back to article Cheaper competition? Right, we're outta here

Last month chip maker Broadcom, with hardly a whimper, began disengaging from the smart TV and Blu-Ray player markets, despite having some high profile CE customers such as LG in this sector. Then around three weeks later in mid-October, Intel, with tail between its legs, also announced its withdrawal from the smart TV market …

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  1. Lance 3

    ARM

    But will Intel be able to compete with ARM in the Ultrabook category? The ARM will get better battery life and with what ARM is currently doing, that spells big trouble for Intel. The Atom is just not what is going to do the job. I think ARM or one of their licensees should use the name "Smasher" for one of the big.LITTLE chips and take the fight right to Intel.

    1. Goat Jam
      Unhappy

      Compete with ARM?

      They won't have to do that until Windows comes out on ARM and that could be quite some time because it is becoming clear to me that no mainstream OEM is going to have the balls to release anything with an ARM CPU until they can slap a "Designed for Windows" sticker on the box.

      Quite frankly, I am sick of waiting for ARM kit to arrive.

      I read article after article about the latest and greatest ARM CPU which is all well and good, but until I can actually go out and buy one then it is all just vapourware from my perspective.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Aren't/weren't Broadcom one of the few consumer electronics chipbuilders who hadn't accepted that the future of consumer electronics silicon was almost exclusively ARM?

    E.g. http://www.broadcom.com/products/brands/MIPS

    Broadcom were also ARM licensees, e.g.

    http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/broadcom-and-arm-extend-relationship-with-strategic-licensing-agreement.php

    Would have been nice to know which one was in this picture. Anybody know?

  3. Robert E A Harvey

    These unbrave CEOs will be the death of the west, you mark my words.

  4. Charles Manning

    Its less about chips and more about software

    These days it is getting harder and harder for generic chipset makers to attack markets like this, mainly because the chip is only a small part of the solution.

    These days many phone and consumer appliances are designed by the vendors as a whole turnkey reference design including validated circuitry, software etc. All the product designer has to do is add their branding and maybe do the plastics for the case

    The reference designs typically come from chip makers as a way to get their devices designed in to products. These also tend to lock in the product manufacturers.

    Cracking a new market thus needs a whole lot of expertise in the market. Not something that generic chipset makers can achieve overnight.

  5. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Don't discount MIPS just yet

    There's still a hell of a lot of MIPS-based equipment out there and the chinese x86-workalike (longsoon) is MIPS cored.

    If the market goes single-architecture that leaves as many problems in a few years as there are now, multisourcing of that architecture or not.

  6. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Ah Microsoft and Intel

    A folly a deux.

    Just never call either one of them a monopoly

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