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Hardware ARM Plans to Enter Netbook, MID CPU Market
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - November 13, 2008 12:50 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 38 comment(s) - last by Headfoot.. on Nov 19 at 12:54 PM
ARM says that netbooks and MIDs are a natural evolution for the company

The top dog in the netbook and mobile internet device (MID) market as far as CPUs go right now is hands down Intel's Atom CPU. The Atom powers the vast majority of netbook systems on the market. Other CPU makers have their eyes on the netbook market, which is one of the best performing and fastest growing segments in the computer industry.

Laptop Magazine reports that ARM has plans to enter into the netbook and MID category with its processors. ARM's processors already power mobile devices that are optimized for performance and power savings. One of the most popular devices to run an ARM processor is the iPhone. Intel recently criticized the ARM processor used in the iPhone calling it slow.

According to Laptop, ARM feels that moving into the netbook and MID category is a natural evolution for the company. ARM has an architecture that is already delivering optimized web browsing, high-quality video and low power demands in mobile phones.

ARM director of strategic software alliances Kerry McGuire told Laptop, "Our platform can provide not only high performance but all-day battery life and advanced video functionality. We can provide maximum power saving."

Possibly the biggest issue ARM will have to contend with are operating system choices its CPU architecture offers. ARM is readying an Ubuntu Linux ARM distribution that could power a netbook. The catch is that some netbook manufacturers say that return rates for machines running Linux are much higher than return rates for those running Windows.

ARM points out that its CPUs have a history of working with Windows CE and Windows Mobile.


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UGH.....
By cbmeeks on 11/14/2008 8:10:11 AM , Rating: 3
Why does the iPhone get SO much attention.

"One of the most popular devices to run an ARM processor is the iPhone"

Er....have we forgotten a little company called Nintendo?

How many iPhones have sold? 10 million?

According to Wikipedia (I know I know), the DS has TWO ARM processors and the DS has sold 84.33M units. So that would be over 160M ARMs sold for the DS. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_ds)

Then, the GBA has an ARM and has sold 81.36M units (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Advance).

So that's 168.66M (DS) + 81.36M = 250.02M ARMS sold due to Nintendo.

But yet, the iPhone is "One of the most popular devices to run an ARM processor"....I don't know. Maybe it's number 2 but it's a DISTANT number 2.

:-P

cbmeeks




RE: UGH.....
By michael2k on 11/14/2008 10:07:56 AM , Rating: 2
Um, yeah. Hello, talking about MIDs and netbooks here? iPhone has a 412MHz ARM cpu, DS has a 67MHz and 33MHz ARM cpu.

Oh, and Apple has shipped over 200m ARMs too. You know, the iPod?


RE: UGH.....
By cbmeeks on 11/14/2008 12:51:23 PM , Rating: 2
Ah...didn't think of the iPods. But to say the "iPHONE" is one of the most popular ARM devices is just wrong.

Besides, 200M iPods sounds a little high to me...maybe it's true.

And speed has nothing to do with the comment made. I was referring to the iPhone comment. Not the speed of the iPhone vs DS.


RE: UGH.....
By michael2k on 11/14/2008 4:28:18 PM , Rating: 2
Well, the point is if we are talking about Netbooks and MIDs, the DS and Gameboy don't compete. If you want to expand the discussion to the DS and Gameboy, then the iPod also applies because it has contacts, calendars, notes, and other PDA like features.

So either we limit ourselves to the higher powered devices, or we include iPods in the discussion.


RE: UGH.....
By Yawgm0th on 11/14/2008 11:49:12 AM , Rating: 2
As per michael2k's post, other ARM devices are really not in the same market.

However, what about Blackberry and WM6 phones with ARM processors? Those surely outnumber the iPhone in market penetration, and many WM6 smartphones and some of the newer Blackberry offerings certainly outclass the iPhone in both sales and productivity. I'll give kudos to many of the interface innovations of the iPhone, but I'll take a WM6 smartphone or one of the newer Blackberrys any day. Better hardware design, more features, better features, more reliable, faster, etc. The iPhone just has better name recognition due to the typical Apple fad.

In fairness to the OP here, the article doesn't specify phone or smartphone or MID. It's just sort of an irrelevant factoid about ARM being thrown out there to fill space.


RE: UGH.....
By michael2k on 11/14/2008 12:25:40 PM , Rating: 2
Actually, they don't The latest sales figures say the iPhone outsells almost everyone and is second to the Nokia phones worldwide:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/cell-phones/?p=229

So we really are talking about the iPhone outselling netbooks handily by nearly 100%. There are already ARM cores that scale to 900MHz with greater speeds in the pipeline. Performance is not the problem, getting someone to build a MID/netbook is :)


RE: UGH.....
By cbmeeks on 11/14/2008 12:55:30 PM , Rating: 2
Yawgm0th is right. And he gets my point.

The iPhone might be selling more right now...but how many smart phones, PDA's, etc have been sold over the years with ARM processors.

