I don’t usually spend Saturday morning reading investor presentations and I can’t even remember how I got here but it’s interesting to look at the 22 April 2008 investor presentation from Archos. The personal media player company sees a migration to MIDs happening in the next 2 years. They also say that there is only one Internet, it needs a minimum 5″, 800×480 screen, that the MID market will 70M units in size by 2010. They also highlight to trends. 1) 3G is all-over in Western Europe and 2) Ultra Low Power X86 processors are becoming reality and that mobile devices will run standard PC applications in 2009.
There are no presentation notes or audio accompanying the slides here so I’m having trouble putting that last statement into context. Did Archos imply that they will have to follow the ‘reality’ and run standard PC applications? I.e. Go X86? Or did Chief executive Henri Crohas talk about the Archos’ competitive advantage in this X86-based market when he showed that slide? The Archos 5 has just been released and its based on a ARM/Ti platform but this product is probably a result of 18 months dev work. The low power X86 platforms didn’t exist then. They do now though so if Archos believe that the PMP market is evolving to a point where the Internet aspect is more important, would they switch CPU architectures?
Images taken from Archos Investor Presentation. 22 April 2008.(PDF).
I do believe that the X86-based platform has more potential both from the software dev and technology aspects and I’ve made predictions that Archos could move to X86 in the past but there are some changes happening in the market and unpredictable forces out there. An expensive decision like this needs to be low-risk to keep investors happy so I don’t believe that they’ve already made their decision.
Ti are putting a lot of effort into promoting their OMap platform, Nokia are looking to continue with ARM/Linux and there are others important players to consider too. Qualcomm, Apple, Nvidia all have products that could affect the market. On the other hand, Archos have just released a new product and have time before they need to make a decision on a new platform for their next product.
It would be in interesting market indicator if Archos switched to X86 but I guess we’ll have to wait a while before we find out.
Archos could easily be pointing out that their competition in 2009 will be from mobile devices which run standard PC applications. However, how many people need to run exactly the same applications on their mobile device that they do on their desktop or laptop? (e.g., running Microsoft Word on their mobile device, as opposed to some app which lets them edit their Word files.)
The only cases that come to mind are the sorts of vertically integrated situations involving specialized applications that OQO, not surprisingly, targets itself at. Everyone else, while they might want to do similar things on a mobile device as they do on a laptop, don’t have the same need to run identical executables.
JC,
Competely agree, as long as I can see the same docs, the same web etc.I don’t care too much about the underlying app. or OS. For the consumer the UI will be key.
I think Archos do see that there is a big market developing out there and they want to stay focused to what they are aiming for.
@JC
“Archos could easily be pointing out that their competition in 2009 will be from mobile devices which run standard PC applications.”
I agree but why would they tell their investors that the trend for mobile devices is towards X86? It doesnt add up!
Chippy,
Looking at the third slide you can see where Archos place themselves. The don’t see themselves as part of the Office productivity group. Nor even specificaly part of the Communications group. They are working on the other half of the market where the bigger numbers are. Potentially 150m in there area, with expected 70m just what they are competing in.
It would seem that they do see smartphones competing with UMPCs for productivity side of things. Also this seems to imply that from 2009 they will be more developed and able to run full apps. Is Android / OSX / WinMo 7 part of this. I have been reading that there is meant to be greater compatibility files wise between WinMo 7/8 and Windows 7. Then the underlying architecture will mainly matter for apps. But then if cloud computing takes of then all you will need is a browser that will allow you to use them. This is a form of virtualisation I think.
I think the 4.3″ screen compromise is interesting. I’m going to try 3.8″ with 800×480 and see how that is :-)
3.8″ 800×480 screen….. hmmmm. Sounds like a Touch HD to me!
Add a Cortex-A8 SoC and I think I’ve found my ultimate device.
Too bad that Archos is keeping Archos 5 locked down. If they do want to go the MID route fully, they should open up their OS for native development. Just installing Opera on a PMP does not make it a proper MID.
I agree absolutely. Keeping their system locked downs means that we will never be able to do more with than they permit us. It’s a huge turnoff, and all other things being reasonably close to equal, I would always buy the product which lets me fool around inside.
Others may not care, but as I see it if indie developers are given a chance to hack around inside, they will always come up with something that the manufacturer didn’t think of, or didn’t think was worth the trouble.
Right now the Archos stands out because it makes maximum use of the device for screen spacse, and has good video, docuemnt, and Internet access functionality.
Technology progress will soon make it possible for anyone make a 5″ MID that weighs a few hundred grams that does those things, and those manufacturers that have a closed OS will fall behind.
Personally, I am looking for a Windows Mobile 5″ MID because the software is all there. It’s not sexy, it’s not efficient, but it gets the job done, and as processors get more powerful, no one will notices that under the hood the engine is rather primitive.
I am not impressed by the Linux stuff – my attempt to set up Ubuntu on my laptop this past month was an exercise in frustration due to lack of drivers for this or that. Who needs the grief!
Rumors say that the next Archos generation could use an X86 processor (Jaffar, an Archos staff, didn’t deny), possibly the future Moorestown from Intel. This could be really interesting…
Nope, Archos is doing IMT Internet Media Tablets and not Intel based MID. No risk Archos using the Intel atoms anytime soon.
Just cause Archos sees that Intel is marketing its MID Atom so much, does not mean Archos will do the same mistake investing in that.
Archos has been doing MID-like devices since 2002. In terms of what you really want to do with a pocketable multimedia player.
ARM and DSP is and will always be much cheaper, use much less power and be much faster then X86 at doing stuff in pocketable devices.
Intel obviously is kind of desperate at this point, they are really regretting at this point having sold off the Xscale ARM based processor to Marvell.
Google is doing the Google Linux Android OS for ARM devices, not X86.
All you need to run on your ARM device is a full AJAX and Flash compatible smooth and snappy web browser, full multimedia support and basic non-bloatware third party Java based applications. X86 (general purpose lowest common denominator unoptimized processing) has just simply no use in this scenario.
X86 is to run bad code, unoptimized code on bloated and slow, power hungry multi-hundred Watt desktops, desktops that have thousands of different hardware configurations. That was the purpose of X86, to make processing compatible on all those different bloated hardware configurations. Result is that we aren’t using even 1% of the X86 based hardware out there. 99% of it is wasted unused CPU cycles.
There is no way the bloated X86 power/ineficiency/expensiveness scenario will be duplicated for pocketable devices.
X86 is for legacy, for the old stuff, for what is behind us, and you can run 1982 programs on it.
I want to get to where that Italian racer in the first Gumball Movie was, when he said something like ~the first rule in Italian racing is that what is behind you doesn’t matter,~ and then he ripped off the rear view mirror.
Had a look at the uPop. There is an english language website:
http://www.kaonmobile.com
Unfortunately not a proper spec. sheet that I could find.
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