Jon Peddie News

Monday, June 16, 2008

If you’ve got a secret, keep it. Keep your product as well

Jon Peddie lends his thoughts on cell phone companies stay quiet about the chips, memory and other components in their cell phones. From the article “If you go to BestAIB Co, and ask them what GPU is on that board, the folks at Best AIB Co will tell you, happily and proudly. Now go to your favorite mobile phone supplier and ask “What chips are in the HeatsYourPocket 105?” Most likely they will tell you that they won’t discuss the components in their phones.”

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Jon Peddie shares his vision for the future of graphics on HEXUS.tv at CeBIT 2008

Jon Peddie is one of the world’s leading experts on the graphics market. Here is a two-part interview in which he shares his vision for the future of graphics with the HEXUS.tv audience. HEXUS.tv covered everything from PlayStation 4 to XBox 720 and Larrabee through to Fusion… and that is just part one. In part two Jon tackles a range of tough issues, from who will win the console war, to the upcoming challenges faced by CPU makers as OEMs look to reduce their BOM costs. Take a look at these great inteviews:

• Click here for Part One of Two
• Click here for Part Two of Two

Monday, March 03, 2008

Mitsubishi Electric to exit mobile phone biz

TOKYO (Reuters) - Mitsubishi Electric Corp said it planned to exit its loss-making mobile phone business, becoming the latest Japanese electronics maker to withdraw from a market dominated by overseas giants such as Nokia.

In the face of tough competition from Nokia, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd) and other global suppliers that enjoy economies of scale, many Japanese cell phone makers have withdrawn to the domestic market in recent years.

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUST34889520080303?pageNumber=3&virtualBrandChannel=10150

It hard to believe but Japan – considered the leader in all things electronic and handy does not have one representative in the top 5 of Mobile handset manufactures. Nokia which has had a strangle hold on the top spot for the better part of a decade is based in Finland, Samsung is based in Korea, The once proud Motorola which has a tenuous hold on the number 3 position in based in the Untied States, The joint venture of Sony-Ericsson is based in the UK and LG in Korea.

Mitsubishi and Sanyo who announced a sell off of its handset unit to rival Kyocera in January were never able to come up with a trend-setting product. Of course, even coming up with a smash hit like the Razr as Motorola did, does not guarantee survival in this cut-throat business. Motorola is also considering dropping out of the market. In this business, you have to create a buzz as Apple has done with the iPhone, or build a loyal fan base as RIM has done with the Blackberry to survive. Still, with over 1.5 billion handsets sold in 2007 the phone business is good business if you can come up with the right product.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

DVD wars — it’s all over but the shouting

The death blow came last month with the announcement that Warner Brothers would support Blu-Ray and only Blu-Ray. After that, HD-DVD was dead, it just wouldn’t fall down. Most recently Wal-Mart announced that it would sell Blu-Ray and only Blu-Ray DVDs and machines. You win some and you lose some and it looks like Toshiba was the one who lost in this long-running battle for the next generation video format. AP Report: Toshiba May End HD DVD Format

Depends of course who’s counting since the movie industry including studios, companies offering movie rentals and purchase, and companies selling machines have all lost sales as customers decided to wait it out and competing forces threw money out the window. Consumers, in fact, are showing interest in movie downloads and hard-drive based home entertainment libraries.

The positive side of all this is that now that everyone can move forward on one dominant format, the studios are going to work hard to make next-gen DVDs attractive to buy rather than to rent or download and that will be with the addition of splashy new content as bonus features.

For example, the Harry Potter release has gobs of extras: New Details Emerge for Blu-ray, HD DVD editions of ‘Harry Potter Years 1-5’ Gift Set

Now Blu-Ray will have to compete against itself. The format has gone through several formats as explained by Don Lindich of McClatchy-Tribune in a Q&A article published by the San Jose Mercury News. Consumers who rushed out to buy early machines may not be able to play newer DVDs with advanced Bonus Content. Profile 1.0, and 1.1 are out there and 1.1 gets the job done as far as playing the movie. The next version 1.1 plays the movie and Bonus View content. Coming soon is Blu-ray profile 2.0 or BD-Live players. They can play movies, bonus content, and they have an Internet connection for Web interactive content and firmware updates.

Change is not only painful, it’s downright confusing.

Friday, February 15, 2008

S3, back in the game

S3 Graphics today announced the S3 Graphics Chrome 400 Series discrete graphics processors, designed to provide the latest gaming experience for energy-efficient desktop systems and portable notebook PCs coupled with outstanding HD content playback at the highest performance-per-watt ratio ever.

