X86

Apple has become a formidable chip designer with its A series chips. And that's probably not good news for Intel, says a chip expert.

I asked Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst an Insight 64, about the shifting dynamics of the relationship that began in 2006, when Apple dropped the PowerPC for its Mac line.

Brookwood said, in effect, that if you reduce the relationship to the fact that Apple must continue to pay an "Intel tax" for chip designs it doesn't control, the future is not very cheery.

Q: What is the significance of Apple's A6 … Read more

Microsoft and Intel dominance will see serious erosion over the next few years in the era of the tablet and smartphone, market researcher IHS iSuppli said.

The Microsoft-Intel "Wintel" alliance will get slammed by the rise of the "new computer market," a category made up of PCs, smartphones, and media tablet segments, Craig Stice, an analyst at iSuppli, said in a research note today.

Waning Wintel influence is a common theme among analysts these days, as PC growth flattens and the popularity of PC proxies, like the iPad, surges.

Microsoft's share of the operating system … Read more

Intel has opened the door to potentially supporting Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system on its chips, according to a report by Computer World today.

Intel is taking a wait-and-see approach to the Windows Phone platform, which has won some critical praise but limited commercial success. Instead, the company is largely betting on the continued success of Google's Android platform, which is the most widely adopted mobile operating system in the world. Android phones running on Intel's x86 platform started to trickle out in different markets earlier this year.

Intel is hoping that Android can boost its presence … Read more

The BlueStacks app player for running Android apps on Windows has taken a major step forward today with the release of its first beta, which can run even graphics-intensive Android apps on desktop PCs.

The BlueStacks beta (download) leverages a new, patent-pending technology that the company has developed called LayerCake, which does two things necessary for running Android apps on Windows. First, it powers the app on hardware that it wasn't originally intended to run on. That's basically the ARM to x86 conversion which runs the apps, and it comes with the blessing of one of AMD's … Read more

HANOVER, Germany--Intel launched its E5 family of Xeon processors today, a tremendously important product line for the chipmaker that brings new performance to Intel-based servers and workstations.

The E5 line now comes in two varieties, Intel announced at a launch event here at the CeBIT tech show. First is the E5-2600 series for the mainstay of the server market, systems with two processor sockets. Second is the E5-1600 series chiefly for single-socket workstations.

The Xeon chips are a very important part of Intel's business. For one thing, servers are a growing market because of cloud computing, Internet businesses, and … Read more

Microsoft made it clear today why Windows 8 on an Intel-based tablet will be different from competing tablets based on ARM chips.

After speaking in Barcelona for close to an hour today about how Windows 8 on Intel and Windows 8 on ARM (WOA) will be the same, two Microsoft executives addressed, albeit briefly, a much more sensitive topic: why they're also very different.

Windows 8 marks the first time that a mainstream Windows operating system will run on processors from ARM chip suppliers like Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Nvidia in addition to those from Intel and AMD.

First, … Read more

One thing was made crystal clear today by Microsoft. Windows 8 on ARM will not be the same experience as Windows 8 on Intel-AMD--despite a big effort by Microsoft to be consistent.

Windows 8 ARM devices will run on processors from Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, and Nvidia--marking the first time that a mainstream Windows operating system will run on processors from ARM chip suppliers in addition to those of Intel-AMD.

Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky said today that Windows 8 on ARM (WOA) will launch at the same time as Windows on Intel-AMD (x86)--though he didn't say when--and that ARM-based … Read more

HP has said it will add x86 capabilities to its Itanium-based range of servers in a project code-named Odyssey.

The scheme, announced by the company on Wednesday, will see HP develop software and hardware to make x86 chips a better fit for high-end workloads that are typically dealt with by Intel's IA-64 Itanium processor.

HP will make a new range of x86 blade servers that will fit inside the HP Superdome 2 and Itanium versions of the c-Class server chassis. These blades are codenamed DragonHawk and HydraLynx, respectively. The company will also bring some high-end features from its HP-UX … Read more

A big number doesn't always win over the market, but it can help. And the number AMD is pinning its hopes on today is 16.

That's the notable number of cores in each of its Opteron 6200 "Interlagos" processors using the new "Bulldozer" architecture. Using an approach that helped Intel reclaim the initiative that the original Opteron stole years ago, the Opteron 6200 actually packages two silicon chips in a single housing and fit into the same socket as the earlier-generation Opteron 6100 models that reached up to 12 cores.

The chips are available … Read more