Holiday Wishes and a New Start

This is my third editorial for Microprocessor Report and quite possibly my last. I have accepted a position with a start-up chip company and will be leaving MDR at the end of December. I have felt privileged to work at Microprocessor Report. This staff is dedicated to fair analysis and has the highest integrity. Even after almost 30 years of working with microprocessors, I have never been bored by them. Microprocessors are constantly evolving, and they are now moving into an era of multiple cores, multithreading, and greater system integration.

In my two previous editorials, I railed against benchmarketing and sought to give AMD and Intel some advice on their product plans. This time, I've decided to offer my holiday wishes to all the companies I've covered during the past four years—in alphabetical order.

For AMD, I wish the gift of predictable execution. You are a company with high hopes for your technology and plans, but you often trip up when executing. Set a realistic schedule and refrain from being overly aggressive, especially in server processors (where predictability is important). Spend more engineering resources on processors for notebooks, as this is a good volume market with a relatively high ASP.

For IBM Microelectronics, I wish you success with your tough and demanding new customers—Apple, Microsoft, and Sony. And please don't focus on an epic battle with Intel; it didn't help AMD make a ton of money over the past decade.

For Intel, I wish the gift of humility. As the leading (and most profitable) semiconductor company in the world, and a leader in pushing new technologies into the PC market, you are in many ways a prisoner of your own success. As the PC market matures, finding an equally profitable market to dominate is difficult. Remember that the IBM PC design win was a once-in-a-lifetime contract to print money, and a similar opportunity will probably never appear again. If you truly believe in technology, you should focus on building the best technology possible, and success will come from that—not from superfluous branding, bundling, or all the TV ads money can buy.

For Sun Microsystems, I wish you a sense of urgency. Realize that the clock is ticking and that your market for Solaris on SPARC is under serious attack. Do not underestimate Intel's commitment to Itanium. Embrace Fujitsu as a partner in new SPARC designs, so each of you can better share resources and R&D.

I wish Transmeta the joys of under-promising and over-delivering. You have one more chance with Efficeon and LongRun 2; don't be the company that cried wolf too many times.

I wish VIA Technology some funds for marketing. Keep building small, cost-effective, power-efficient die and eventually your time will come—empowering the masses with inexpensive processing.

And to the readers of Microprocessor Report and the attendees of our forums, I'd like to thank you for your interest and your patronage. I've enjoyed my time here and wish you all the happiest of holidays and a very prosperous New Year.