Brett (ggtgp@yahoo.com) on 1/18/11 wrote:
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>Rob Thorpe (rthorpe@robertthorpeconsulting.com) on 1/18/11 wrote:
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>>Brett (ggtgp@yahoo.com) on 1/18/11 wrote:
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>>...
>>>Here shows the GLU chip that made the MacSE/30 possible:
>>
>>Max and the others are quite right. The chips that you mention aren't particularly
>>major efforts. Other computers manufacturers did similar things, even small ones.
>>Acorn, for example, built a processor and chipset the architecture they used eventually
>>becoming ARM. At that time even quite large chips weren't necessarily being made
>>by large teams. MOS technologies and Western Design Centre were small companies.
>
>I never claimed that Apple was a CPU design company.
>Building a SOC (System On Chip) complete with Apple designed ADB and Apple designed
>FireWire and Apple designed IWM is not a trivial task.

Which SOC would this be?

>My claim was "Apple has a long history of using SOC to >drive cost down and volumes up."

Volume is more closely related to *price* than cost.

>And then I gave URLs to prove what I had said.
>The resultant commentary is little more than Apple bashing.

Two or three examples are not 'a long history'.

>I am aware of the downsides of SOC, Apple was locked to specific clock frequencies
>for literally years, where as the PC companies tweaked a few more MHz out of their PCs every few months.
>
>Apple has an appliance mindset, not geek clock rate >mindset.
>Clock rates no longer matter, appliances that work do.

I'm not sure you've articulated why it's fundamentally superior to design your own SOC, rather than getting one from a supplier. The costs are relatively similar, modulo a small profit for the SOC designer.

>(Some geeks just went postal. ;)
>
>I could use HP instead as an example of a company that >drove use of SOC to drive
>down cost and enable smaller/cheaper form factors.

Could you elaborate on the SOCs that HP has designed?

>This has made HP the largest PC company, and profitable, >against Dell who spends
>NOTHING on design and is not very profitable.
>Dell could disappear tomorrow and no one would notice.

I'm sure you realize this, but up until recently there were no SOCs in the PC world. You had a CPU, an IO Hub/Southbridge and possibly a northbridge. Even today, you need an IO Hub/Southbridge on all PCs.

>The problem with using HP as the example is that HP did >not invent the iPod, the
>iPhone and the iPad. Each time creating massive new >markets that did not exist before.

Neither did Apple. Portable music players, smart phones and tablets all existed before Apple did anything. What apple did was create far more compelling products that dramatically expanded the consumer market.

>The PC and Microsoft folk all stood up and said "we will >copy Apple and steal 90%
>of the market" iPod still has 90% market share.

The iPod (and most music players) will eventually be subsumed into phones. Now what share of the MP3-playing capable phone market do you think Apple has?

>The day when you could be Dell and slap your sticker on >some one elses hardware
>and make money is over. These poor fools do not have a >clue.

Uh huh. So when do you expect Dell to go out of business? Also, can you explain what hardware Acer designs?

>HP has the best chance to compete with against the iPad >and Googles pad efforts.
>Everyone else is doomed. Microsoft will keep its ~10% pad >market share.

I'm sure Dell, IBM, MS, etc. are all doomed. Just like poor old Apple : )

>While everyone is copying Apples old iPad, Apple is just >about to change the market
>again with the quad pixel retina screen iPad2.

OK, that sentence is literally a bunch of marketing gibberish. What is a retina screen? What is quad pixel?

Perhaps you mean that Apple is rumored to equip the new iPad with a very high resolution display that exceeds a certain PPI.

>Just try and tell me that the penny pinching PC companies >would have spent the
>money to develop and pay for such technology.
>The PC company mindset on costs and indifference to >usability would have meant a half decade wait for such >technology.

That's not really clear. PC companies generally tend to be careful on costs for commodity products. Not all PC products are commodities, and those can actually sustain real R&D spending. For instance, I believe HP developed a high-end monitor and workstation system for graphics designers that is capable of displaying the full range of printable colors. IIRC, they have 10b/color pixel monitors that are sold at a premium.

Asus was largely responsible for the netbook market with their eeePC. They are precisely the sort of 'penny pinching PC company' that you deplore.

>The PC companies would have waited for the volumes to >justify the costs.

Or they would have charged a premium in order to recoup the R&D costs.

>Apple creates the volumes by spending the money first.

Like with the highly successful Newton, Lisa or AppleTV? Price is related to volume. Apple is very good at identifying products that have good volume potential due to consumer appeal. They are much better than PC companies, but not infallible.

Also, volume is relative.

David