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Project 2501 by Andy Patrizio (bio)

Making sense of an overwhelming sea of information

January 8, 2010, 8:10 PM

AT&T's epic iFail at CES

 ifail.jpgIt's the world's largest consumer electronics show. Android phones are being unveiled almost by the minute, it seems, while Apple doesn't even have a booth at this show (and never has). A large bulk of this show is literally built on competing with Apple's products.

And iPhone users can't use their phones.

Washington Post blogger Cecilia Kang noted that many iPhone users she's met at CES cannot use their phones on AT&T's clogged-like-Homer-Simpson's-arteries network.

Kelly Vaughn of Wireless Dealer Magazine spoke of spending 15 futile minutes trying to refresh her e-mail on her iPhone. Even better, Jason Oxman, senior vice president of the Consumer Electronics Association, the group that puts on the show, said he could not send out some tweets to Twitter.

AT&T didn't return Kang's request for comments. Can you blame them?

Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless's CTO Dick Lynch said in an interview that they weren't experiencing any problems with their network in Las Vegas.

AT&T has made the excuse that its New York and San Francisco coverage were impacted because those particular networks needed upgrading. Las Vegas was never mentioned. Granted, there are 110,000 people in Sin City for this show and no doubt quite a few are armed with iPhones, but really, could AT&T lose more face?

You have to hand it to Apple and its ability to build brand loyalty. Despite the nifty new Android phones like Droid and Nexus One, there still isn't a mass exodus of iPhone users. If there was, AT&T's network might be less congested.

But no, they know enough to separate the network from the equipment. They are being patient and biding their time, waiting for the word that will undoubtedly come this summer. Count me among them. I've played around with a colleague's Droid and a Nexus One we scored from the launch, but for now, I'll wait until summer as well.

Lynch told Kang that Verizon maintains a buffer of capacity that exceeds what customer demand on the network at any point, and it adds more capacity when customer usage demands it. "This is a very simple concept and something we have done religiously over the year," he said.

Let's hope he's ready for the stampede to rival the Oklahoma Land Rush when his company launches the Verizon iPhone.

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 8:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Share

December 30, 2009, 2:06 PM

Apple's entry-level laptop on sale (briefly)

 Apple has had a very long historical connection to the education market, dating all the way back to the Apple IIe. I know, that was the first computer I used in a serious way in high school (we had some TRS-80s but they didn't last long).

The latest news for the education market is a bit of a head-scratcher. On Tuesday, Apple temporarily reduced the price of its low-end MacBook from $899 to $728 for students, teachers and educational staff, a 19 percent reduction. Apple products aren't known for going on sale, so this makes it an especially big bargain.

Within a day, it was back up to $899. Why they did this is not clear, and Apple is closed for the holiday week so there is no one to ask why.

The MacBook comes with a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of memory, a 250GB hard drive and integrated Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics. It uses a solid plastic body case instead of the unibody aluminum design of its big brothers.

Apple's educational discounts apply to college students, teachers, administrators and staff at both K-12 and college levels.

Apple's got quite a foothold on higher ed: at the 2008 MacBook launch, COO Tim Cook said Apple had 39 percent of the higher ed market, and the embrace is mutual. The University of Missouri's Columbia School of Journalism earlier this year passed a requirement that its students to have an iPod Touch or iPhone (although that turned into a headache) and there's this infamous photo from a Columbia classroom.

macs-missouri-500x312.jpgSure explains a few things I've seen over the years...


Posted by Andy Patrizio at 2:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

December 21, 2009, 6:59 PM

Apple posts video fix for 27-inch iMacs

 Those ailing 27-inch iMacs are getting a little fix from Apple, in the firm of a graphics firmware update. The patch fixes flickering and video corruption problems Apple attributes to the ATI Radeon HD 4670 and 4850 video cards. The fix requires Mac OS X 10.6.2.

The new iMac 27-inch model has had a rough time since its launch last month. There were reports of slow performance, complaints about cracked glass panels on the LCD monitor, and then came a flood of complaints about the video performance in the all-in-one PC.

Lately, the 27-inch unit has proven extremely hard to get, with back order delays by as much as five weeks. Apple has not provided any official explanation as to why, but the speculation was it was simply a hot seller, more than Apple expected, and it has to make more.

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 6:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

December 18, 2009, 2:21 AM

The xpPhone: It boots, but will it sell?

