Rob Enderle visits Intel’s Lab to see what’s cooking in the fab. And what he finds should give IBM and Apple reason to grab their torches and pitchforks, he claims.
Intel Labs’ Natural Born Killer Technologies
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Eugenia Loli
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Did Enderle also showcase his Ferrari Laptop and how did the guys at intel react?
You will know what I think about Enderle if you look at my name. Has that guy ever been right?
I should be very excited about PowerPC emulation by an intel processor, but I’m having the feeling Enderle just didn’t understand it right because it made no sense.
Intel showed a FreeBSD-based OS that was running on one processor, and then with some changes to the kernel, moved it to an x86-based architecture—with no application or performance impact.
Umm what exactly is he talking about? What architecture was it running on before it was running on x86? If he is talking about VM’s then this sentence makes no sense to me.
With the right architecture, the CAD drawings of the components could be simply built into the end product and marketing could use the same components to showcase the finished offering.
Is he talking about fast and cheap prototyping or what? This is very unclear. I have a feeling he is talking about the design being embedded in RFID tags then extracted by marketing when they get the product so that they can use their software to render marketing material, but he is so unclear.
In software engineering, this strategy is called reuse and the practice has shown massive cost savings when used properly. If applied to graphic design and adopted by the industry, this technology could dramatically reduce the cost and time-to-market of related products.
He obviously doesn’t know what he is talking about. Most CAD systems allow you to reuse old designs or even parts of those designs. Where is the breakthrough?
The rest of his article makes sense. Pity he couldn’t be more clear on those two technologies.
“Intel showed a FreeBSD-based OS that was running on one processor, and then with some changes to the kernel, moved it to an x86-based architecture—with no application or performance impact. ”
That really doesnt seem special to me. I mean what this probably means is its easier to make a port a program to x86 than before, change only a few lines than more but its still modifying the code!. show me something thats made for ppc thats already compiled and then runs on intel automatically and ill be impressed.
Intel is one of Enderle’s clients.
Is this anything like Transmeta’s x86 code-morphing technology? Also, wouldn’t this be a good thing for Apple? Now they’d have a possible new supplier of their CPU chip.
You are right.
Either Enderle didn’t understand what was being demoed or he can’t explain the amazing things he saw.
I would like it if he could go and see the SCO linux code. 😀
Well what does the author really want to tell us? Where is the beef? Reuse of components? If he would be either an architect or a software engineer he would know that we learned from each other.
IPod integrated? Talking Smart, VW Beetle? Low power repeater? The rest is RFID with flash memory combined. Wow, did they hire Jun Rekimoto from Sony Labs? Come’on!
It is a shameless selfplug, noise from a “I’ve been in Intel-Labs” schoolboy. Move on, nothing to see here.
Nothing new, no advanced CPU architecture, bus, memory storage ( magnetic rams for example )
On the opposite, the paper talks more of software than hardware ( about drivers, tags, … ). If Intel doesn’t focus on really innovative HW techologies, that is sad news.
BTW, PowerPC allusions are pointless.
“Disclaimer: Intel and Microsoft are both clients”
I didn’t have to read between anything, it was the first sentence in the article. I do admit, his writing style needs work.
We all agree that this chap is hopeless at predicting technology trends. Now I read one of his articles, I see he is hopeless at explaining current technolgy and can’t string a sentence together any better than I can.
Um……. How did this guy get his job? How can I make it work for me?
He was probably so excited he didn’t proof read it.
I would try to make comments on the technology and keep my comments on topic, but I can’t understand what that guy is saying.
We need someone to translate it, like they do on Slashdot, from german to english, spanish to english.
🙂
<p>Rob Enderle is the principal analyst for the Enderle Group, a company specializing in emerging personal technology. Full disclosure: One of Enderle’s clients is Microsoft as well as Advanced Micro Devices, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Transmeta, VIA and Vulcan. In addition, Enderle sits on advisory councils for AMD, ClearCube, Comdex, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and TCG.</p>
Seems to me like he hired himself!
