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Chip Chatter - Consumer & Converged Devices

I have a lot of back posts to put up over the next few days, but first a current piece from today.

Right away I’ve seen two pieces on chips from big players, tracking with themes I’m developing. First the announcment of the Cell chip, product of joint development efforts of IBM, Sony and Toshiba. This chip is designed for consumer electronics applications targeted at the digital home including Sony’s Playstation and handling video display for high resolution displays. As The Wall Street Journal reports in WSJ.com - IBM, Sony, Toshiba Unveil Chip For Home-Entertainment Sector:

Analysts said the processor might be able to reorient digitized video as it is received to provide views from above or an end-zone view. In other applications, the processing power of Cell might permit a viewer to take a TV character and place him in a videogame, or interact with a commercial to see how a dress would look on an image of herself stored in the system.

(edited 13 Dec) See also The Red Herring blog post which has more info about the Cell chip as well as comments on where it will fit in in the world of consumer electronic devices and games.

The New York Times focuses on Intel and its strategies and challenges ahead with a piece looking forward to Otellini’s ascent to CEO. Most noteworthy for the theme of convergence around multifunction advanced handsets, the piece reports on Otellini’s new strategy of “platformization” — what seems to be Intel focusing less on the hardware attributes of chips but more on the holistic solution. Looking forward to Otellini’s first strategy presentation to Wall Street, The Times expects him to announce Intel’s focus on “four areas for growth: international markets for desktop personal computers, mobile and wireless applications, the digital home, as well as a new initiative aimed at large corporate computing markets that Intel is calling the Digital Office.” We’ll have to wait to see what is shared about the “Digital Office” initiative… that makes me think of Xerox.

Perhaps to underscore this shift, the most innovative part of Intel’s strategy that’s discussed in the article talks about Intel’s investment in Craig McCaw’s wimax startup, Clearwire:

“Voice is going to be free as a result of all of this, which the carriers don’t like to hear, but that’s essentially where it’s going,” he said.

What is in it for Intel? A cellphone-like wireless handset that works seamlessly both inside and outside the home throughout an urban area.

That is a market that could easily mitigate any number of missteps and blunders - potentially a market that would remake the cellular phone world that so far has largely eluded Intel.

“Any market of 600 million small computers is not just important, but it’s critical to us,” Mr. Otellini said.

What I take away from this is more evidence that consumer facing applications are receiving the focus that was formerly centered around the enterprise. I’m going to be posting on this theme quite a bit (including backposts) so I will return to add links later.