“S3 Graphics has developed a product that will deliver incredible, high quality 1080p HD playback for Home Media Centers, Desktop PCs and Ultra Thin and Light Notebook PCs without creating the unwanted noise and heat often associated with high performance components,” said Dr. Ken Weng, GM of S3 Graphics. “The feature-rich capabilities in the Chrome 400 Series will provide the end-user with a broad spectrum of new visual capabilities in a leading performance-per-watt product.”

http://www.s3graphics.com/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2008/S3Gpr080215Chrome400Series.jsp

“This is S3/Via’s first major product announcement since the ChromeS27 over a year ago, and its first GPU that supports DirectX 10.1. S3 is counting on the Chrome 400’s power efficiency to help is gain a foothold in the notebook sector and with small form factor PCs manufacturers. S3 boasts about its dynamic clock controls, individual execution units that can be turned on and off and its support for PCIe ASPM all which are designed to minimize power consumption. Time will tell on whether S3 can parlay the launch of the Chrome 400 to become a player in the GPU space once again.”

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Jon Peddie now has news feeds

Jon Peddie now has news feeds

Thursday, January 17, 2008

iPod Sets Man’s Pants On Fire

ATLANTA—The new iPod Nano is hot. But one Douglasville man said his old Nano got even hotter—hot enough to burst into flames. So I look down and I see flames coming up to my chest, said Danny Williams. Williams said the burn hole from the pocket of his pants marks the spot of his 15 seconds of flame. He said he had an iPod Nano and an glossy piece of paper in his pocket. He believes the paper shielded him from being burned.

I haven’t read too many stories on exploding iPods (as far as I know, Apple doesn’t employ Sony laptop batties in the Nano), but there are of course thousands upon thousands of disgruntled iPod users who run into problems with the LCD and battery issues. If the new iPods havent addressed those problems added to a what seems to be a heat issue maybe Microsoft will be able to make some hay.

The appearance of Apple’s long head start could well be less of a challenge as first seems obvious. As we like to say here at Jon Peddie Research, Microsoft functions like an army of ants. It takes its losses and it keeps coming. Witness the success of the Xbox. Witness the possible misteps Apple has made with the iPhone and in managing relationships with content providers. Yes, if Microsoft is going to win this one it’s going to be a long, brutal battle. That’s the only kind of fight Microsoft understands.—CRD

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Upcoming 8800GT sighted

Follow the link for a picture Tweaktown claims to be Nvidia’s next gen offering. Some are worried that given a
one slot cooling system the board will run too hot, but given the rumors of 3SLi a one slot design
is a pretty obvious requirement.—CRD

Nvidia Readies New “Ultimate” Technology for Gamers

Triple SLI – Nvidia’s Next-Generation Ultimate Gaming Platform

Nvidia Corp. not only plans to refresh its lineup of performance graphics accelerators this year,
but also intends to introduce its 3-way SLI multi-GPU technology aiming extreme performance enthusiasts. But will the new triple SLI technology truly become a high-performance solution, or will it share the destiny of Nvidia quad SLI?

According to a slide published by Expreview web-site, which is presumably from Nvidia Corp.’s roadmap, 3-way SLI is Nvidia’s new “ultimate gaming platform”, which will offer ultimate performance in three-dimensional games.

3-Way SLi, if this is true, (and so far Nvidia has yet to comment) The target market for such a platform would be minuscule at best and microscopic at worst. X8800 GTX cards are running between $525 to $600 a piece and a Motherboard that could support such a system will be $200. The upgrade in performance would have to be off the charts in order to justify such a cost, and given the meager 30% performance boost of the current SLi I am not sure it is realistic.—CRD

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Sony announces new, cheaper PlayStation 3 and cuts price on top-line model

NEW YORK—Sony Corp. today cut the price of its PlayStation 3 game console in the United States and announced an even cheaper model that will arrive before the holiday shopping season. The top-line PlayStation model, with an 80 gigabyte hard drive, now costs $499, down from $599. That effectively eliminates the lower-end model, which has a 60-gigabyte drive and has sold for $499.

A new low-end model with a 40-gigabyte drive will go on sale Nov. 2 for $399. Unlike the other PlayStation 3 models, the new one won’t be able to play games made for the PlayStation 2. In a statement, Sony said this was due to a more extensive lineup of games of the PlayStation 3.

This announcement in price reductions comes on the heels of a 20% reduction for the PS3 in Japan in September and an overall cut in prices in July. What has occurred in the console market these past 2 years is a minor miracle. Sony was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and now a few short months later it is a distant 3rd behind 2 machines with arguably inferior technology. The numbers don’t lie and in September not only did the PS3 trail the 360 in sales by over 400K consoles (thank you, Halo3), and the Wii by 380K units, but also trails the never-say-die PS2. This coupled with the 360’s 74% market share in software, the Wii’s 17%, and the PS3’s 9%, and Sony is in big trouble. In order to get the cost down, Sony removed the additional hardware that made the PS3 model will not be backward compatible for PS1 and PS2 games. It must have been a touch choice considering that the PS2 is still outselling the PS3 and Sony made so much hay over Microsoft’s decision to limit the ability of the XBox 360 to new games and a few select Xbox “classic” games. Sony needs a fix, it is in desperate need of a “must-have” title that can take advantage of the PS3s superior hardware and gives the console a chance to shine.

