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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kirk © who wrote (1029)	4/9/2014 2:42:39 PM
From: robert b furman	1 Recommendation Recommended By Kirk © Respond to of 26731

Hi Kirk, I think the competition between Intc and Qcom is just beginning. Qcom makes most of the mobile discrete chips. Intc is just beginning to compete in this category. Targeting volumes in smartphones Last November, Intel also unveiled a new smartphone and tablet roadmap that included SoFIA, Intel's first solid-state drive with integrated comps. SoFIA seems to have a pretty strong opportunity ahead as Seeking Alpha author Ashraf Eassa had pointed out. According to Eassa: "I'll be honest - SoFIA doesn't look like it'll be anything special. Sure, it'll do well against the quad Cortex A53s and the dual core Kraits that it will be fighting in the low end of the market when it finally shows up in devices, but it won't be particularly well differentiated. Further, given that Intel will be building these at an external foundry, it's not clear if Intel will have much (if any) of a cost structure edge (in fact it will probably not have the volumes that Qualcomm ( QCOM) and MediaTek have, which means that its cost structure could be worse). So, these parts will essentially be proof that Intel can do an integrated part and it'll probably find homes in a number of handsets and low end tablets (the latter especially thanks to all of the sockets Intel is buying this year with Bay Trail). However, the real fun will happen when this part is moved to the 14 nanometer process. At that point, I expect a move to the "Airmont" CPU cores (14nm shrink of Silvermont), a fairly beefy GPU, and a solid connectivity/cellular solution - all at an excellent cost structure." One thing for sure once intel sets its sights on a big volume part of a PC or phone - it will not be good news for any competitor = qcom. Bob