Re: Intel and Embedded Computers
> Paul Engel writes:
>As a point of fact, Intel is extremely active and successful in the
>embedded processor market.
>
> [...lots of great antecdotal evidence deleted...]
>
Thanks for the insight into where Intel has penetrated the embedded computer market. I didn't know about HP printers -- my views on the i960 (unfortunately) were formed during the period that Microsoft rejected it for NT development after many frustrations with it.
When I last looked (admittedly, quite a while ago), I thought that Intel's competitors had much more market share (in units shipped in a given period) than Intel. Do you, or anyone, know what the share is recently?
> [...Regarding the NC as it is currently defined....]
I apologize -- I must have written this part of my original reply very badly. I tried to note that it was my personal opinion that NC's would not be successful. You and I seem to agree on many of the reasons that they will not.
>But keep in mind - people need a reason to buy a computer. My >guess is that 70% of households don't want, need, understand or
>care about computers. Some are barely surviving trying to make
>the rent, some are content to watch OPRAH on TV, and some >are satisfied with reading good books (well, a few, maybe).
>Many have no college education.
Let me refine one essential term you used in this paragraph -- that most people don't want, need, etc. a "computer". What you mean here is a "PC" as it is currently defined in the industry. The point I was raising in the earlier posting was that in order to penetrate the
market to the 90% point (which is where telephones and TV's roughly are), something other than what is currently defined as a "PC" today will be needed. As an Intel shareholder, I'd like to see Intel in on that -- but currently I don't see what Intel is doing to define this market and make it their own.
Again -- I don't think this is going to be an NC as it's defined. Perhaps it's going to be convergence of the PC and the TV (a cyclical notion in the industry). Perhaps it's going to be something else. Whatever it is, Intel can either define the market and drive that penetration or they can let someone else do it and lose.
Do I think it's good that Intel hasn't jumped on the NC bandwagon? Yes -- because I personally think it's a flawed concept. But what Intel ***MUST*** do to be successful in the long-term future (next 10-20 years) is to define and own the market that will allow penetration.
Your point that people are uneducated and the like and thus don't want a PC points out that the current PC doesn't define much more than a "product available market (PAM)" of 30% or 40% (or whatever). Great! We agree. Now, the question for Intel is how do they define a product which has a PAM of 90% or more?
I know that this market could possibly need a lot of computer power and could also cater to illiterates -- my four year old son loves his Pentium computer and plays Pinball, Doom, Quake, or whatever -- and he's not reading yet (note: my just turned six year old daughter is literate and she likes it too -- so my "personal market research" says that we have a non-exclusive situation here.
>How mnay of your friends have difficulty setting the time display
>on their VCRs? And you expect these people to saddle up to
>an NC and log onto the net? Oh yeah!
As I mentioned earlier, I wrote (and believe) that NC's will not be successful in their current incarnation -- since their current incarnation consists of a definition much like that of a warmed-over X-terminal which uses HTTP instead of TCP/IP as the core communications methodology.
>A good relative question is this. In 1920, about 20 years after the
>automobile was first produced in the US, did 30% of all families
>have automobiles? In other words, is the PC penetration into
>homes any different than automobile penetration in its ramp
>up cycle?
Paul...you worded this very well...because the analogy holds to what I was trying to say about Intel. Ford dominated this market early on but was defeated by GM when it became rigid in what it sold. This, despite the fact that Ford himself had defined his market much more broadly than the PC is currently targeted towards.
After all of this is said, and we've both bashed the NC, the question might be: what is it that has the potential to have a PAM of 90% or more? The two leading candidates that show very, very, very early promise of the ability to evolve into something like this that I've seen are WebTV and stuff like the PlayStation. They certainly aren't where they should be to do this, but if I were Intel folks I'd be up at night thinking much more about a computing device based on these ideas than I'd worry about Ellison and company's lame NC definition.
Mark |
