Now, I am going to switch sides and be a Wintel future talk booster, just to prove I can do it.So, 2014 ends on a flat note for all of computing, with massive change taking place in 2013 and early 2014.
The net result of all this change is a resized Intel and a resized Microsoft, both of which have finally got their war faces on and are coming out swinging in 2015.
Both companies realize they are underdogs now and are acting accordingly, aiming to take over certain select market segments by force and showing a willingness to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to do so.
Intel intends to leapfrog its own Tic Tock cycle and bring out Skylake a year early (or on time if you go back to the original plans). Intel will short change and partially abort the current Broadwell generation to concentrate on the Apple demand for the 14nm laptop Skylake generation -- this is a forced putt with Apple putting Intel under the gun very intentionally and very brutally.
If Intel performs and makes a GOOD chipset, then Intel can recover some of their 25% potential loss of product opportunities back from the ARM based chipsets.
Intel is recovering market share by producing chips that the market wants, rather than throwing out chips and then trying to force their partners to use them.
Intel is focused right now as well as anyone remembers them ever being, and they intend to survive and win at ANY cost. Intel is paying attention to their customers for once.
Microsoft is busy working out Win 10 on the fly, intending to leverage off the new Intel Skylake chipsets to make their software products relatively desirable again.
However, Apple is sucking up all the 14nm production out of both ARM and Intel camps which will put a delay in MS's turn around plans, but may actually provide MS the needed time to get Win 10 totally right this time as the extra year may be needed for MS to fumble through a few Win 10.x revisions to smmooooth out the normal major change feature issues that they are having with Win 10.
ARM is being contractually silent right now about their next ARM generation designs, giving Apple their required one year of exclusive use of the new more powerful ARM 64 bit designs before rolling them out publicly.
Apple is using Samsung to build their 64 bit A9 chipset with these new ARM generation features, so expect Samsung to come out with their own new generation of new14nm 64 bit chipsets almost immediately after the Apple A9 is announced. Samsung is building A9s on their two new 14nm lines as we speak, so obviously they understand what the new ARM generation changes are all about.
Meanwhile, Intel is busy sucking up HARD AS THEY CAN to Apple in laptop space, trying to get a Skylake design put together that will make Apple want to forget that they can just use the new Apple A9 (and year after next's A10 chipset) in Apple's laptops and never have to pay Intel's high chipset costs ever again.
Skylake has to be just that good .... and it has to be able to take Apple's ARM based driver sets and RISC systems calls and it has to do it naturally, not through any clumsy software emulations as in years past. Apple will accept nothing less.
Skylake will redefine Intel if they pull it off correctly to suit all of Apple's needs and if Intel can make it possible to expand Intel designs into Apple's tablets and phones any at all.
So, Apple is slowly luring Intel's development path away from MS, in other words. And Intel is very willing to do this, since Apple sells FAR more new products right now than MS does right now and MS can always use Intel's old x86 based 22nm chipset designs to match up to their still as yet unchanged x86 Win 10 OS product and their still as yet unchanged x86 MS Office product line.
MS will have to be the one to change over to a RISC basis within the next few years if they want to play on the newest processors.
Meanwhile Intel is also embracing ARM into their internal mobile chipset designs, incorporating both ARM CPU and GPU core design features because the oriental market place is demanding STOCK ARM ANDROID solutions as that is the vast bulk of the products that they want to buy this upcoming year (they also like to run the older forms of Android that are strictly ARM/RISC based).
Intel's new monkeyed up Intel version of Android isn't proving to be all that back compatible with the older Oriental Androids and it isn't showing very much movement in the orient at this time.
However, both MS and Intel now have a foot in the Chinese market's door and historically that is all Intel has ever needed in order to loss leader their way into killing off the smaller competition by using all their various and sundry well practiced dirty tricks. Then once the small fry are gone Intel can jack the chip prices up into the higher cost ranges again.
Chipzilla's giant lizard has reached dry ground on the Chinese mainland and is beginning to stomp around in Chinese cities now. So, does China continue to take the big Intel bribes and allow their own little guys to get plowed under by Chipzilla's big swinging tail ????
Remember, Intel is now a 20% co-owner of two of China's governmental chip production facilities. For killing off the little Chinese little guys is what Intel must do in order to run their business at any form of efficient utilization levels. Intel must build a VAST MULTITUDE of chips on Chinese co-owned fab plants and the current crop of "Chinese little guy chip makers" must be driven out of business in 2015 in order for Intel to be able to fill up their "co-owned" wafer plants and their own 22nm plants and make a maximized profitability both for Intel and their new Chinese partners.
So, Chipzilla is becoming a big arsed Chinese dragon now ??? 
Now, final good news -- the $250- $300 laptop world is getting fairly decent functionally here at the end of 2014 as many of the more expensive early 2014 Wintel units are getting repriced in order to move them on out.
Microsoft still has not put out the Win 10 upgrade guarantee in place which would act to help move a lot of the aging 2014 warehouse stock out of the brick and mortar stores. Amazon and New Egg have no old warehouse stocks, they don't keep any, so the on-line channels are not constipated at all at the moment.
Chromebooks are slowing down now, evening out at the 20% to 25% of total new laptop sales level (but actually doing much better than that in the Education market).
Chromebooks / Chromeboxes are just now beginning to show some early worker bee level penetration into those companies that operate off of very strong company secure software intranets. Microsoft and Dell are combating this penetration with some really really cutthroat pricing on their low end Windows business units as Google and Dell press their Chromebook attack. Yep, that is Dell both attacking and defending ....
As low end Intel chipsets get much better and MS continues to react against Chome and to compete actively on the low end of things, look to see the general computer pricing continue to fall throughout the coming 2015 year.
Look to see more international companies do a Samsung and leave the American marketplace as we aren't buying enough new stuff right now to make it worthwhile for them to be here.
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