Clearly, with Intel having a PPC emulator for x86 ( http://homepage3.nifty.com/toshi3/emu/sheepshaver1.html ) and an MP3 with Bluetooth, Apple’s days are numbered.
Er, what? Oh, I’m sorry, I meant Enderle’s days being taken seriously are numbered. My bad.
We all agree that this chap is hopeless at predicting technology trends. Now I read one of his articles, I see he is hopeless at explaining current technolgy and can’t string a sentence together any better than I can.
Um……. How did this guy get his job? How can I make it work for me?
He’s payed for being a troll. I wish someone would approach me like this. *sigh* Guess it’s time for the Pretenderle Group.
If you du start Pretenderle Group,hire me then and I show you some real trolling!
Nah, I don’t like trolling, although it seems many people mistake my humor for trolling. :o)
Rob Enderle
“Therefore, because might does not make right, because an SCO loss would open us up further to attack, and because if we don’t protect SCO’s property rights we weaken our own, SCO must win.”
“I have a hard time seeing the Linux Zealots as any different from terrorists”
He is paid to say such things. He is paid to be a troll.
First of all, the article is very unclear and poorly written. Second, if he knew anything about the product lines of the other manufacturers who should be “shaking in their boots”, he would realize that the Power4 line (and now Power5) are so far beyond anything else on the market in terms of virtualization and performance that these stupid announcements from Intel don’t mean squat.
first off, the enderle group is comprised of one guy, and thats rob. it seems that when you hire him, you get a zealot preaching the word for you in techie circles.
never, ever take rob enderle seriously in anything he says or does.
I agree with everyone else here that this guy is an Real Idiot ™, but thats not the point. My question is how such poor article could ever find its way to OSNews headlines? It looks like your junk-web filters are disabled.
“For example, you would be able to operate and listen to your iPod with the radio controls in your car.”
Since when where radio controls in your car easier to use than your iPod?
“Engineers, in particular, have difficulty thinking outside of their training. For example, if you ever want to hear absolute silence, get a group of engineers in a room and ask them to brainstorm.”
Clearly Rob Enderle hasn’t worked on a hardcore engineering team. Oh.. wait, he’s been busy writing tech articles for EWEEK. Maybe he hasn’t heard of the Mars Rovers?
This guy starts his commentary with “The last time I went to one of these Intel showcased a joint project with Microsoft, called Chrome, that could have revolutionized the connected PC. Unfortunately, it died before it saw the light of day.”
And then goes on to prime the current round of new technology ideas by again claiming the world: “This year they showcased some interesting technologies that could transform the how we work, collaborate, play, keep track of our loved ones and entertain ourselves.”
Obviously there’s a remote chance this _could_ happen, but come on – transform our entire lives in less than a year with little more than gadgets? Rob Enderle knows this won’t come true, but in claiming this he can later say “see, they dropped the ball again.. I was right all along”.
After you check out the services offered by the ‘Enderle Group’ it’s clear that EWEEK just _paid_ for a 3-page advertisement for the Enderle Group.
This article makes no sense. It was poorly written and poorly thought out. Does this guy know anything?
http://essaysfromexodus.scripting.com/stories/storyReader$1541
I heard of a startup doing CPU “morphing” code last year and they said they had some big customers. They could take code written for one CPU and run it on another CPU at fairly close to the same performance – probably a real time binary recompiler of some form.
I wonder is this what Intel were showing?
That sounds interesting and this could be what Enderle meant, however, we are never going to find from his article.
Rob Enderle, if you are reading this, please explain what you meant to your large fanbase that has assembled here.
“I have a hard time seeing the Linux Zealots as any different from terrorists.”
