https://liliputing.com/2017/11/qualcomm-trns-broadcoms-130-billion-acquisition-o
ffer.html

Qualcomm turns down Broadcom’s $130 billion acquisition offer

It’s not hard to understand why Broadcom made the offer. The company has an extensive portfolio of products, but there’s not a huge amount of overlap with Qualcomm. While Broadcom is best known for its networking solutions, Qualcomm is one of the dominant players in the smartphone CPU and GPU space. Combining the two companies would create a serious powerhouse in the low-power chip space.

Whether the deal would be approved by regulators is an open question, but it’s one that may go unanswered, since Qualcomm is rejecting the unsolicited acquisition offer.

Technically, it’s still up to Qualcomm’s shareholders to decide whether to reject the deal. But with the board of the company unanimously recommending against, it seems unlikely to go through… at least at the current price.

While $130 billion is a lot of money, Qualcomm’s board says the offer undervalues the company, which is currently expanding beyond smartphones and into other markets including automotive, Internet of Things, and networking.

UNDERVALUED, yes I agree with that statement.

Let's see ..... Qualcomm is leading FOSS into Server Space using DynamIQ chipsets swinging over 46 core sets (sets of 4  cores & sets of 8 cores which is how the overall "strength" parameter is being controlled right now).    Also note that any bad cores get dropped from the core count list making up some sub-type sorted outcome part numbers that are slightly weaker than the primo SoCs.   This is also why the chip is spec'd at 46 cores while 48 cores are physically there, they expect a little bit of a failure rate when the chip is a brand new little puppy production-wise.

I suspect they will continue to build at the full 48 sets of 8 cores per set and let the failure rates dictate the number of lesser processors they have to sell (they got 4 lesser slots they can downgrade into).   Sub-grade processors that will get accumulated over time and get shipped periodically at a strong discount.

When Samsung gets really really good at it, then the price of the primo chipset can go down to increase the demand rate back on up to equilibrium again at the lesser flaw rates.    Then comes 7nm next year and 5nm two years later on ......

Qualcomm is breaking into laptops with Microsoft doing the Snapdragon 835 and 845 phone chips as laptop chips and by making sure that Microsoft Win Server runs really really well on Centriq 2400 processors.

Qualcomm is also breaking into AI with the Snapdragon 845 in a somewhat LARGER fashion, since it is swinging a larger AI processing block linked with the more powerful graphics processor.

Qualcomm is a leader that has made a series of progressive partnerships on a series of significant issues --- and Qualcomm generally brings home the bacon whenever they start something.

This is not to say that Qualcomm is without flaw, as they have done their fair share of dumb and greedy things over the years.

But they are not at an Intel or Microsoft level flaw-wise by anybody's guess.

Apple saying Qualcomm is greedy is about as bad as it gets   (pot calling the kettle black there, actually)

I have to agree that Broadcom's take-over bid was perhaps a calculated distraction orchestrated by Intel to try to get the bad Qualcomm man to slow down on the Intel kidney kickings to some small degree --- or mebbe just to get Qualcomm to stop taking R & L turns whacking Intel in the knees all the durn time with that bloody baseball bat ......

     .....so,  let the Intel beatings continue unabated .....

If Intel isn't writhing, squealing and bleeding, they ain't innovating hard enough .....

You know you've hurt them BAD when they Bleed loudly.

 
https://www.slashgear.com/windows-10-on-snapdagon-835-geekbench-scores-are-un...

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be bearing good fruit either. At least not this early. According to the Geekbench listing, Windows 10 running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, most likely using a reference board, scores 1,202 on the single-core benchmark and 4,263 on multi-core. That wouldn’t be as bad until you consider that typical Android devices on that same chip and reference board get over 2,200 and 7,700 for single and multi core tests, respectively.

It would definitely be a disappointment if Microsoft will be unable to optimize Windows 10 for use on Snapdragon 835 SoCs. Running at such low performance basically negates whatever advantages the ARM architecture has to offer. So while Windows 10 on ARM might fare better than Windows RT on the software side, it will still be a terrible flop if no hardware will run it well.