 Some time back I first wrote of a smartphone from China called the xpPhone, since it would use an embedded AMD Geode processor and boot Windows XP. Up to now, all we've had are screen shots.

Well, the folks at the In Technology Group Ltd. in China have posted the first video of the phone powering up and booting into Windows XP. Ok, so the video isn't the slick professionalism we'd expect from Apple, but it does indeed show the phone starting up Windows XP.

It seems ITG has shuffled its positioning of the device. The name of the product is "xpPhone" and it was first positioned as a phone, even though it's slightly larger than your average phone - it has a 4.8-inch screen, 1.5 inches larger than the iPhone.

xpphone.jpg
But now they are referring to it in correspondence with reporters like me as "a notebook." Actually, they are calling it "The world first breakthrough 'Mobile Phone, GPS, Notebook, Three-in-one pocketable mobile terminal.'" That's a mouthful.

ITG claims that the xpPhone is the first notebook that can wake up from XP standby mode by incoming calls and SMS messages. The device uses XP's native standby mode to power down the phone and give it up to five days of standby battery life.

ITG claims it has received CE, 3C and CB approvals to deploy it in Asia and Europe. Now they are waiting on FCC approval and hope to launch the xpPhone at the end of January 2010.

But Avi Greengart, research director for consumer devices and mobile devices at Current Analysts, doesn't give it much of a chance. "Windows XP was not designed as a telephone OS. While [the xpPhone] can do cool stuff that other phones can't do and I can easily see IT managers wanting to run programs they can only run PCs, there have been super small PCs like the OQO and they went nowhere," he said.

Another problem Greengart sees is that the phone promises to do too much. ITG is claiming the phone will support GSM/GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA (HSDPA/HSUPA),
CDMA/CDMA2000, 1X/CDMA1X EVDO, TD-SCDMA, and TD-HSDPA. That's pretty much every wireless protocol on the planet.

"I can't imagine a single device that supports all those. I don't know whose networks it will run on. I've never seen a device that could run CDMA and GSM and TD-SCDMA," he said.

It will be interesting to see if they do indeed get FCC approval for the U.S.

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 2:21 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Share

November 23, 2009, 7:12 PM

Details on new Intel chips leak out

 intel_nehalem1.jpgThree details - prices, speeds and feeds - are the last details Intel likes to release when introducing new parts, but thanks to a German e-tailer, some of those details are out.

Next year, the Clarkdale CPU family will hit the market. These will be 32nm dual-core - all codenames with "-dale" are dual-core, while "-field" codenames are quad core - and will have an integrated GPU on the die. The GPU core, however, will be 45nm.

They will be sold under the brand names Core i3-500 and Core i5-600. These will be fast little buggers right out of the gate, starting at 2.93GHz and climbing to 3.46GHz. All but the two low-end i3 processors will have Turbo Boost feature, where unused cores are turned off and extra horsepower is given to the ones in use.

For example, the Core i5-660 reportedly runs at 3.33GHz but in Turbo mode can hit 3.6GHz. The Core i5-670, a 3.46GHz part, can hit 3.73GHz.

The pricing is in Euros but sure looks appealing. The Core i3-530, the slowest of the CPUs, is 84.16 Euros, or US$126, while the high-end Core i5-670 is 205 Euros, or US$306.

All CPUs are 73 watt parts except the Core i5-661, which has a faster GPU, running at 900MHz instead of 733MHz like the other CPUs. It has a TDW of 87.

All of this is pretty impressive, given virtually every CPU is running at more than 3GHz and has a very high clock speed GPU on it. How they perform remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the Polish enthusiast site PCLab.pl has an in-depth review of Gulftown, a.k.a. the Core i9 processor, a 32nm, 6-core processor. The site benchmarked the processor against Core i7, Core i5, Core 2 Quad and AMD Pheonom II X4 and smoked all of them. Power consumption wasn't the best but its idle power draw was quite good.

Gulftown will be sold under the Xeon 5600 brand, so it's mostly a server processor, not a desktop part. The site said there were problems with the motherboard BIOS so don't take the numbers as gospel, but it looked like quite a performer.

Intel, as you would expect, declined to comment.

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 7:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

November 3, 2009, 8:03 PM

AMD opening shop in the Middle East?

 It looks like AMD and Globalfoundries are going to set up shop in Dubai after taking a hefty chunk of change from an investment firm based in the emirate. AMD CEO Dirk Meyer told Emirates Business that the firm is looking to a open chip design center in Dubai, and maybe a fabrication plant in Abu Dhabi.

