http://www.winbeta.org/news/layoffs-continue-within-microsofts-mobile-divisio...

And lets see what MS is up to, job cut wise ....  

"Microsoft is undergoing some truly significant shifts from its previous stance as the Windows company toward a new strategy as the “mobile-first, cloud-first” productivity solutions company. Along the way, the company has made some serious cuts to their labor pool as part of the jettison of Nokia as the company further adjusts the mobile part of their strategy. Today, via ZDNet, we have a story from Finland about some additional cuts.

Specifically, it appears that a few dozen employees were cut, a good portion being made up of marketing staff, and involving Microsoft mobile subsidiary Microsoft Mobile Oy. According to Microsoft, these cuts are not a part of the much more significant 7,800 that were cut directly related to the Nokia.

The job reductions were spread across more than one business area and country and reflect adaptations to business needs. We go through this process in the most thoughtful manner possible, with the deepest respect for affected individuals,” said the spokesperson when I asked about today’s layoff reports.

Clearly, Microsoft’s realignment in mobile and elsewhere are causing serious ripples, both in the market and among the Windows phone faithful. As always, we’ll continue keeping our eyes on these and other developments as Microsoft pushes forward with whatever its smartphone strategy might be."

So, cutting most of the Windows Phone marketing and sales people falls in line with MS perhaps leaving Windows phone completely within the next calendar year.

Remember, MS makes money on cloud services and loses money on PC and Phone.  Especially phone -- big BIG losses for the last 3 years running.


     

http://liliputing.com/2016/04/intel-restructuring-means-12000-job-cuts-11-per...

Intel restructuring means 12,000 job cuts (11 percent of its employees)



"Chip maker Intel has announced a restructuring plan that will reduce the company’s workforce by 12,000 people and save the company about $750 million per year. But Intel says the goal isn’t just to save money, but also to shift its priorities and focus more on growth areas including data centers and Internet of Things businesses.

The job cuts are expected to take place by mid-2017, and will consist of “a combination of voluntary and involuntary departures.”

Intel is probably best known for making the processors that power personal computers including desktop, notebook, and many tablet and 2-in-1 devices. But the traditional PC market has been stagnant in recent years, and Intel has struggled to break into the smartphone space.

So it’s not surprising to see the company focus on areas where it can see growth. But don’t expect Intel to pull out of the PC space anytime soon. It’s still the dominant player in personal computers and while the company has had to change its timeline for adopting next-gen chip architecture, Intel still has a number of new processors in the pipeline for everything from high-performance gaming machines to low-power, fanless computers."

My take is that Intel already has designs for everything 14nm they can possibly improve or tune or reconfigure at that "Apollo Lake" 14nm lithography level already in the can.

Firing all the old crew of people right about now won't affect anything, as Intel can execute the canned designs over the next two years using a much smaller people force.  

Then they can have enough money to float the new 7nm non-silicon production lines.

Might be able to hold some costs down that way, too .....  (management thinking, you know)

The new stuff (7nm non-silicon) will be A COMPLETELY NEW KETTLE OF FISH and the old "long experienced -- silicon skilled -- high salary crew would be of no use at all once they finally invented their own 7nm non-silicon process and then actually get into actually doing it.

So, both halves of the Wintel alliance are saying PC is something they need to grow away from just as quickly as they possibly can, as PC is nobody's future growth-wise any more, ever again.

http://liliputing.com/2016/04/acers-skylake-powered-chromebook-14-for-work-ha...

Acer’s Skylake-powered Chromebook 14 for Work has a glass lid, semi-rugged design



"Acer’s Chromebook 14 for Work is a 3.5 pound laptop with support for up to a Core i5 Skylake processor, up to a 1920 x 1080 pixel display, and up to 8GB of RAM, making it one of the more powerful Chromebook options on the market.

But what really sets this Chrome OS laptop apart is the design: it has a Corning Gorilla Glass lid, which protects the top of the computer, but allows corporate customers to emblazon their logos or other designs beneath the glass and have it shine through.

And the laptop is MIL-STD 810G tested for durability. Acer say the Chromebook 14 for work should be available in May for around $349 and up."

Chromebooks for Work -- drones can do their punchwork on a secured company wireless network system just as easily as they can on much more expensive Windows 7 or Windows 10 machines.

And in doing so they are much safer from bugs and data theft -- and the yearly cost is about 1/5 compared to paying for Mickeysoft's whole herd of money grazing products.

https://rcpmag.com/articles/2016/04/20/intel-pivots-away-from-pcs.aspx



The PC market is dying but Intel may have found a way to survive

"Overall, we're seeing a weak PC client business being offset by strong growth in the data center, memory, and IoT businesses," Intel's CFO Stacy Smith said during earnings call. "We're much less dependent on the PC segment that we've historically been."