The very first tentative benchmarks of Win 10 ARM on Qualcomm 835 are now showing up at benchmark sites and unlike the original "prototype" benchmarks it isn't all unalloyed spritely joy springing up all over there in Mudville.

MS has been unable to equal the old "original" Snapdragon 835 Win 10 benchmark speeds because they cannot use Intel system calls as they did back then because Intel won't let them.

So far MS has lacked the ability to code effectively for the one single ARM chipset they had committed to bring over to Windows 10.

A Core i3 Intel chipset is now coming across as clearly speedier for use with Win 10 at this point in time due to the use of all the native x86 Intel systems drivers.

Based upon a new view of "Win 10 on ARM reality" that is first really being shown here, then Win 10 on ARM is a bust yet again -- with this time Intel's "playing dog in the manger" on the systems drivers as the root cause.   With MS's inability to write a custom driver being the secondary cause .....

Look to see MS and Qualcomm perhaps taking a cut down slice of a Centriq 2400 and start testing that as a prototype, then designing up a new laptop/desktop chipset accordingly.    Struggling to "almost work" is stupid when they have just proven out a means of EXCEEDING Intel's capabilities at half the cost and half the energy budget of Intel tech.

Also look to see AMD and IBM pushing forward their new ARM based wares as potential solutions to the "Intel issue".

Of course Intel could forestall all such efforts by simply lowering the prices for their Core 17 8th generation chipsets by a third.

Never forget, the entire issue is really Intel's long running habit of price gouging everywhere they possibly can.

News Flash -- Lenovo backs away from their plans for Qualcomm 835 based ARM Windows 10 laptops for this Christmas season.

Hewlett Packard says they are still on schedule to release their Win 10 ARM unit in the second week of December (but have nothing to share for any benchmarks at this point in time -- not a good sign this late in the game). [/quote]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-z-nand-sz985-intel-optane,35956.html





OK, a new term for you to remember Samsung Z-Nand

Home based from Samsung (world's second largest foundry) comes their much lower cost version of Intel's pricy Optane memory --- memory that costs a third to half as much as Intel (the #5 foundry volume-wise) and Z-Nand gives 95% to 2x of Optaine's claimed performance depending on the actual memory items being tested and who is doing the testing.

(please note that Intel Optane has never ever met its own claims when tested by others, so there may not be any large difference really between the two performance-wise)

It is also now suspected that this new Samsung Z-Nand memory was what was snuggled on up on top of those new Centriq 2400 processors as "the large amount of chip mounted dedicated L-3 cache memory" which mebbe was one of the reasons why the Centriq 2400 kicked Intel's butt so very very badly last week.

This is just the second entry in the new VERY FAST PERMANENT MEMORY classification, with two-three more entries still waiting to get into the starting gate.

All various fast memory horses will be in the gate by late spring of next year, then the big fast memory horse race can begin in earnest .....

You can count on Z-Nand cache memory being inside all of Samsung's primo chipsets next year, adding that little something extra to Samsung's performance mix.


========================================


Also note that Micron is coming out with their own candidate for super fast permanent memory within the next month or so ..... no specs put out so far, but the general claims are much the same as the others.

https://liliputing.com/2017/11/intel-confirms-security-vulnerabilities-intel-man
agement-engine.html

Intel confesses that the Minux subsystem that runs their Intel processor core security system SIMPLY ISN'T SECURE AT ALL.   Just kept secret and it was a naturally very obscure very old programming system which means nobody was expecting it to be used ....



The vulnerability could allow an unauthorized user to run code delivered via USB.

Affected systems include those running Intel Management Engine 11.0 through 11.7, Intel Server Platform Services version 4.0, and Intel Trusted Execution Engine 3.0.

That includes 6th-gen, 7th-gen, and 8th-gen Intel Core processors as well as a bunch of other chips including:

Intel Celeron N and J series chips
Intel Pentium Apollo Lake
Intel Atom E3900 Apollo Lake
Intel Atom C3000
Intel Xeon W
Intel Xeon E3-1200 v5 and v6
Intel Xeon Scalable family

Intel has released a tool that you can download and run on Windows or Linux PCs to see if your computer is affected. But you can’t download a fix for the security vulnerability from Intel: it’s up to PC makers to roll out updates. Some companies shave already started to do that, but the outcome will probably vary from PC maker to PC maker.