"We have chip design centers around the world, including in India and China, and the capabilities by Dubai Silicon Oasis present interesting future opportunities. In time we will [design chips in the UAE], and it's hard to be specific on the time frame. There is a definite opportunity in such a partnership," said Meyer.

The Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) is a proposed massive integrated technology park intended to create a Silicon Valley for the Middle East to lure offices for the major players in the semiconductor industry, except this would be design on the large scale like everything else in Dubai. The intention is to provide a giant "technology oasis" for all of these firms, with housing, commercial and other considerations all close to work.

But the first priority is a new Globalfoundries fab in Abu Dhabi. "The top priority for AMD is to deepen our partnership with ATIC and Globalfoundries, which continues to expand its partner pool to make sure that infrastructure in Abu Dhabi gets ready for a fabrication plant in the future," said Meyer.

Meyer went on to say that "as a company, we will want to participate fully in the market through our sales and marketing team and make sure people are IT savvy. Acquisitions are not on the agenda presently but could be a possibility over a period of time."

Such talk and interest is not surprising, given Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) owns approximately two-thirds of Globalfoundries' fully-converted common stock and a large chunk of AMD as well. AMD might be bankrupt by now were it not for the ATIC bailout. ATIC's sole shareholder is the government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, making it a state-owned investment firm.


Posted by Andy Patrizio at 8:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 26, 2009, 5:32 PM

Apple's secrets keep leaking out

Apple's obsession with secrecy is well-established, and there is quite a cottage industry of bloggers and Apple Web sites dedicated to exposing their secrets. One of the more impressive efforts came during the iPhone 3GS launch, where one site was tracking a shipping vessel from China believed to be carrying the phones. The site even had the manifest.

But other times, all you need is a little carelessness. Case in point: the folks who gave away Apple's upcoming tablet and new MacBooks. In the case of the MacBooks, it was Apple that did it.

The bigger news is the iPad, iTablet, or whatever you want to call it. The rumor mill has Apple releasing this thing early next year. Word is it's basically a large version of the iPod Touch, but with things like windows and allowing multiple apps to run at once. There might even be two of them with different size screens.

Well, New York Times Executive Editor for news Bill Keller committed what we in the profession call "an oops." While speaking at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University last week, the Times newsroom boss was discussing all of the issues of print vs. electronic, pay vs. free, and then said this (at the 8:30 mark).

"I'm hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate..."

(more) |

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 5:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 24, 2009, 4:05 AM

The 451 Group acquires The Uptime Institute

 This is one of the more unusual mergers on the surface but it does make sense. The 451 Group, a market research and analysis organization, has acquired The Uptime Institute, a consultancy and think tank that is focused specifically on datacenter efficiency and reliability. Both firms are privately-held, and terms were not disclosed.

Usually analyst firms go for broad-based or general purpose firms, but 451 seems to have datacenters on the mind. It also bought Tier 1 Research in 2005, which also focuses on the datacenter.

Uptime founder Kenneth Brill is one of the more well-known experts on datacenter issues and is frequently quoted in the tech press (including us). In his new role, he will be a global spokesman for the organization.

"We are delighted to welcome Ken, Pitt and the 25 other staff of Uptime to join the 85-plus professional staff here at The 451 Group," said Martin V. McCarthy, CEO of The
451 Group in a statement. "The Uptime Institute has a global reputation for integrity, independence and innovation in the areas of datacenter availability - uptime - and IT energy efficiency.

"Particularly now, when the promise of cloud computing can obscure the criticality and vulnerability of physical infrastructure, The Uptime Institute plays a unique role for all organizations for which full-time availability of mission-critical facilities is paramount. The Institute's database of over 4,000 facility 'gotchas' and its comparative benchmarking help users make sound management decisions involving risk and millions in cost," McCarthy continued.

Uptime recently added a professional services business to advise datacenter managers, and 451 seems particularly keen on it. "Uptime Institute Professional Services eagerly anticipates reaching all industries and regions with services defined by technical rigor and long-term operations focus," said Uptime Executive Director Pitt Turner in a statement.

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 4:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 20, 2009, 6:03 PM

The clueless intrude on the Oracle-Sun deal

 What should have been a slam-dunk deal, Oracle's $7.4 billion purchase of Sun, has turned into a tragi-comedy of epic proportions. If there weren't so many people being negatively affected, this would be downright funny.