Intel Cuts 12K Jobs as It Pivots Away from PC Business

"Intel appears to have decided that it can't wait any longer for a hoped-for revitalization of traditional PC markets," said Pund-IT Principal Analyst Charles King in a blog post. "That doesn't mean that PCs are dead by any means. There will likely be occasional upward spikes in sales related to new features, vendor innovations and businesses upgrading their office environments, but the salad days of the industry, when people camped out overnight to buy new PCs, are receding into the past."

King also noted that Intel is focusing on what has evolved into its core strengths and where consumer and enterprise IT is headed.



http://www.pcworld.com/article/2025926/intel-exits-the-desktop-motherboard-bu...



Intel completely exits the desktop motherboard business

Intel's move responds to market pressures from two directions. On one side, the world simply doesn't need as many desktop motherboards as it has in the past. Demand is shifting to laptops and tablets, so Intel is responding to changing times. On the other side, companies like Asus, Gigabyte and Asrock are meeting existing demand with a wide variety of motherboard products with innovative features.

Even worse, the feature sets offered by Intel motherboards often haven't kept pace with the offerings from Asian companies, begging the question, Why even buy an Intel board in the first place?


Moral of this story is:   NO MORE "EXCESS MONEY" TO BE POURED DOWN THE PC RAT-HOLE !!!!

http://liliputing.com/2016/04/more-remix-os-laptops-on-the-way.html

..... and EXHALE yet again .....

Here comes Allwinner putting out Android Windowing Laptops.   Rockchip last week, Allwinner this week.



These laptops have entry-level specs, low price tags, and a custom version of Android that adds desktop-style features like a taskbar, desktop, and support for running most Android apps in resizable windows.

Remix OS laptops

Charbax looked at three different models:

An 11.6 inch notebook

A 14.1 inch notebook

An 11.6 inch convertible with a touchscreen display and a 360 degree hinge


He notes that prices could be as low as $79 for some models… but only if you place a large order for hundreds or thousands of units with barebones specs (like 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage). Actual prices here in America for individual laptops are likely to be a bit closer to what you’d pay for an entry-level Chromebook (I’d guess somewhere between $120 and $200).

Allwinner is showing designs featuring its Allwinner A64 quad-core, 64-bit processor and its octa-core Allwinner A83T 32-bit chip. Each of the prototypes has a 1366 x 768 pixel display and it doesn’t seem like there are any models with more than 2GB of RAM or 32GB of storage at this time, although both will likely come out later in upscale models.

So, both Allwinner and Rockchip are both showing ARM chipset powered Windowing laptops that run Remix OS or Phoenix OS (about the same thing, really).

"Android 7" is being quoted now on one of the Allwinner samples, so you can see how fast Google is sorting out and integrating these tricks into Android N and above.



https://youtu.be/KbU-syi-Bwo      Click on it ---- it is a video.    Watch how quick the sucker runs, though -- FAST.

Mediatek, you are next --- your competitors are out now with real units and Wintel has just called it quits on chasing the low end market completely as now even they say they have a "technology gap" and that they are completely non-competitive and non-profitable in low end laptops now-a-days.    

Duh, no shite Shirlock.   $79 for a real laptop, screen touchpad and keyboard.   Amazon and Walmart will each pick them a "private" vendor and pump the cheap little suckers out by the millions just like they did with their private label Chromebooks last Christmas season.

For those that watch the video, you get to see Charbax make a monkey's arse out of himself fumbling and screwing up repeatedly because he does not know how to work the controls of the touch screen laptop.   It's funny to watch, but is typical of Charbax .....   Brad Linder is much better on actually making the different products all work correctly and showing them well.    He also is brutally honest about any lacks he sees, and Charbax is too stupid and hurried to notice the lacks as he never gets that deep into the units.

Google I/O is in a couple of weeks and Brad Linder will do his test units after that -- he insists that he gets his production level units at his place for at least a week or three to do a any form of video review which is why his reviews are so much better for both content and quality (as well as showing the teardown for user upgrades, etc.)

Anyhoo ----- Windowing Android Laptops are real now and will be here by Christmas time, along with a proper Google OS to support them and LOTS OF LITTLE GUY VENDORS making lots of neat stuff for it.

All the good little guy stuff that the Windows world has just lost, Android is picking it up and running with it.

Cost sounds great, so now we need the higher end traditional windows type apps ported over to the Windowing Android OS systems.   Microsoft Office is already there, as is Adobe.

Rest easy, the Chinese are already doing all of their softwares -- this is "their favorite OS" after all and it already runs all their favorite native language apps jest fine, thank you.

waiting patiently for the android docking setup for my phone , since the chromebook I tried could ONLY be set up through wifi
not everyone has wifi