4 ms·

What do you mean "let go"? Zephyr is supported by both Intel and linaro/arm. I wonder about the BOM cost of Intel vs arm though, in € per "performance"? Or w

by froh 5y ago

What do you mean "let go"? Zephyr is supported by both Intel and linaro/arm. I wonder about the BOM cost of Intel vs arm though, in € per "performance"? Or what else is the root cause of Intel not getting a foothold in bedded?

joezydeco 5y ago
Zephyr started out as a WindRiver acquisition. Then Intel bought WindRiver. Then Intel sold it off. TLDR: Intel had a foothold in embedded/realtime operating systems and let it go. Wanna talk about XScale? Intel had an ARM license and then decided, out of the blue, to sell the product line off. TLDR: Intel had a foothold in low-power ARM platforms and let it go. I never went near an Edison board so I don't even address that one. And now they're doing RISC-V. Don't go near it. So, your question is "what is the root cause of Intel not getting a foothold in (em)bedded"? The answer is Intel itself. Yes, I know they contribute to LF and whatnot. The point is that staking your embedded development pipeline on Intel itself is something I would never do (again). And I worked with Zephyr post-Intel, it wasn't a great system. I hope it's improved since then.
- dboreham 5y ago
  All very reasonable decisions if you're an MBA, I'm sure.
  - froh 5y ago
    Clayton Christensen plays a melancholic theme song on his angels harp to "the innovators dilemma" Perfectly summarizes the sibling commenta on ever ongoing divestments from embedded opportunities.
- mook 5y ago
  Was XScale derived from StrongARM which was acquired from DEC? Because given the examples it sounds like "trust Intel to wind down acquisitions". Of course, that still means one would be wary of betting on them in areas that aren't already well established…
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    It was indeed.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Intel had the top performing ARM platform with StrongARM/Xscale. They threw it away. They had their legacy embedded platforms that were popular. They threw it away. Edison could have been a compelling gateway drug for embedded Atom products. They crippled it from the start and threw it away. The root cause is MBAs making bad decisions for short term gains.
- lizknope 5y ago
  Intel did not throw it away. They sold the business unit to Marvell for $600 million. I was working for a different CPU company at the time but the thought was by doing this it would allow Intel to focus on the sales and marketing of the Atom and push x86 everywhere rather than have a mixed x86 / ARM marketing message. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale On June 27, 2006, the sale of Intel's XScale PXA mobile processor assets was announced. Intel agreed to sell the XScale PXA business to Marvell Technology Group for an estimated $600 million in cash and the assumption of unspecified liabilities. The move was intended to permit Intel to focus its resources on its core x86 and server businesses.
  - joezydeco 5y ago
    The move was intended to permit Intel to focus its resources on its core x86 and server businesses. And that's where Intel continually loses out on markets because the x86 cash firehose is too good. The XScale sale gained them $600MM, but what did they lose by being shut out of the mobile processor market for the next decade onward? There are 2 billion iPhones on the planet somewhere and not a single one has an Intel application processor.

by froh 5y ago

joezydeco 5y ago

Zephyr started out as a WindRiver acquisition. Then Intel bought WindRiver. Then Intel sold it off. TLDR: Intel had a foothold in embedded/realtime operating systems and let it go. Wanna talk about XScale? Intel had an ARM license and then decided, out of the blue, to sell the product line off. TLDR: Intel had a foothold in low-power ARM platforms and let it go. I never went near an Edison board so I don't even address that one. And now they're doing RISC-V. Don't go near it. So, your question is "what is the root cause of Intel not getting a foothold in (em)bedded"? The answer is Intel itself. Yes, I know they contribute to LF and whatnot. The point is that staking your embedded development pipeline on Intel itself is something I would never do (again). And I worked with Zephyr post-Intel, it wasn't a great system. I hope it's improved since then.

dboreham 5y ago
All very reasonable decisions if you're an MBA, I'm sure.
- froh 5y ago
  Clayton Christensen plays a melancholic theme song on his angels harp to "the innovators dilemma" Perfectly summarizes the sibling commenta on ever ongoing divestments from embedded opportunities.
mook 5y ago
Was XScale derived from StrongARM which was acquired from DEC? Because given the examples it sounds like "trust Intel to wind down acquisitions". Of course, that still means one would be wary of betting on them in areas that aren't already well established…
- pjmlp 5y ago
  It was indeed.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

Intel had the top performing ARM platform with StrongARM/Xscale. They threw it away. They had their legacy embedded platforms that were popular. They threw it away. Edison could have been a compelling gateway drug for embedded Atom products. They crippled it from the start and threw it away. The root cause is MBAs making bad decisions for short term gains.

lizknope 5y ago
Intel did not throw it away. They sold the business unit to Marvell for $600 million. I was working for a different CPU company at the time but the thought was by doing this it would allow Intel to focus on the sales and marketing of the Atom and push x86 everywhere rather than have a mixed x86 / ARM marketing message. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale On June 27, 2006, the sale of Intel's XScale PXA mobile processor assets was announced. Intel agreed to sell the XScale PXA business to Marvell Technology Group for an estimated $600 million in cash and the assumption of unspecified liabilities. The move was intended to permit Intel to focus its resources on its core x86 and server businesses.
- joezydeco 5y ago
  The move was intended to permit Intel to focus its resources on its core x86 and server businesses. And that's where Intel continually loses out on markets because the x86 cash firehose is too good. The XScale sale gained them $600MM, but what did they lose by being shut out of the mobile processor market for the next decade onward? There are 2 billion iPhones on the planet somewhere and not a single one has an Intel application processor.