Today, that noted economist Ralph Nader come out against the deal and urged the EC to reject it. Nader's Knowledge Ecology International group is joined by the U.K.-based Open Rights Group and the eminent capitalist Richard Stallman in opposing the deal.

TheStreet.com reports Nader sent a letter to European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, warning that Oracle is bad, bad, bad.

"Oracle seeks to acquire MySQL to prevent further erosion of its share of the market for database software licenses and services, and to protect the high prices now charged for its proprietary database software licenses and services," he wrote. "If Oracle is allowed to acquire MySQL, it will predictably limit the development and functionality of the MySQL platform."

Nader should stick to Pintos because he does not know what he's talking about. If any company would want to buy MySQL to kill it, it's Microsoft. Secondly, Oracle couldn't stop MySQL if it wanted to, since it's open source. Both Larry Ellison and MySQL founder Marten Mikos have pointed out that Oracle couldn't kill MySQL if it wanted to, and Ellison has made it clear he has no intention of doing that.

(more) |

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 6:03 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 18, 2009, 2:12 AM

All quiet on the Windows front

 windows7_logo-200x200.jpgA week before the release of Windows 7, an awful lot of fingernails are being chewed up. There's a lot riding on it for just about everyone in the chain from Microsoft to retail.

For Microsoft, it's a chance to restore its name. CEO Steve Ballmer has said that Microsoft's reputation was damaged by Vista and never recovered. Perhaps Windows 7 can erase some of that.

For OEMs, it's a chance to reverse the horrendous slide in business. They've kept the raw numbers up selling cheap netbooks, but decked out PCs are not moving in the numbers they used to. Businesses are not buying at all, as Dell is finding out painfully.

Now there's a real fear that OEMs have overbuilt PC inventory in anticipation of the Windows 7 launch. They certainly have made plenty. I get press releases almost daily announcing more system launches. A version of Windows that doesn't make you scream is as good an excuse as any for consumers to buy a new machine.

(more) |

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 2:12 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 16, 2009, 7:50 PM

Acer recalls CULV notebooks

 This is not a good way to launch a whole new design of notebooks.

Acer has been forced to issue a recall of the company's consumer ultra low-voltage (CULV) laptops because they may overheat in certain conditions. The problem, though, is not in the Intel CULV processor but the super-thin design.

The affected units are Acer Aspire Timeline AS3410, AS3810T, AS3810TG, AS3810TZ and AS3810TZG, all manufactured prior to September 15, 2009. The problem is associated with a microphone cable, which may overheat when extreme pressure is applied repeatedly to the left palm rest.

"Acer has voluntarily instituted a safety recall program to proactively replace the microphone cable in the affected units to eliminate any risk of overheating," said an official statement by the company. The company also provided instructions on how to check if you own an affected model.

CULV is a whole new style of notebooks attempting to find a niche between regular notebooks and netbooks. They are notable for being extremely thin, very light and having a long battery life. As such, they sacrifice some performance to achieve this battery life.

Both Intel and especially AMD have made big pushes into this space but product has been slow to emerge on the market. More will hit the market with the release of Windows 7 next week.

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 7:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 16, 2009, 6:43 PM

Moore's law will outlive most fab companies

 The continued race to the bottom, or in this case to the smallest possible die size, is going to weed out all but just a few foundry players in the next few years. Gartner projects that by the time semiconductor process technology reaches 8 nanometers, there will only be four to eight left.

The discussion was part of Gartner's semiconductor briefing session in San Jose, where the firm also discussed how the market will grow and change in the next few years. While the market for chips will continue to increase, the number of players will shrink as things become prohibitively expensive.

Moore's law is defined as doubling the amount of transistors in the same area of silicon every two years. In 2004, the 40 anniversary of Moore's law, Intel had 592 million transistors on one device. Its largest chips now, the quad core Itanium and Nehalem-EX, will have 2.3 billion transistors, and nVidia's new Fermi chip has three billion transistors.

If Moore's Law is projected out to 8nm, there will be 75 billion transistors on a chip at the 8nm technology node. Plus, the process technology will change radically. The days of silicon dioxide or even gallium dioxide materials are likely over

At sub-12nm, silicon may no longer be usable. As the industry gets down to 8nm and 5nm, things like carbon or grapheme nanotubes are needed. Below 5nm, molecular transistors may emerge enabling self assembly. Fabrication plant assembly costs at 8nm will double the cost of 45nm to around $10 billion.

Now who can afford that?