This is pretty much exactly what critics of the Intel Management Platform had been worried about. Since the software is hidden from end users, many people may not even know it’s running on their computer. And it’s proven difficult for security researchers to examine the code to search for vulnerabilities, which means that it’s largely up to Intel to make sure that this software doesn’t pose a huge security risk unbeknownst to most users.

No wonder companies including Purism and Google have been looking for ways to disable Intel ME (which, ironically, involves finding and exploiting flaws in the software, since it’s not meant to be disabled).


If this was a car, there would be a gov. recall notice put out and the cars would sit until they were fixed properly .....  except by its very nature this computer processing core software CANNOT be fixed.





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https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/intel-warns-of-widespread
-vulnerability-in-pc-server-device-firmware/



Four vulnerabilities were discovered that affect Intel Management Engine firmware versions 11.0 through 11.20. Two were found in earlier versions of ME, as well as two in Server Platform Services version 4.0 firmware and two in TXE version 3.0.

The security holes affect the following Intel CPUs:

Intel Core processors from the 6th generation ("Skylake"), 7th generation ("Kaby Lake"), & 8th Generation ("Kaby Lake-R" and "Coffee Lake") families—the processors in most desktop and laptop computers since 2015;
Multiple Xeon processor lines, including the Xeon Processor E3-1200 v5 & v6 Product Family, Xeon Processor Scalable family, and Xeon Processor W family;
The Atom C3000 Processor Family and Apollo Lake Atom Processor E3900 series for networked and embedded devices and Internet of Things platforms, and
Apollo Lake Pentium and Celeron™ N and J series Processors for mobile computing.

The highest-level vulnerabilities, rated at 8.2 and 7.5 on the Common Vulnerability Security Scale (CVSSv3) respectively, are in the most recent versions of Intel Management Engine. They have the broadest impact on PC users: they allow arbitrary remote code execution and privileged information access. Dell has issued a statement on the MX advisory that lists over 100 affected systems, including a variety of Inspirion, Latitude, AlienWare, and OptiPlex systems; Lenovo has a similarly vast list posted on its site.

To show they didn't do it (have only secondary reporting responsibility only) on this set of grievous security exploit "chip deep" sort of errors, all PC vendors are required in the EU to post lists of ALL the units affected by each of the 4 exploits.

This is now being seen as a "pay them a chunk of money to buy a replacement" sort of issue in the EU.   This may be a company killer pay out issue for Intel ......

The highest-level vulnerabilities, rated at 8.2 and 7.5 on the Common Vulnerability Security Scale (CVSSv3) respectively, are in the most recent versions of Intel Management Engine. They have the broadest impact on PC users: they allow arbitrary remote code execution and privileged information access. Dell has issued a statement on the MX advisory that lists over 100 affected systems, including a variety of Inspirion, Latitude, AlienWare, and OptiPlex systems; Lenovo has a similarly vast list posted on its site.

In short, the list covers ALL UNITS ever produced,  and at a 8.2 out of 10 severity for "a remote code execution vulnerability" (for something that Intel cannot fix in software) this will cause the stricter government agencies to simply stop using the machines in question.

See these folks immediately seek some sort of other brand solution for their immediate "must use, must be secure" data issues.

See bigger international customers like Apple react by rolling away from Intel's buggy horse poo processors ......  see the lawsuits roil and boil starting now ......





It is thought that Intel will come out with a download bios boot level tool to "turn the Intel Management Engine all off permanently" and then will attempt to replace ME with a software scan tool that runs at each boot (and periodically during the day, too).

Money will be owed to each and every customer/user over this one .....   TIME and Functionality will be lost during these sub-bios level checks ......


INTEL REACTS in typical brown vapor BS fashion by saying .....

