Archive for the category Insider
Commercial PC Buyers, How Do You Evaluate Client Software Performance?
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 8:43 AM
(6 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
Loading ...Even though the prices for desktops and notebooks continue to decline year after year, acquisition cost still isn’t insignificant. While in most circumstances software and services outweigh acquisition cost, buyers still want to make the best decision to save their small, medium, large business or government IT shop money. This has been amplified by the overall economy which has led to many reduced IT budgets.
Buyers look at many variables in making their client decision (ie brand, reputation, system quality and reliability, post-sales service and support, energy efficiency, managability), one which is software performance. One way purchase evaluators measure the software performance of the potential systems is through benchmark packages aka “benchmarks”. These are software packages that basically measure the software performance then use the results to compare different PCs being considered.
I wanted to poll the “community” of PC purchase evaluators in business and government to see what they use. Sure, we have quantitative information and have face-to-face meetings with key commercial end users, but the “community” never ceases to amaze me with their insight and answers. Please don’t let me down. 
Loading ...Each IP address can vote only once and you only get one choice. I’ll post a real-time summary of the aggregate results – I won’t be identifying individual voters or their choices.
Thanks for the insight and any details on “why” you chose what you chose would be apprecuated in the comments section.
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Back To School Battery Life Follies
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 11:08 AM
For the last 15 years, I have routinely browsed the aisles of electronics stores and their circulars looking for cool technology, and to see how devices are marketed and merchandised. I was away from the office the last few weeks and got a chance to dig deep into North American back-to-school “Sunday Circulars,” where each retailer lists deals and special offers of the week. I took a close look how notebook battery life was explained in the circulars. What I found was interesting……
Week of 7-27-2009
|
Retailer |
Notebook Battery Life Listed? |
# Models (SKUs) with Battery Life Listed and Verbiage |
Battery Life Disclaimer |
|
A |
Yes |
7 SKUs- “up to X hours, mins” | “Battery life tested using MobileMark 2007. Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
B |
No |
None | None |
|
C |
No |
None | None |
|
D |
No |
None | None |
|
E |
Yes |
5 SKUs- “up to X hours, mins” | None |
|
F |
Inferred |
1 SKU- “X cell battery for longer performance” | None |
|
G |
Inferred |
1 SKU-“X cell lithium ion battery” | None |
Week of 8-3-2009
|
Retailer |
Notebook Battery Life Listed? |
# Models (SKUs)with Battery Life Listed and Verbiage |
Battery Life Disclaimer |
|
A |
Yes |
8 SKUs-” up to X hours, mins” | “Battery life tested using MobileMark 2007. Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
B |
No |
None | None |
|
C |
Yes |
1 SKU-”X+ hours battery life” | None |
|
D |
Yes |
5 SKU-“up to X hours, mins” | “Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
E |
Yes |
1 SKU-”up to X hours” | None |
|
F |
No |
None | None |
|
G |
Yes |
4 SKUs-“up to X hours” | None |
|
H |
Yes |
1 SKU-”X+ hours on one battery charge” | None |
Observations
- 14 notebook SKUs I observed advertised battery life during the week of 7/27/09, and 20 SKUs I observed advertised battery life during the week of 8/3/09.
- In these advertisements there is still only one battery life measurement being advertised. This is like buying a car and only seeing the “up to 52 MPG,” even though you would never realize that gas mileage in city driving. Also, it’s like advertising battery life for a mobile phone and only listing “up to 300 hours battery life”.
- Battery life as I observed it is being advertised four different ways:
- “up to X hours, Y minutes”
- “up to X hours” (no minutes)
- “X+ hours” (no “up to”)
- “X cell battery life for longer performance”
- Only two retailers out of eight I observed provided disclaimers for the advertised battery life information.
During the holiday time frame, we hope and expect this situation to change. A few retailers have unofficially indicated that they are planning to adopt a “Min and Max” (aka guardrail approach) to notebook battery life communications. Based on the lack of consistency I observed in the circulars, I expect this will be a very welcome change for consumers.
Above is a sample graphic that AMD has proposed for this guardrail approach.
If you would like to read more about the battery life discussion, please find the links below:
Nigel Dessau’s blogs on battery life
Pat Moorhead’s (me) blogs on battery life
FriendFeed page with select press articles
Improving Understanding of Notebook PC Battery Life Measurements
Let me know what you think!
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
MobileMark 2007, the Apps, and your Notebook
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 11:08 AM
Last week I presented you with some facts, thoughts and opinions about notebook screen brightness settings required in the industry’s de-facto standard battery life benchmark, MobileMark 2007 (MM07). Now I would like to explore how closely MM07’s application selection and activity distribution reflects consumer usage and purchase patterns. Like that last blog, I will provide you the facts and let you decide.
As a reminder, MobileMark 2007 is now being advertised and merchandised in retail circulars across the US. This benchmark is developed by the Business Applications Performance Corporation (BAPCO). (More background and our suggestions for more accurate battery life metrics can be found here, here, and here.)
Applications in MMO7 compared to consumer use
In my opinion, it is not credible to construct a consumer benchmark consisting primarily of applications that business people use. To demonstrate my point, take a look at the battery life benchmark applications now being used in consumer adverts.