Enderle is such a child. He sounds like the kids who gets picked on the playground when he says things like this. As if he’s just discovered there are rude people on the internet for the first time. Apparently because some Linux users are rude, ALL Linux users must be rude. And I guess people who use any other operating system are always polite. Jesus, Rob, if you want to write something, how about a country song? Then you talk about how your dog died and your truck won’t start ’cause of Linux.
Him having a “Mean People Suck” bumper sticker on his car?
Anonymous stated:
Rob Enderle
“Therefore, because might does not make right, because an SCO loss would open us up further to attack, and because if we don’t protect SCO’s property rights we weaken our own, SCO must win.”
“I have a hard time seeing the Linux Zealots as any different from terrorists”
Keep in mind, Intel and Microsoft are both clients. He is essentially paid by MS to spout anti-Linux/OSS nonsense.
two points:
1) Wasn’t IA64 supposed to be RISC killer ??
I mean that I’ve read somewhere that when IA64 was
conceived, IA64 code ran circles around PowerPC…
2) Wouldn’t this be anti-competitive, since
the only competition is Power…
( POWER = PowerPC , by the way )
Enderle is a clueless, disgruntled, ex-IBMer with an axe to grind. Based upon his emotional and financial stake in Wintel, he makes outrageous, illogical predictions and editorializes (actually rants) against Apple, IBM and Linux. Personally, I am a fan of Intel as much as Apple, IBM, Linux, etc., but I don’t see the point in reading any of Enderle’s poorly hidden agenda masquerading as confusing babble.
the first thing i thought when i saw that face was >>wasn’t that the ferrari-laptop-guy?<<, i then went back to osnews in order to check the comments, just to see that i was right
gourgeous. i wonder how such a jerk could actually get into the intel labs, they probably just showed him some popcorn machine and told him granny-stories about freebsd and cpu’s…
I think this is good news for Apple. If you know anything about the PowerPC chip, it’s always slow at speed increases and production/supply problems. For some reason Apple gets it for a while and then get low performing chips like the G4 from Moto. And now IBM seems to be pretty hung up at the moment with problems of getting a 3Gig chip in Apple’s hands. So I think this is a good thing. Intel may prove to be a better suppler than IBM or Moto.
Intel showed a FreeBSD-based OS that was running on one processor, and then with some changes to the kernel, moved it to an x86-based architecture—with no application or performance impact.
Knowing Enderle, that means he saw it move from a 230 MHz G3 PPC to a 3.4 GHz P4EE… with NO performance impact! Wow! We should ALL do that!
FreeBSD already runs on several architectures with only minor changes to the code… you know – run configure so the make files know what platform and architecture you’re on, then recompile. Enderle is someone who doesn’t understand technology – and I’m being nice here. It’s why he runs his own company in his own name instead of working for a REAL company.
freebsd-based OS = Max OS X (darwin + freebsd personality).
running on one processor = running on G4/G5.
moved to an x86-based arch = moved FROM a NON-x86 arch (therefore i guessed G4/G5 for earlier statement).
In other words, Intel tweaked a PPC-kernel image (Max OS X or OpenDarwin) a little bit and literally ran the same image on a G4/G5 and then on Intel’s new-fangled x86 chip – how ? maybe some CPU based morphing a la Transmeta et al.
You guys would have understood this if you weren’t so hell bent on calling him a moron, which he might be. What’s amusing is 10 people quoted that one sentence and not one saw what it meant. You guys may have data, even some information, but very little knowledge.
“In other words, Intel tweaked a PPC-kernel image (Max OS X or OpenDarwin) a little bit and literally ran the same image on a G4/G5 and then on Intel’s new-fangled x86 chip – how ? maybe some CPU based morphing a la Transmeta et al.”
So what?
“You guys would have understood this if you weren’t so hell bent on calling him a moron, which he might be.”
Nobody cares. That’s the whole thing.
Engineers, in particular, have difficulty thinking outside of their training. For example, if you ever want to hear absolute silence, get a group of engineers in a room and ask them to “brainstorm.” You’ll probably hear fleas die of old age, the room will be so quiet.
