Intel is really good. Really really really good, I have a hard time dismissing them but the ability to buy from many vendors and build custom hardware is compelling. I felt this way before about powerpc but there seems to be more compelling community support for arm this time around, the installed base of mobile devices makes a huge difference. It seems to me that intel has been lazy exploiting their performance edge, if amd and others start selling inexpensive lowish power arm 8 and 12 core systems that can legitimately hang with intel then I think they'll have some serious competition. Especially as the niche vendors start making 32 and 64 core chips, assuming they can keep the prices decent.
It could be very interesting if a Dell, for example, starts to get in on the game, they're already attempting to be solution vendors. Perhaps targeted arm core start being built, like storage centric designs for SAN type systems and network processors will fall out pretty quickly, all with fundamentally the same isa and just different accelerators for different domains. That something intel has always been against.
It could be very interesting if a Dell, for example, starts to get in on the game, they're already attempting to be solution vendors. Perhaps targeted arm core start being built, like storage centric designs for SAN type systems and network processors will fall out pretty quickly, all with fundamentally the same isa and just different accelerators for different domains. That something intel has always been against.