http://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/30/intel-to-begin-manufacturing-64-bit-arm-c...Yep, Altera says that Intel will start fabbing 64 bit ARM chipsets for certain direct sales customers. Apple is on that short list.
Is this earthshaking? No, given that we understand that the "Wintel Partnership" died this past year and Intel for one is intending to go forward into the future. What AMD did last year is what Intel will do next year --
if you can't beat them, join them.Microsoft, are you listening to your ex-parteners Intel and Altera? I think they might have it right, that infamous time to change has come and those that do change will survive and those that don't change, won't.
Remember, Intel has already ponied up for a full ARM design license like two years ago and can make/modify/create anything based on released ARM designs that they can purchase, or they can fab anything for any ARM licensee on their currently partially idle 22nm state of the art fab lines to the also licensed customer's design.
Intel and Apple are not at war with each other, Apple and Samsung are at war with each other, so this news provides some relief for Apple for next year, year 2015. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) has Apple's business through 2014 and have already been in production on those particular chips for some time now.
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Microsoft, where art thou ????Well, this is sorta interesting because a leading old school Windows lover has actually rolled up the numbers from both the finance and computing worlds and has actually rolled together a concise statement of where Microsoft really is today in the total world of computing.
He doesn't like it, but he is announcing his"conversion experience" as of reported data ending in 2011 that in 2012 Microsoft has indeed departed from the throne, departed from the dais, departed from the head tables and is now seated in the main throng well below the newest oriental players in the new computer world.
The entire article has a kinda downbeat tone (he was a Windows lover after all) and there is a thread of defeat running inside the entire thing, but the article has good data for those who want to read it.
He is attempting journalistic neutrality, and by and large he hits it. He might not like it, but he's reporting it factually.
http://www.zdnet.com/windows-has-fallen-behind-apple-ios-and-google-android-7...Now, for the corollary to his information. Windows on PC is sliding fast -- Linux distros that were based solely on the PC are sliding fast too, but since their starting point was so much numerically less than the PC they will slide into obscurity that much faster.
Right now PC Linux distros are picking up on the mass of "obsoleted PCs out there" but as that hardware becomes considered grossly obsolete, huge and clunky (and severely power wasting) that effort will die --- generally at the point when the monitor or hard drive goes so does the rest of it, including the desktop Linux.
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Let me introduce you to the Son of the Stick computer, from the same crowd that loved them little sticks so much .....
http://liliputing.com/2013/11/rikomagic-launches-mk902-android-mini-pc.html 
This is just the first mainstream Son of the Stick and it really isn't going to take over the world. The chipset really isn't there totally as the chipset was so severely stripped down by Rockchip just to fit a tablet model exactly, so it lacks the I/O venues that are needed in a desktop device. No SATA, but it does have USB 2.0 so a fast portable hard drive can get the storeage job done fairly well.
This one does fit the bill of the up and coming desktop replacement for size and price though, even if it isn't going to be the one exactly on I/O. It runs an Ubuntu derivative OS called Picuntu .... which is worth remembering as it is beginning to grow numerically as a separate OS from its parent.
However, there are 4 announced new low cost chipsets hitting next year that may indeed have the stuff needed to do the desktop replacement role and one of them with good I/O will take off, hopefully, as a cheap desktop replacement.
I hold better hope for that taking place than for Wintel finally lowering their prices to get competitive. Microsoft/Intel simply can't survive at those lowered price levels so they will slowly drift into non-competitive high price status and decline in market share accordingly.
The next dominant desktop OS still hasn't risen out of the pack since Google is still persisting in doing their split nonsense with Chrome OS and Android being completely separate and going down different paths. Chrome OS isn't doing badly right now, pulling in 25-30% of all new laptop sales according to current sales figures from Amazon, the largest retail channel. Android is doing much better though, currently at a world dominating 81% of all computing devices currently shipping.
However, in general people are getting fatigued with Google's vague non direction. Samsung is going to jump ship on Google just as soon as the next real OS comes out of the mists and becomes real enough.
Intel and Samsung think it is going to be Tizen, which is the one they are backing (and helped create).
Many of the oriental players no longer trust Google since Google bought Motorola, no matter what Google says or does they will never trust Google not to do a Microsoft on them and become a crushing direct competitor to their business.
Just look at their "cowboy classic" history, them old moldy kung fu classics where bloody betrayal and revenge is the only constant theme that you can always count upon seeing.
That is the culture they come from ....
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All of the alternate OS candidate products are now shipping. Android (and its derivatives), Chrome OS, Firefox, Tizen, Sailfish, Ubuntu (and its derivatives) -- all of the Microsoft alternatives are now out there now in the real world showing what they really really are. They have differing capabilities but all could (read that as maybe might) grow into a real OS platform.
Inside the next year one will start to show more dominance as the computing world changes is axis of motion to move from Cupertino over to Shanghai.
Or else perhaps Google can pluck their thumb out of their arse and get on with the job with Android ....
Microsoft
could re-model Windows to run natively on ARM processors as design primary (and still do Intel too since it costs them nothing to add in the old Bios based well known parameters) and could still retain a leadership position. Nowever, current Microsoft management can't seem to get over that particular speed bump and they simply refuse to come out as an "ARM mainly" product.
Intel has designed (on the third try) produced and introduced their ARM competing chipset, a huge powerful processor that requires an ARM sized separate power management chipset just so it can mock as being "down in the ARM power consumption" playing area.
It is a nice chipset for a large battery laptop ..... but it still costs 2-4 times as much as a power/energy competitive ARM chipset.
ARM is rolling along still, rolling on out into 64 bit land next year -- we will see if they can pull it all off seamlessly or if they will bobble one of the introductions yet again.
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