Transmeta failed because they tried to compete with Intel on Intel's turf. By the time they got their 2nd version ready for tapeout, Intel had already learned t

Transmeta failed because they tried to compete with Intel on Intel's turf. By the time they got their 2nd version ready for tapeout, Intel had already learned that TransMeta was right about the fact that the low-power market was a growth opportunity. If TransMeta had gone after ARM instead of x86, they might have had a chance -- as evidenced by the fact that ARM is currently trampling over Intel's offerings in mobile applications because x86 compatibility isn't much of an asset, and Atom doesn't have low enough power consumption to compete with current ARM implementations.