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....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................http://www.maximumpc.com | JUL 08 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| 09
Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor
for Byte magazine and is now an analyst for
Microprocessor Report.W
ill they never learn? Another start-up
hoping to compete with mighty Intel has
crashed, sending some 200 engineers
to the unemployment line and squandering about
$74 million from disgruntled investors. Montalvo
Systems, originally named MemoryLogix, is now just
another smoking crater in Silicon Valley.
Montalvo was developing an x86-compatible
microprocessor to compete with Intel’s low-power
notebook processors. But Montalvo’s multicore
design never reached market. The initial simula-
tions didn’t meet expectations, and the engineers
labored overtime to fi x the problems. Meanwhile, the
company’s cash kept dwindling. Last-ditch attempts
to raise more funding failed. Eventually, the owners
had little choice but to fold.
Sun Microsystems has purchased Montalvo’s
assets for the relative pittance of a few million dol-
lars. Those assets are almost entirely patents—some
issued, most pending. It appears that Sun has little
interest in hiring Montalvo’s engineers or in continu-
ing their project. More than six years of Montalvo’s
development work will most likely be abandoned.
I’m not happy to say I’m not surprised. Compet-
ing with Intel in the x86 arena is almost suicidal.
Even a big company like AMD can barely hang on, and
VIA Technologies is struggling, too. Start-ups have
become a long shot.
Remember how Transmeta got steamrollered?
Although Transmeta’s x86-compatible Crusoe and
Effi ceon processors were innovative, they failed to
capture much market share from Intel. Transmeta
survives, but only because of a cash settlement from
Intel in a patent dispute. Crusoe and Effi ceon are gone.
Transmeta’s sole cash business is licensing some
power-saving technology the company developed.
I think the sorry fates of Transmeta and Montalvo
will discourage any future start-ups from designing
x86 processors to compete directly with Intel. Not
everyone agrees. My former colleague at Micro-
processor Report , Peter Glaskowsky, thinks new
competition is still feasible. (Peter was a key person
at Montalvo. One of the company’s founders was
Peter Song, another former MPR analyst.) However,
my conclusion is that investors will no longer risk the
big money needed to challenge Intel on its home turf.
AMD may win a match now and then, but in the long
run, Intel rules the x86.FAST FORWARDAnother One Bites
the Dust
You’ve probably heard
of phishing, whereby
a spoof of a legitimate
website lures unsus-
pecting users into
providing personal and
fi nancial information.
Well, add VoIP (voice
over IP) to the mix, and
you’ve got vishing.
Victims either receive a VoIP call from, or are instructed via email to
place a call to, an ostensibly legitimate institution requesting sensitive
information. VoIP’s capacity for caller ID spoofi ng gives the interaction
credibility—and VoIP account holders enjoy a level of anonymity they
don’t get with a traditional landline. – K SWORD WATCHVishing
Q
When does Seagate plan to launch
its own SSD or flash storage?A
We don’t think [SSD for] notebooks
make a lot of sense yet. We don’t
think desktops make a lot of sense yet.
We think enterprise probably has a pretty
good opportunity. It’ll be three or four
years out, but we think that enterprise,
with tiered storage, makes sense.
We’re indifferent. It’s about putting
together a solution that meets the cus-
tomer’s needs. So if I have to have an opti-
cal device, I’ll use that. If it’s a solid-state
device, I’ll use that.
Q
Is Seagate’s patent litigation against
SSD manufacturers a foot in the mar-
ketplace’s door?
A
They can’t steal from me. If they want
to do new technology, great, then go
do new technology. But don’t sit there and
steal all my technology and then think you’re
doing something. What’s great about STEC—
they didn’t deny they were stealing. They’re
trying to say [the patents] are not valid. If
they weren’t valid, why did [the Patent and
Trademark Offi ce] grant them to me?
Q
Who wins the race in the end? A
bigger and faster Seagate drive or
high-capacity fl ash memory?A
If solid state gets a good cost-for-
performance, Seagate will have a ver-
sion. Again, it’s a chip. It’s not a solution.
You have to create a solution. A hard drive is
not the head and the disk, those are compo-
nents. A hard drive is all that happens once
you record those bits on the head and disk.
How do you handle that data? How do you
interact with the Microsoft operating sys-
tem? How do you error correct? How do you
do interface? How do you connect to the PC,
to the notebook, to anything?
All that stuff—we developed that
technology. You don’t get to come in and
steal it from me. What amazes me: Drive
guys all cross-license. The solid-state
guys seem to want to argue everything in
court, which is fine. – D MFiring up the Platters of Seagate’s CEO
Bill Watkins has little love for SSDs—at least, for now
Q & A
TOM HALFHILLMAXIMUMPC.com
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