Intel investment in WAVO explained.
The simple question of how can Intel (Intels Intercast product competes with WAVOs WaveTop) actually invest in a 3% stack in Wavephore? The answer is quite simple once you clearly understand what Intel does for a living. Intel's #1 purpose is to sell as many Pentium (x86) chips as possible. The near 60% profit they make on these chips is double the typical profit from software, triple the standard semiconductor take, and quadruple what finished PC makers get to keep. Pentiums (unlike the DX486) belong to Intel, and when AMD and other's try to reverse engineer it, they have a long expensive job ahead of them. Pentiums are long considered the chip of choice for (16bit) Windows, which is used on nearly 80% of PC's the World over.
Now, here's Intels problem: MicroSoft will be running 3 different flavours of Windows this year, and Intel's chip is useful in only 1 of 3. Windows CE (handheld & cableTV/modem) and Windows NT (servers with multi process/thread and "server farm" capabilities) do NOT need Intels Pentium. As a matter of fact, CE and NT actually run a lot better and cheaper with CPU's from other Companies. So Intel is currently stuck with the Windows'95-98 market. Intel is working on its future 64bit family of products between its projects with Hewlett Packard, Rambus and others, but that stuff at least 18 months away. What will Intel do right now to keep the Pentiums flowing? I could list lot's of things, but I don't want to distract us from the question at hand, so let's rephrase the original question: How does WavePhore help Intel sell more Pentiums? The answer is obvious. WaveTop runs constantly in the backround accumulating the DataCast information from PBS and discarding old information all automatically. Now right now, Wavephore did a miraculous software job of keeping this backround activity from interferring with other software you may be running, and BetaTesters will tell you, that this activity is bearly noticable on their computers. However, right now the content stream during this beta test phase a trickle. In the near future, WaveTop will benefit from a deluge of content, the Data Stream will rise to well over 128kb/sec or 4 times more then the download speed of the average 33.6kb/sec modem. Take a typical WaveTop user who may have had some old Pentium <133mhz that was just fine for Web Browesing. They will now be compelled to upgrade in order to enjoy all this free information/audio/video content (as well as all the other benefits of having a more up to date home computer). For the money they spent 3 years ago on that computer, they can get fully loaded multimedia system that's 3 times faster. That new computer will not only features an Intel Pentium chip, but an Intel brand motherboard ChipSet as well. The point being, that Intel will back Anything that is likely to significantly encourage future sales of it's chips. (even if it means dumping it's own money draining InterCast division) MicroSoft desire to increase sales and acceptance of Windows'98 is a similar interest in Wavephores success, but the MicroSoft story goes a lot deeper then Intels. I will reveal my thoughts on MicroSofts hidden agenda with Wavephore in future posts. |
