Re: [Ghm-discuss] [gnu-prog-discuss] Planning the next GNU Hackers Meeting

[lkcl luke]

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 8:50 AM, Werner Koch <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:46, address@hidden said:
>
>> * The new hardware is a lot more secret than PC hardware.
>
> Even more of a problem is that the product cycles are short.  One year
> is already a long lifetime for most mobile hardware.  With our limited
> resources it is very hard to "compete" in this business.

 three months ago, a new CPU called the Allwinner A10 came out.  it
can be run at 1ghz, and it is SEVEN dollars in mass-volume, when every
other comparable CPU is $11 or above.

 the release of this CPU caused a minor recession in China, as,
en-masse, virtually every wholesaler cancelled contracts (yes,
contracts) in order to not "miss out" on the competitive price drop on
products that have this new CPU.  suppliers who had large stock of
other manufacturers' CPUs, along with support ICs needed, were left
deeply in the shit, with stock that nobody wanted to touch.

 the number of licensees of ARM CPUs in China alone is over 100.  some
of them will succeed, some will not.  you can expect one new
disruptive CPU every 3 months and _increasing_.

 basically the pace of change in China is wayy beyond you'd see in the
x86 world - by quite literally orders PLURAL of magnitude.

 this is another reason for the EOMA-PCMCIA initiative.  dividing the
product at the critical part - the CPU on a separate user-removable
card - mitigates against this unbelievable pace of change.

 l.