AMD's Hondo Chip 'A Windows 8 Product' 229
dgharmon points out comments from AMD's Steve Belt, who was asked about the company's upcoming Hondo APU. Hondo is their biggest attempt to date to break into the tablet market, and they're doing so with a distinct focus on Windows 8. Belt said, "This is a Windows 8 product, only. We're not doing Android on this platform, at least not now. ... It is a conscious decision not to go after Android. We think the Windows 8 space has a lot of opportunity, there's plenty of TAM [total addressable market] there for us to go at. So we don't need to spread ourselves into other markets, we think Windows 8 is a great place to start. Down the road we may look at Android, right now we're focused on Windows 8." The article adds, "With both AMD and Intel readying Hondo and Clover Trail respectively for Windows 8 and pushing their respective customers to come up with designs at roughly the same time, it will be interesting to see just how many Windows RT tablets will appear at the operating system's launch. However one thing is clear, neither AMD nor Intel will have Android x86 tablets running with their respective next generation ultra low voltage chips." Fortunately, there's nothing stopping users and manufacturers from running other OSes on Hondo.
Windows 8 (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Windows 8 is shaping up to be like Vista: An attempt to coerce consumers into buying into a walled garden. PC hardware and software manufacturers have been looking jealously at Apple's profit margin and smacking their lips, wondering how to lock in their own slice of the pie. Vista had a bunch of DRM and other features that were friendly to manufacturers but bad for consumers. I am not convinced Microsoft is even trying to make Windows 8 successful -- I think they know it's going to fail, but they're using it to set the stage for its successor, which will do away with many, but not all, of the bad features of Windows 8.
It's a marketing ploy commonly used elsewhere, but not on such a broad scale. It's like this:
Would you buy this memory card for $100?
Hell no!
Well, how about $30?
Oh, well, that sounds more reasonable.
...It only cost $5 to produce and distribute. It's a negotiating tactic -- you shock them first, then back off to appear more reasonable, but still wind up bilking them for more than they'd pay straight across. It's psychology. I think Windows 8 and it's peripheral products -- like this one, are about psychology. It's conditioning the consumer to accept vendor lock-in. Windows 8 is being thrown under a bus so Windows 9 can be shoved down your throat.
Re:Windows 8 (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista had a bunch of DRM and other features that were friendly to manufacturers but bad for consumers.
In order to judge the relevance of this statement to the rest of your point, I need your answer to the following question: Which of these manufacturer-friendly features of Windows Vista were eliminated from Windows 7?
Re:First Intel, now AMD? (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be my guess as well. Usually, companies say something along the lines of "we have no immediate plans for Linux support" if they're going to focus on a different OS. To rule out future support in advance in such firm words suggests there is some sort of exclusivity bonus.
Re:First Intel, now AMD? (Score:5, Insightful)
The simplest explanation -- that Microsoft is handing over bags of cash to get this Windows 8 exclusivity -- both fits the facts and Microsoft's past behavior. So I'd say, yes.
I just take it as their reaction to Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, two different approaches to the market - and Apple have come romping home the winner.
MS switches to the Apple approach - but I'm just not quite sure it's going to work. IF I personally wanted this experience, I'd be typing this on an Ipad already. If MS think they can out-apple, apple - then good luck to them, but I just don't see it happening (whilst I can see myself getting quite pissed off and giving Linux another punt).
It *is* strategic for x86 vendors... (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider this: x86 on Android is a second class citizen, ARM is better supported by the ecosystem. Intel's trying hard so as not to be left out of the party, but ultimately advancing Android is counter to x86's interests in the near term.
Consider more general Linux: next to no application affinity to a particular processor architecture in the desktop space. All the popular software *today* is pretty much straight from distro and trivial to recompile. The exception being flash, but even Adobe seems to be trying to kill it at this point. Again, x86 vendors are likely not to be excited about advancing that picture of the future. Of course, the other fact of relatively low desktop share attributed to linux.
Finally, Windows. While they are trying to do an ARM strategy this go around, 99% of the reason to run windows is to run applications that, coincidentally, are x86-only. If you make x86 processors for a living, you *want* Windows to win at this point as the alternatives erase your competitive advantage and in fact turn it into a disadvantage. There is also probably some fear that the 'safe' Windows market that has always been x86 constrained getting away from that if MS' ARM effort actually takes hold. The more AMD and Intel do in the near term to be 'kind of like ARM, but with real application support', the more unlikely Windows on ARM is to make an advance.
Re:Windows 8 (Score:4, Insightful)
Vista had a bunch of DRM and other features that were friendly to manufacturers but bad for consumers.
In order to judge the relevance of this statement to the rest of your point, I need your answer to the following question: Which of these manufacturer-friendly features of Windows Vista were eliminated from Windows 7?
And of course the answer is none, actually they introduced more. But their were plenty of irrational articles claiming it was the anti-Christ, and plenty of the non techy crowd like the person your responding to believed all the FUD, Vista sucked, but that had more to do with poor driver support early on and the damned UAC prompted, Win 7 removed those 2 problems and suddenly everything is wonderful.
Jeez, Key Facts Up Front Please (Score:5, Insightful)
When the talking point is "Windows 8, not Android" my first question is "Windows RT or regular Windows?" In other words, is this an ARM chip (as is the case with 90% of Android systems) or an x86 chip? That key fact is buried near the end of the article (x86).
That little detail makes their decision not to support Android initially a lot easier to understand: people who sell Android tablets have all their expertise in ARM, and are not going to be in a hurry to buy an x86 chip.
Re:Windows 8 (Score:5, Insightful)
.. why was this modded down? This is exactly right. The whole industry is pushing right now to get the consumer used to locked in walled garden products. From consoles for games, to closed/half-closed operating systems for cellphones and tablets, to desktop operating systems that dumb down commodity pcs and tie them to services in the same way.
Re:First Intel, now AMD? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually quite a clever strategy by Microsoft. Allow UEFI secure boot to boot other operating systems on x86 systems, then get the processor manufacturers to make it impossible to make a useful(*) port of any other operating systems to new x86 processors.
* Yes, as an x86 processor, other operating systems will run, but if the power management cannot be access by the OS, it isn't going to be a useful port.
Repeating Nokia's mistake? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems as if Intel and AMD are repeating Nokia's mistake in signing on to some exclusivity agreement with Microsoft. Likely to be the only winner in such a deal is the software company, since software has traditionally been the more profitable business.
What may well seal the future of Windows, however, aren't deals with big Western corporations, but Microsoft's ability to shift the low-end players into adopting the OS. The question is, will the generic gadget manufacturers of China willingly abandon the relative freedom they've enjoyed with installing an OS they can already fork and bastardize without seeking the blessings of some big American company?
Maybe it's time for Microsoft to opensource some bare-bones version of Windows, perhaps rewriting it to ensure that installing it on premium hardware is enough of a pain to merit licensing the full OS?
Re:Windows 8 (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)