In a related story, Microsoft countered the price cut by Sony by offering a price reduction of their own. The 360 will be reduced to $304 (34,800 Yen) down from $348 (39,795 Yen) in Japan. The Wii is still the cheapest console on the home islands going for $219 (25,000 Yen).—CRD

AT&T, Napster To Unveil Direct Mobile Music Download
(from CNN Money)

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- AT&T Inc. (T) unveiled on Monday a service that allows its subscribers to download music from Napster Inc. (NAPS) directly to their cellphones, keeping pace with services already offered by rival wireless carriers. It represents a shift in AT&T’s stance on mobile music to an “over-the-air” download model versus “sideloading,” or transferring music from a computer to a phone through a physical connection.
...
The service, Napster Mobile, is an expansion of AT&T’s foray into music. In July, it began a download service called eMusic, which catered to the independent scene. [JPR Editor’s note: EMusic is an independent music site that specializes in music from independent artists. AT&T teamed with that company to create its eMusic offering.]
...
“The important thing you have to look at is it’s not a standalone offer,” said Roger Entner, head of the communications practice for IAG Research. “It’s another puzzle piece that hooks people into using their cell phone as a multimedia entertainment device.”
...
As price wars on unlimited minutes rage and revenue from talk time dries up, every major carrier is looking to offer more and more features: from games, ringbacks, TV, GPS to downloadable music. CTIA is in San Francisco this week, I’m excited to verify the rumors that some handsets are now capable of performing MRIs, if they are we won’t have mobile phones anymore but TriCorders.

AT&T is offering the Napster downloads for $1.99 which is $1 more than it costs to buy a song on Napster off the internet and $1 more than it cost to download an iTune song for your AT&T iPhone. Makes one wonder who exactly will be willing to pay the extra dollar.—CRD

Samsung Serenata Challenges iPhone

Move over, iPhone. There’s a new high-capacity media phone in town and it’s… downright ridiculous.
Samsung and Danish design firm Bang & Olufsen revealed their latest collaboration on Tuesday, the Serenata phone.

Featuring B&O’s trademark over-the-top design, 4GB of storage and a 2.26-inch LCD screen, the Sereneta might not quite be ready to oust Apple in the technical arena, but as a status symbol, it certainly stands a chance.

The Seranata is a sleek looking phone, with a distinctive flipped look about it. The control wheel and buttons are on top of the phone while the 2.26-LCD is on the bottom. The new Samsung will feature 4GB of storage which is 4 short of Apple’s iPhone. Hopefully, the lack in storage space will translate to more affordable price. The price has yet to be determined but the phone is set to launch at the end of October.—CRD

Monday, December 24, 2007

LG Electronics profit soars amid strong handset sales

SEOUL, South Korea - LG Electronics Inc., a major producer of mobile phones and consumer electronics, said Tuesday that third-quarter net profit surged nearly 15-fold amid record handset sales and better performance by its flat panel joint venture LG.Philips LCD Co.

LG Electronics earned 339.2 billion won ($369.8 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30, the company said in a regulatory filing, far higher than the 22.7 billion won profit it posted a year earlier.

On a global basis, LG said its sales of handsets rose to a quarterly record of 21.9 million units on increases in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.

All this happiness while Motorola seems to be hitting the skids. In August it was reported that Motorola’s market share dropped from 21.9% to 14.9% barley hanging onto their second place position behind Nokia and in front of hard charging Samsung. It might be time for Motorola to produce something besides reruns of the once untouchable Razr. That ship seems to have left the dock.—CRD

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Nvidia’s Intel-based IGP

(from JPR)

If you asked any of the executives at Nvidia if they were planning to offer an IGP three years ago, they would have said something like, no way, Who’d want to be in that low margin business? We have way too many other things to do, etc. And, at the time, they probably believed it, or at the least were convincing in their responses.

New semiconductors take time to develop and so when Nvidia introduced their Geforce 6100 family of AMD-based IGPs in September 2005 we knew the earlier comments were a smoke screen, but that’s OK, Nvidia has no obligation to tell us or anyone else what their plans are. However, when asked at that time if they planned an Intel version we got the same song and dance—conclusion—you betcha they were going to come out with an Intel part, now the guessing game becomes one of when.

Yes, there were some technical differences, for AMD Nvidia added a HyperTransport bridge, for Intel they had to do a Front Side Bus interface and have a license. As it turns out the company had FSB licenses from various acquisitions and cross-licenses.

