon with while simultaneously creating opportunities that didn't exist because you couldn't run Windows on ARM. Intel would fear this more than anything. Competition is great!
Or do both.
I can only hope Windows-on-ARM is a future possiblity. Linux won't win it for AIM in the majority of the world.
x86 is too complex to ever run on as little power as ARM. Windows compatibility is irrelevant in this space, which is why Linux has been able to capture 20% of the netbook market, and is only likely to increase its share once Microsoft finally phases out XP and starts trying to charge full price for Windows 7.
Interesting times ahead, indeed.
I agree with the above comments, I think ARM will dominate the Smart-book market, just as it currently dominates the mobile communication industries. Companies such as Nokia, LG, Dell and Sharp are on the final stage of releasing a new Smart-book.
ARM will next challenge Intel core business, which is Laptop, desktop and servers and are in a very good position to take over Intel as a dominant player in the chip market.
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