http://www.uberpulse.com/us/2008/02/intel_and_montalvo_entry_in_via_says.phpWe\'re surely living in a very interesting era. I just finished a Skype video interview with VIA\'s marketing vice-president, Richard Brown (pictured). It was 9PM on the West Coast, 1PM the next day in Taiwan where the fabless company is located. Although the video call is not of a grand video or audio quality, it sures gives an idea of things possible with faster Internet links (I was using just a home DSL) and higher performance computers (the call was hosted on my 2GHz Macbook!). \n\nMy first motivation to speak with Brown was to get his reaction on upcoming start-up Montalvo Systems that recently got talked a lot in the press (that\'s a story that I recently wrote for the French leading tech site, 01net) and its plans to market a low power X86 chip for the mobile internet device space. His response: it\'s not for the faint-hearted! \n\n\nVIA continues CPU march to platformisation... profitability \n\nBrown no longer believes a chipset only company can be successful today without CPU, graphics/3D, networking, etc... technologies/capabilities. Put it simply, it\'s a platform world. Companies are trying to put more functions (graphics, I/O, multimedia, networking) into the same die. Intel and AMD are now talking of multi-core chips/systems on a chip that will integrate both the CPU and the graphics engine and soon much more.\n\n\"One of the initial challenges with the chipset business is that you\'re never in charge of your own destiny. You very rely on the CPU vendor and supporting on the changes and technologies that CPU vendor mandates. For awhile, it was a very good business [...] Suddenly everyone else looked at the chipset business and said, Look it\'s fantastic! And you have Nvidia come in, ATI, etc... Which in the end, meant the market is being commoditised aggressively\", said Richard Brown.However, VIA is taking a different view on integration than Intel and AMD. Both Californian companies are pushing for more functions in the CPU. Instead VIA would prefer to see more things put into the chipset. Of course. Ultimately, the result is the same: one integrated platform, with multiple integrated circuits (ICs) but coming from one single vendor. \n\nVIA\'s transition from chipsets to CPUs, albeit a smart one, was not without difficulties. In the process, the Taiwanese fabless design semiconductor company that employs 2,000+ person worldwide became quickly unprofitable, on about a $600million turn-over. During our conversation, Brown anticipates that VIA will move back to the black by year\'s end. We\'ll remind him later on his prediction. \n\nIntel\'s next-generation UMPC platform (Menlow) and all the buzz around start-up Montalvo Systems validates VIA\'s strategy \n\nIntel push in VIA\'s territory validates indeed the Taiwanese strategy in the low-power X86 market but also brings a formidable competitor. Brown speculates that it will also grow the market for such low power chips/platforms much more rapidly than if VIA was the only kid on the block. As for Montalvo, the first reason I called Brown?\n\"It\'s going to be very difficult for any company, no matter how well financed or how good its engineering is to enter the x86 market at this stage. One, the market itself is very very mature. And two, it\'s not just the case of simply having a decent product. It\'s that you need toconvince customers you\'re going to be there for the long term, you\'ve got to have a long term technology roadmap, you\'ve got to have strong foundry relationships so that you can build the parts, cost effectively and respond very quickly to customer demands. And I personally think its extremely difficult [...] One of the key barrier is the IP (intellectual property) barrier\", added Brown.\nhttp://www.uberpulse.com/us/2008/02/intel_and_montalvo_entry_in_via_says.php brown, chipset, intel, menlow, montalvo, technologies, uberpulse, via, x86