So now Nvidia has brought out their first official Intel IGP, the GeForce 7150, 7100 and 7050 chips which work with Core 2, Pentium and Celeron, as well as the 13333 MHz FSB Penryn due to launch in November (LGA775 socket). Nvidia says the IGPs are aimed at desk¬tops priced at $400 to $600, and expects the MoBo to sell for $150 or less.

In private (and now probably public) showings, Nvidia was comparing the 7150 to the Intel G33. Wasn’t much of a comparison, and wasn’t really a fair fight. Given the G33 (a renamed and polished up i965g) is two years old. When challenged on the point and asked why they didn’t use the G35 as a comparison, Nvidia said they chose the G33 because Nvidia’s GF&150 would compete at the same price point—so that’s a good answer—as good or better than a G35 for a G33 price.

The 19 W, GF7150 can use 800 MHz DDR, offers optional DVI or HDMI output (one or the other) with HDCP The IGP allocates up to 128 MB of system memory and offers all the things you’d want in a chipset (e.g., multi SATA, USB, gigabit Ethernet, USB, etc.)

The graphics core runs at 600 MHz for the 7150 and 7100 and at 500MHz for the 7050 low-cost version and all the parts work with DirectX 9.0, shader model 3.0.

Nvidia says mobos with 7xxx IGPs will be available later this month from Abit, Asrock, Asus, Biostar, Colorful, ECS, EVGA, Foxconn, Galaxy, Giga¬byte, Hassee, Inno3D, Jetway, J&W, Maxsun, MSI, Onda, Palit, PC Partner, PNY, Supox, Unika, XFX, and others.

Nvidia has been extremely successful with their AMD IGPs and that’s one of the reasons AMD didn’t dump Nvidia in favor of ATI after they made the acquisition. Nvidia went from zero in 2005 to about 73% market share of AMD-based non-portable IGPs in Q2’07.

Intel-based IGP machines represented 78% of the desktop IGP PC market in Q2’07, or about 27 million units. In Q2’07 Nvidia sold about 5.6 mil¬lion IGPs for AMD machines. Intel has about 65% market share of Intel non-portable IGP machines (desktop, server, embedded, etc.) The remaining 35% is shared by AMD, SiS, and VIA, with VIA being the largest in the group. Therefore, Nvidia has a TAM of about 9.45 million units (using Q2 data.) If VIA withdraws from the chipset business as is strongly suspected, and at the least doesn’t gain a license for the 1333 MHz FSB and the on-going systems, and if the 690I from AMD is their last Intel-based IGP, then Nvidia is in position to make significant gains, repeating history, and without doubt, Drew Henry and Jen Hsun Huang saw this opportunity when they decided to go ahead and enter the Intel market.

That means Nvidia will face SiS, who isn’t gaining any market share and doesn’t have Nvidia’s graphics capabilities, and AMD and VIA who are backing out of the market, leaving basically Intel for Nvidia to deal with.—JP

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Bad Box Office? Blame ‘Halo’

from Advertising Age (adage.com)

The joystick has brought Ben Stiller nothing but sorrow.

Total industry ticket sales were only $80 million for the Oct. 5 weekend the film opened, a whopping 27% below the same weekend the year before, according to research firm Media by Numbers. That’s the industry’s worst performance for an October weekend since 1999. Overall, domestic receipts are down 6% from last fall.

Blame the Master Chief.

Many film executives are convinced audiences stayed home to play Microsoft’s carpal-tunnel classic, “Halo 3,” which went on sale on Sept. 26. The game sold an astonishing $170 million worth of copies on its first day, before going on to sell well over $300 million.

A spokesman for Paramount, which owns Dreamworks, the studio that released the Ben Stiller movie, declined to discuss whether “Halo” had caused the “Kid” boondoggle. But privately, insiders at the studio suspect the blame might lie in part with “Halo 3.”

Master Chief is a superstar, of that there is little doubt, and we know he can conquer the Flood, but Hollywood? That might be a bridge too far. Of course its not like he is going up against the A-List here. The Heartbreak Kid has garnered only middling reviews at release. On the other hand, Hollywood is right to recognize new competition.—CRD

Friday, December 14, 2007

Leopard, Apple’s new operating system, broadens Macs’ reach

Apple Inc.’s next-generation operating system, Mac OS X “Leopard,” will be available Oct. 26 for $129, and Apple’s online store is taking pre-orders, the company said Tuesday.

Leopard was originally due in June, but Apple said in April that it needed to divert resources so it could launch the much-anticipated iPhone on time. Such product delays are rare for the Cupertino-based company.

Leopard, which the company says will offer more than 300 new features, is the sixth major upgrade Apple has made to Mac OS X since the desktop operating system debuted in 2001.

Leopard features 300 new features along with “BootCamp” which will enable consumers to install Windows on Macs with Intel CPUs. After going several rounds with Vista on our PCs here at JPR HQ, I can’t help but wish there was a Leopard version for PCs.—CRD