Based on what, exactly? By the very nature of the profession and the fact that it’s so competitive, people NEED to be drastically innovative and creative in coming up with solutions. A good design is art…utilizing one’s creativity to solve a problem in the best way possible.
Sigh…at least he’s not plugging anything. Guys like this who don’t know their arse from a hole in the ground should be kept on “this is what I saw” duty.
In other words, Intel tweaked a PPC-kernel image (Max OS X or OpenDarwin) a little bit and literally ran the same image on a G4/G5 and then on Intel’s new-fangled x86 chip – how ? maybe some CPU based morphing a la Transmeta et al.
That’s not what it said. You are just making that part up to suit your own view of the article and Intel bias.
I agree, the article didn’t SAY exactly that, it says “Virtual Machine PowerPC Killer.”
Also, “This one was easy. Intel showed a FreeBSD-based OS that was running on one processor, and then with some changes to the kernel, moved it to an x86-based architecture—with no application or performance impact. This is architected at the hardware level, …”
I’ve posted my line of thinking and why I came to my conclusions.
Maybe you might be able to show me a serious flaw in my line of thinking, or have a better translation (assuming that Endearle DID see something way cool at Intel)
“This is a VERY interesting development. SO many people love the look and feel and ease of use of Macs/OS X, but are put off by the pricing.”
Uh huh, what a nice theory. Speculate til you’re blue in the face, but don’t start preaching until you’ve got something definite. For godsake, you think Apple’s not going to have something to say about that?? You think they’d just let themselves be undercut on x86 boxes? No, actually it’s not an interesting development, it’s possibly an interesting development and it’s largely based on the word of guy whom very few seem to take serious. So keep lauging, though I don’t know how you do it with your head all the way up your @$$
if all it took to run osx was ppc hardware then the pegasos and amig one would be abel to run osx.
to run osx you need an apple rom image that you wont get without breaking any laws.
why do you think people dont make apple clones?
simpel becus they cant without apples permisson.
and if apple would want to switch to an intel cpu they would have.
They say that Apple actually considered the move but it would be too much code change and too much hassle apparently. So they went with the easier solution IBM. Now it looks as though IBM is pulling a “Moto” and Apple looks bad for it. As it is I had enough of Apple though i never had the chance to own one. a yearly upgrade cycle and uncertain future keep me away from it.
Who gives a shit what apple thinks about their OS being run on a ppc-capable x86 cpu (IF endearle is reporting accurately)? IT’S MY MONEY. I go to the store, buy the Mac OS X with my money, buy intel’s fuzzy-x86 pc with my money, and use LinuxBIOS to replace the apple ROM image, so why would I care what apple thinks ?
and how the f^&k is apple going to find out ?
You can run OS X on an AmigaOne box by the way, but you need MacOnLinux to do it, so you have to run it from (you guessed it) Linux on the Amiga h/w.
I saw it demo’d in Melbourne last year running Panther (even though MacOnLinux didn’t officially support Panther at the time). Expose worked nicely, if not a little jerky on the 800 or 900Mhz G4 they had running it. Apparently MOL runs Panther much nicer now. http://www.maconlinux.org/
Problem at the moment is that currently AmigaOne boards are about as expensive (if not more) as Mac h/w, and I have no idea how MacOnLinux supports devices etc…
Re : Apple??? — Apple won’t find out about you doing something like that, nor would they try. What they would do is try and stop that kind of process from working in the first place. Not because they hate people like you, but because they are a business and one trying to stay in business. If everyone could stop buying Apple h/w, Apple would go away. Apple is a h/w business first, s/w comes after (historically it just happened that way, Linux and MS started with s/w, Apple with Apple I’s and II’s etc). Not saying this is good or bad, just explaining…
I think it’s a good idea to step away from thinking one OS company is more “evil” than another, and think of them as a business doing what they can to get more money. When you think like that, things seem a bit more clearer – IMO anyway…