"Intel said customers should look to their PC manufacturers for fixes. “We worked with equipment manufacturers on firmware and software updates addressing these vulnerabilities, and these updates are available now,” the company said in a statement to Fortune. “Businesses, systems administrators, and system owners using computers or devices that incorporate these Intel products should check with their equipment manufacturers or vendors for updates for their systems, and apply any applicable updates as soon as possible.”

https://liliputing.com/2017/11/arm-powered-windows-laptops-show-benchmark-result
s.html



It’s probably too early to read too much into the benchmark listings, since the final products could look quite different. But it is certainly interesting that Geekbench shows single-core and multi-core scores that are about half of what you’d expect from an Android device with the same Snapdragon 835 processor.

Maybe that means Windows 10 runs less efficiently than Android on ARM. Maybe it has something to do with the overhead that comes with emulating an x86 instruction set so that users can run legacy Windows programs on a device with an ARM-based processor. Or maybe these are just early results for unfinished hardware and software that hasn’t been finalized yet.

It’s also interesting to see that some of the pre-release Windows 10 on ARM devices seem to need 4GB of RAM and others seem to need 8GB. It looks like Windows tablets and laptops with 2GB of RAM or less may be a thing of the past ..…

Ok, that's all of them save Lenovo, who says they aren't going to be playing until end of first quarter next year (Lenovo likely decided to wait for Qualcomm Snapdragon 845).

Consensus is that Win 10 on ARM requires twice the memory resources to run only HALF as fast as Android.   This means Chromebooks "as is" will still kick Win 10's butt on performance and cost per unit.

Google and FOSS are showing some preliminary open source moves to make up a new light fast OS that incompasses the very best "fastest" "lightest" pieces that they have now.  

Still waiting for the Centriq style consumer level ARM SoC designs to show up for first production to run this sort of new OS (this will be required for Win 10 on ARM to be a "performance competitive" winner against the huge INTEL Xenon Server chipsets)

Apple's Swift (the inventor of this language now works for Google) is now rolling on Fuschia OS working with Google's DART and Magenta/Zircon system tools ...... running on brand new ARM certified chip designs, to be built by TSMC and Samsung .....  faster is coming, soon.

Apple is currently moving away from Core i5 and Core i7 rolling over to Xenon Server Chipsets swinging 18 huge Intel Xenon Server cores.  Forced putt, that -- better options are needed and these will come soon enough too.

Industry and the American Government (and other governments) no longer trusts Intel not to design and make up a complete secret freak show that lives internal to their consumer hardware / bios subsystems  .....

Why do Chromebooks only require 2 gigs of systems memory (and go deluxe at 4 gigs) and only require 16 gigs of storage memory (and go deluxe at 32 gigs).  

This is in a Windows world that requires TWICE those basic and deluxe numbers for ANY real retail Windows 10 system (whichever variant you prefer) and Win 10 will then only run HALF AS FAST as a Chromebook or an Android device even when given twice the resources?

I have consistently said "porky fat, waddling and slow" about MS OS products for a long time now -- and it is as accurate a way of answering this point as any.


====================================================


Fuschia OS is just an infant at the moment, but so far it treats Android and Chrome OS as "fat slow and waddling cripples" at about the same ratio / amount as Chrome OS and Android does to Windows 10.

Suffice it to say that Fuchsia is really super fast compared to existing large MS OS products -- it makes traditional Linux distros look "creeping slow" too as Linux tends to be complex on roughly the same order as the older MS OS products (faster yes, but distro based Linux isn't 10x-30x faster while Fuschia shows all the signs of doing this level of quick or better as a routine sort of thing).

Think of AI and the upcoming benefits that are headed our way -- Windows 10 certainly can't take advantage of the 30x - 50x AI speed increases that are coming because Windows 10 itself is far far too slow to run at these speeds.

A "stripped down" Supercomputer Linux is the only thing we have right now that can fully reflect these AI speed improvements in any meaningful fashion.

We need a serious OS speed revolution in our commonly used computing OS systems -- now you know what Fuschia is really all about.

Fuschia when run on new memory equipped systems will be capable of running cleanly at the AI 50x speeds that are inbound inside the next 2-3 years.