However, I do admit, the iPhone has probably out sold any ONE type of phone. Like maybe the iPhone has sold more than the Motorola Q but Apple probably hasn't sold more phones than Motorola or Nokia. (just as an example..not sure how many Q's were sold or even if the Q has an ARM).


RE: UGH.....
By michael2k on 11/14/2008 4:20:15 PM , Rating: 2
Maybe I miss your point. Why is it relevant to talk about the number of ARM processors? Apple alone, with the iPod+iPod touch+iPhone, has over 200m ARM cores out there. The iPod is as relevant as a DS, since the processing power is similar.

The iPhone CURRENTLY (not cumulatively) outsells just about every phone except Nokia, worldwide. If it can keep that up for a number of quarters then it will have outsold (cumulative) all other phones. Let us put it this way: RIM shipped 14m BlackBerries last year, meaning it took them 9 years to ramp up to that level.

Apple will probably ship close to 14m iPhones this year, ramping up from 3 million in 2007. Which means approximately 30m Blackberries are out there right now, which actually isn't that much since it is very likely that Apple will have 30m iPhones in the wild by this time next year.

And that is their #2 competitor (their #1 is Nokia).

So the iPhone has more units out there than HTC and Motorola, already, and will have more units than Palm very shortly, followed by BlackBerry, and in two years Windows Mobile. That last point is important because Windows Mobile 7 won't be available until 2010! Of course someone COULD release an iPhone killer, but again, that never happened with the iPod until Apple released the iPhone.


RE: UGH.....
By Yawgm0th on 11/16/2008 6:42:14 AM , Rating: 2
What we're talking about, and what is somewhat relevant to the article, is the existing number of ARM-based mobile phones. Because mobile phones tend to have some of the faster ARM processors out there, they are one of the most relevant technologies. Of course I still agree with the point that they are not relevant because the hardware and purpose is so different from a netbook, so that is only a small reason to bring up phones instead of the many other ARM-based devices.

However, the point of this sub-topic is that of phones to mention, naming the iPhone specifically -- at least in this context -- doesn't make sense. Yes, it is a great fad and has nice sales numbers currently, but for ARM-based mobile phones, restricted to smartphones or not, it is a tiny spec of what's currently out there.

I'm not going to go to the effort to try to see how many total phones for various models have been sold. I doubt there are any easy-to-find statistics for anything (except maybe the iPhone, ironically). What we do know is how many phones the iPhone has sold in total after only two short years, and those numbers are impressive. But remember, the point is phones that are out there now, not phones that are selling now.

Many other popular phone models have existed, some sold in huge volume (thinking the cheapo phone you get for free with a contract) and lasting for several years before retirement. I highly doubt that the iPhone or iPhone 3G has the single highest market penetration simply because of how short a period of time they've been sold. High sales over a few quarters don't compare to high sales over nearly a decade, which is what we're talking about with most other phone manufacturers.

quote:
So the iPhone has more units out there than HTC and Motorola
No, no, no. HTC has been making ARM-based cell phones for nearly seven years and for most of that time has sold millions of units per quarter. Going by some very conservative multiplication, HTC has well over 50 million phones out there, regardless of how many are still in use. I don't even want to begin to look into Motorola's history, but I can guarantee you it has a much deeper market penetration than Apple.

Also, Apple's place in the chain whether you go by OS or manufacturer is by revenue, not by quantity. In terms of quantity, 14 million is paltry in a world with 100s of millions (billions?)of cell phones. Apple is probably fairly far down on the list in terms of quantity of phones sold and selling right now. Blackberry, HTC, and an WM-based phones will be as well. Smartphones are expensive and unnecessary for most people. Far more people are using cheaper phone. I'd hate to go and figure out what percentage are ARM-based, but I can promise you it's very high.

The whole point is that the article talks about the iPhone specifically, but if going with the topic of cell phones the iPhone is simply a phone that happens to have high sales right now. If the author wanted to make a point about the iPhone being an ARM-based device that has lots of units out, he should have used revenue, not quantity sold. The former is impressive for Apple's standpoint; the latter is not.

I think we can all agree that referencing the iPhone in this article was used a silly excuse to follow it with another slightly more relevant sentence that linked to another DT article.


RE: UGH.....
By michael2k on 11/17/2008 7:07:06 AM , Rating: 2
Okay, so maybe you're underestimating Apple here.

If we are talking about MIDs and Netbooks, Apple has outsold those quite handily. Over 14m iPhones vs 5m Netbooks:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/217917/netbook-sales-t...

