WE WERE RECENTLY surprised to witness what appeared to be an 180-degree turn by Nvidia regarding Android on Tegra mobile devices, with various sites quoting general manager for Nvidia's mobile business unit, Mike Rayfield, as having said that the graphics chip firm preferred Microsoft's Windows CE.
The INQ was more than a bit perplexed at Rayfield's seemingly disparaging comments about Android to ComputerWorld, so we diligently tracked Mike down in order to clarify things.
"That article [by ComputerWorld] took a more negative slant than I would have desired," Rayfield told us when we pointed out that he'd sounded less than diplomatic towards Google's little open source Android offering.
Certainly, by saying Nvidia preferred Microsoft's Windows CE over Android because of CE's maturity and knocking Androids "rough user interface", Rayfield seemed to making an about turn from what we'd personally seen and heard from the Green Goblin at MWC Barcelona back in February.
It was also surprising considering all the analysts we spoke to about Tegra told us that imminent design wins appeared less likely at OEMs with Windows CE solutions, but Rayfield dismissed this, saying both operating systems on Tegra would do well in the market.
Rayfield told the INQ that ComputerWorld's article had somewhat confused the different smartphones and smartbooks markets, making a mishmash of how the two product segments differ. Smartbooks, or ARM based netbooks as they're sometimes referred to, are little laptops with screensizes of between 8.9 and 10.1 inches. Smartphones fit in your pocket.
"We are not handicapping either Windows mobile or Android for smartphones, we're working with a lot of customers for both of them," Rayfield told the INQ, adding that equal amounts of energy were being channeled into both.
As far as smartbooks are concerned, however, Rayfield said an initial decision was made to go with CE for two reasons, the first being that Android had issues on eight to ten inch screens which needed to be resolved. Secondly, said Rayfield, "we sort of looked at what happened a year ago with netbooks and the whole Linux thing was a disaster."
Rayfield pointed to the fact 80 per cent of netbooks a year ago were shipping with Linux, compared with only about 20 per cent now. This, said Rayfield, made Nvidia think it might be a better idea to go with "a more constrained solution like Windows CE" which he said was "rock solid in terms of its embedded applications." Since smartbooks would be distributed through carriers who wanted to offer a fairly limited set of applications in a fairly constrained environment, Windows CE sounded like the most logical option, said Rayfield.
When we INQuired about potential cost differences between Windows CE and Android, Rayfield said there wouldn't be much in it if one considered the cost of putting together one's own application stack and the support needed for Linux.
Still, Nvidia is aiming to offer both Android and Windows CE on smartbooks, just as soon as Android sorts itself out, meaning CE smartbooks should tip up in 2H09 and Android versions will appear in 1H10. "There will be android solutions in this space" Rayfield told us emphatically, adding that he is a great believer in the free market system and that consumers will ultimately be the ones to decide what they want to buy.
Let's just hope Microsoft doesn't do any, er, ARM twisting in the meanwhile to jeapordise their choice. µ
CE will fail on smartbooks since there will be few to none applications for average Joe.
The most capable OS for the job seems to be plain Linux. Somehow this option is not even discussed.
I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that Microsoft has selected Tegra for their next media player (ZuneHD?). I'm sure if not this little fact Linux would have been in many more headlines as I'm sure more sane nvidia engineers would have never thought of CE as a good OS for mobile devices.
I with nVidia with Tegra would have paired with Nokia (instead of Intel) to create a rocking combination for their Nokia Maemo 5 + hardware accelerated Qt platform.
So now when I want to run xxx Linux app on my Tegra device I just download the source code and make all... oh wait, no, now I'm limited to the craptacular CE apps.
What a bunch of morons. Nobody gives a flying hoot what OS is underneath an android device as long as the OS works. Netbooks are a completely different beast. Look at TomTom, that runs Linux, think anybody cares?
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/42965/135/ Is bit on XDR Memory of next Gen, starting out in PS3 & now expanding to higher frequencies. with about 50 Gb/s Total throughput & over 10 Gb/s actual potential rating, above. Its Got Mikes Seal of Aproval.
Next: Android from same soccer:
slogans - Make it Mine, Stay Close, and Discover the Unexpected - which amount to ways of designing the interface of the Hero to suit the way you want your phone to look.
The Hero phone has a 3.2-inch HVGA display and comes with GPS, a digital compass, a gravity sensor, a 3.5 millimeter stereo headset jack, a five megapixel autofocus camera and MicroSD memory.
The Hero has a Teflon coating, an anti-fingerprint screen and a bevel edged design.
Not as Big as Slyvs' Android, Yet Out Next Week In BritAIn, thats in Europe.
AHSO, MAGIC BUTTON SWIPED GOT YE BUTTONS:
■Fully Differential Memory Architecture (FDMA) – Enhances signal integrity and increases performance through point-to-point differential signaling of clock, data, and command/address (C/A).
■FlexLink C/A – Reduces pin count and increases scalability.
■Enhanced FlexPhase – Enables high memory signaling rates, simplifies routing and board design.
■Micro-threading of the DRAM core – Increases data transfer efficiency and reduces power consumption.
■16X Data Rate – Facilitates high data rates by utilizing a relatively low-speed system clock.
DID THEY MENTION XIO CONTROLLER IS 3.5x BETTER THAN gddr5 or 2X faster.
Just after I said Sylvie's grammar is about perfect, I stumbled across this article... damn :(
It's my understanding that:
1. Android 2.0 (Oct?) will resolve the screen resolution issue.
2. Android already supports OpenGL hardware acceleration.
If so, it seems that Tegra smartbooks running Android could theoretically ship this year.
Since Android supports OTA updates, Android could be deployed early on and, as further Tegra optimizations are made, they could be pushed out to active users.
Seems big pimp Microsoft is telling it's whore's what's what.
"Rayfield said there wouldn't be much in it if one considered the cost of putting together one's own application stack and the support needed for Linux."
You won't fool developers with that statement, Rayfield. Unless, of course, these developers look to you for their information. Take your STF (sexually transmited FUD) else where.