A few very profitable companies with high volumes, said Dean Freeman, a research vice president with Gartner. That means Intel, Samsung, IBM's alliance (including Globalfoundries), TSMC, Toshiba, Hynix, Elipda and Micron.

But then there are the companies that make the equipment they use to make the chips. If a supply chain firm drops out, the whole group of semiconductor makers built on their products could fall with them.

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 6:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 7, 2009, 3:30 PM

Nehalem is proving Intel's own 'cash machine'

 intel_nehalem1.jpgThis was a switch. Usually when a vendor offers customer case studies, it's the customer with the big story to tell. So I was quite willing to hear IT managers discuss how Intel's Nehalem had saved them money. Remember when Intel launched Nehalem and Pat Gelsinger called it a "cash machine?" Well, as it turned out, Intel had the best story to tell.

Intel said that more than 40 percent of the servers currently deployed and chugging away in datacenters around the country are powered by single-core chips that are four or more years old. That's a lot of old, inefficient 32-bit servers that run at single-digit utilization rates.

Intel had a similar situation of its own. It had 147 datacenters, many of them running single-core processors. In the last few years, even before the economy went into the drink, CEO Paul Otellini and Andy Bryant, who is pretty much a de facto chief operating officer although his title is chief administrative officer*, have been on an efficiency hunt trying to cut costs wherever possible. So those servers had to go.

Diane Bryant, the company's CIO, said that in the past year, Intel has been able to cut its datacenters from 147 to 70, consolidate single-core servers to Nehalem-based by a factor of 10 to one, and in the end, save Intel $250 million over the course of eight years. Just this year alone, thanks to reduced power and cooling and maintenance costs, Intel will save $19 million.

(more) |

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 3:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 5, 2009, 2:46 PM

Windows 7 already stealing market share from Vista

 win7_logo.jpgWe knew Windows Vista was unpopular, but this is downright funny. A survey by Net Applications found that Vista is already beginning to shrink in terms of market share and those loses are to the gain of Windows 7.

Net Applications is a site monitoring and analytics provider. It gathers data from 40,000 Web sites around the world using an analytics package called Hitslink. Among the many things it gathers are the browser and operating system of each visitor.

Now how can that be when Windows 7 won't be on the market for 17 days, you ask. Simple. The Net Applications survey counts both the Windows RC1 that has been out since May as well as the final Windows 7 code, which has been on MSDN for developers to download since August.

The most recent survey from Net Applications puts Windows 7 at a total installed base of 1.18 percent, mostly because of the RC being so widespread. The company estimates Windows 7 grew by 0.3 percent in August, when the final code became available, and Vista lost 0.2 percent.

Big surprise.

It's a pretty pitiful showing for Vista, which never managed to go beyond 19 percent market share in its maligned three-year history. Windows XP, as creaky, old and downright ugly as it is, still holds 71.5 percent of all operating systems that connected to servers monitored by Net Applications last month.

Figure on both numbers going down fast. There is palpable excitement on message boards over this release, something I've never seen before. People are actually psyched to get Windows 7 and put Vista and XP out to pasture once and for all. For once, the widespread betas worked in Microsoft's favor.

Some stores are already getting their Windows 7 product, which means you can probably figure on someone somewhere blowing the release date and selling early. In some cases, that may be legitimate, as Microsoft is letting system builders pull the trigger early.


Posted by Andy Patrizio at 2:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

September 21, 2009, 6:01 PM

MSI netbook claims 15 hours of battery life

 Maximum battery life is an obsession for laptop makers and buyers alike. Well, MSI, a Chinese OEM/ODM that makes both laptops as well as components like notebooks, has introduced the Wind U110 ECO netbook with a nine-cell battery that MSI claims is good more than 15 hours of battery life.

Of course, you won't be playing Crysis on it. Bejeweled, maybe. It comes with an Atom Z530 CPU running at 1.6GHz, 1GB of RAM, Intel GMA500 integrated graphics and a 10-inch LCD screen with a resolution of just 1024x600. Some netbooks have added GPUs to make up for the lack of CPU performance, but that draws power.

The Wind U110 weighs just 3.2 pounds and is just 1.24 inches thick. It has a 160GB HDD a built-in high definition Webcam, speakers, a built-in microphone and 802.11 b/g/n wireless support, plus Bluetooth.

MSRP is $430, you can get it from Newegg for $399.

U1102.jpg

Posted by Andy Patrizio at 6:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

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