So Netbooks are dwarfed by iPhones, not even mentioning other smartphones. That does mean that comparing to other phones that aren't smartphones isn't particularly relevant, as they aren't in the same ballpark. So if we want valid comparisons, we need to look at smartphone only data (such as HTC sales or RIM sales). It's hard to compare numbers, but you can compare revenue since that is published for investors:

Apple, 6.9m iPhones last quarter, $806m revenue (only 1 quarter)
HTC unknown phones the whole of 2007, $3.65b (roughly $987m a quarter)

You're right, HTC has been in business for much longer than Apple, but at the same time the dollar amounts mean that in 15 months Apple has effectively caught up to HTC. Again, comparing to billions of phones has no merit if we're talking smartphones and netbooks, we need to compare to smartphones. 14m iPhones is commanding (on a quarterly basis), since it means it has outsold, for the year, everyone except Nokia.

If Apple can maintain sales (the way it did iPod, 152m iPods in 6.5 years), they WILL outstrip HTC, Motorola, and RIM in less than 3 years; It took 4 years for iPod sales to swell to 6.5m in a quarter, and that is when the cheapest iPod was $199.

Now that iPhones have hit $199 with 2 year contracts, it isn't hard to see Apple tracking similar growth (with similar aggressive price cuts and feature expansion) for the iPhone, we may see sustained 6m numbers every quarter now.

quote:
I think we can all agree that referencing the iPhone in this article was used a silly excuse to follow it with another slightly more relevant sentence that linked to another DT article.


Not at all. Again, if we are talking ARM+Netbooks, then the iPhone is EXTREMELY relevant. iPhones outsell Netbooks 2:1, so for ARM to enter the market competitively only means they need to beef up the CPU iPhones use; if they go from 412MHz to 900MHz without increasing power usage, iPhones will continue to outsell Netbooks for the forseeable future as they will have better battery life, similar usage (web based browsing, minor productivity, minor entertainment), and lower price ($199 for 8gb vs $399 for 8gb)


Total Annihilation anyone?
By AVBN5000 on 11/13/2008 3:00:50 PM , Rating: 2
This is off topic somewhat but I find it funny that some of the names of the companies or products they produce have the names "ARM" or "Core" in them now. I wonder if Chris Taylor knew what was the inevitable many many centuries to come.

Sorry if this makes no sense to non-TA players. Just thought I would throw that out there.




RE: Total Annihilation anyone?
By Flunk on 11/14/2008 1:45:50 AM , Rating: 2
ARM Holdings has been around since before that game was released.


RE: Total Annihilation anyone?
By Headfoot on 11/19/2008 12:48:30 PM , Rating: 2
Totally, absolutely, unequivocally unrelated.

ARM stands for Advanced RISC Machine and previously Acorn RISC Machine.

Core is a word that means central. Central Processing Unit. CPU.


What I want is...
By MonkeyPaw on 11/13/2008 6:47:40 PM , Rating: 2
What I want to see is a very thin, tablet-based netbook, kinda like what we'd see on the newer versions of Star Trek. Think of it as a PDA, only bigger and actually capable of running full-fledged browsers and office suites. Give it good battery life and a stylus for handwriting recognition, and you might finally have a tablet PC that people want. Today tablets are too slow to be a decent PC, and too bulky to be a good tablet. Someone needs to take a leap and toss the keyboard and folding screen.




RE: What I want is...
By elpresidente2075 on 11/13/2008 7:21:39 PM , Rating: 2
Gateway made a great machine based of of some mobile intel parts about 4 years ago. We have it at our office, and it is wonderful, but they stopped making it. The reason being that people wouldn't buy it BECAUSE it had no keyboard.

What needs to come before we can have really good tablet PCs is an input method that is actually intuitive and not based on the hands with which you are holding the unit. I have no suggestions as to what that would be, but that is my opinion as to what needs to happen before that form factor is successful.


RE: What I want is...
By michael2k on 11/13/2008 7:36:46 PM , Rating: 2
Ah, you want the Apple Newton then!

It existed. Not enough people bought them. Apple turned it into the iPhone instead, and now over 10m people have bought them.

Maybe if you wait a couple years they will make a larger iPod touch + stylus.


Why don't they just leave intel alone....
By swizeus on 11/14/2008 7:10:10 AM , Rating: 2
With ARM entering the market, intel's processor will be higher than before (considering the quality) and netbook will be even more expensive. That will be bad for consumer though




By Headfoot on 11/19/2008 12:50:37 PM , Rating: 2
That makes no sense at all.

With more CPU manufacturers people have choice, and then the manufacturers have to COMPETE. This will cause prices to go DOWN not up.


Just so you know
By Suntan on 11/14/2008 9:23:29 AM , Rating: 3
I’ve posted this a couple times before, but in case someone is not aware, there already is an ARM based netbook/umpc available (well sold out at the moment.)

It also happens to have a game pad and analog joysticks built in…

www.openpandora.org

-Suntan




Yeah....
By bhieb on 11/13/2008 1:12:42 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
ARM points out that its CPUs have a history of working with Windows CE and Windows Mobile.

I don't know about "working" they function yes, but WM has always been slow and choppy. Not that I blame arm it is easily MS's fault as well. And yes I have had several WM devices (5 now I think) from early CE to WM5 and WM6.