These benchmarked applications inside MM07 include: Microsoft Project 2003 for project management, Microsoft Excel 2003 for calculation sheets, Microsoft Outlook 2003 for email, calendar and scheduling, Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 for presentations, Microsoft Word 2003 for word processing, WinZip Computing WinZip 10.0 for archive compression, Adobe Photoshop CS2 for manipulating and compressing images, Adobe Illustrator CS2 for manipulating images and Adobe Flash 8 for vector graphics and animation.
Do these look like your most commonly used consumer PC applications to you? Here’s my personal list of most commonly used consumer applications as a starting point:
- Web browsers like Firefox, Safari, and Chrome or Internet Explorer. And with browsers come Google, Gmail, YouTube, Hulu, ESPN.com, Disney.com, etc.
- Music apps like iTunes or Windows Media player
- Video or movie playback for DVDs, Blu-ray or iTunes movies or TV shows
- Games like Spore, Sims, and Worlds of Warcraft
Like I said, you be the judge.
Application % weightings in MM07 compared to usage patterns
Even if we pretend for a moment that consumers don’t use web browsers, listen to music, watch videos or play games, and they primarily use the listed MM07 apps. Surely someone on the planet does that, right?
BAPCO has published MM07’s “distribution of measured application task times“, or in other words the apps the tested notebook was running 5-10% of the time when it wasn’t idling or resting 95-90% of the time.
Inside MM07, The “measured application task times” for Adobe Flash Creation is 33.6%, Adobe Photoshop CS2 is 21.8%, Adobe Illustrator CS2 is 16.7%, Microsoft Excel is 16.6%, WinZip 10.0 is 7.1%, Microsoft Word is 1.1%, Microsoft PowerPoint is 1.0%, Microsoft Project is 1.2% and Microsoft Outlook is 1.0%.
I ask, when you use your notebook, do you spend 72% of your time recoding Flash videos, manipulating and compressing pictures in Photoshop and Illustrator? I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that that is not an accurate reflection of most of our usage profiles!
MM07 Applications compared to retail notebook software loads
One final aspect I would like to examine is the software preloaded on retail notebooks compared to the MM07 load. I also looked up the potential costs associated with a consumer adopting the MM07 software load if they bought it on their own.
I took what looked like popular notebooks and those which advertised battery life and compared their software load with MM07’s software load. I looked at five notebooks advertised in major Sunday circulars last weekend and here is what I found.
|
SKU #1 |
SKU #2 |
SKU #3 |
SKU #4 |
SKU #5 |
|
|
Price |
$399.99 |
$549.99 |
$649.99 |
$799.99 |
$599.99 |
|
MS Project 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Excel 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Outlook 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Powerpoint 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Word 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Winzip Pro 10.1 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Adobe Photoshop CS2 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Adobe Illustrator CS2 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Adobe Flash 8 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Granted this is a pretty limited sample, but as you can see above, there was 0% correlation between the MM07 software load and what is installed on these notebooks. Note: SKUs #1 and #2 did have a 60 day edition of MS Office Pro(1). SKUs #3, 4, and 5 came with 60 day edition of MS Office Student Edition(2). Close but no cigar.
I then looked at what it would cost a consumer to buy the latest and greatest MM07 updated apps. Here is what it could cost at retail:
|
$419.99 |
|
|
MS Professional 2007 |
$363.99 |
|
$657.49 |
|
|
$533.49 |
|
|
$669.99 |
|
|
$56.99 |
|
|
$2,701 |
As you can see above, it would cost the consumer approximately $2,701 at retail to load all of the updated MM07 applications.
Conclusion
My goal was to compare MobileMark 2007 (MM07) application selection and activity distribution and compare that to a consumer’s behavior. I showed the following:
1) MM07 Productivity is utilized in consumer facing advertisements to indicate comparative notebook battery life.
2) MM07 Productivity tested applications do not contain a single web browser, music app, video playback app, or game.
3) 72% of MM07’s application usage comes from Flash video encoding and photo manipulation and compression in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
4) MM07 tested applications have a 0% correlation between what is pre-loaded on retail notebooks and are six years old on average. (Yes, I admit it was a small sample, but you get my point…)
5) If a user bought software representing the MM07 test suite, it could cost $2,701 at retail.
I ask you, do MM07 applications represent real world consumer usage behavior and purchase characteristics? You be the judge.
Notes:
(1) loaded w/MS Works (word processor, spreadsheet, calendar) & 60-day trial of MS Office Pro2007 (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher)
(2) loaded w/MS Works (word processor, spreadsheet, calendar) & 60-day trial of MS Office 2007 Home & Student Edition (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote)
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
MobileMark 2007, 60 nits, One Nit-Picker and You
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 3:19 PM
As we have already discussed here, here, and here, the current de-facto standard to measure notebook battery life in consumer marketing materials is MobileMark ® 2007 (MMO7). One thing I want to help educate on are the basic facts behind the notebook brightness settings recommended by MM07 and compare that to my home electronics and what settings others are using for their notebook displays.
The facts about MM07 and notebook display brightness
MM07 requires the following (1): “The display brightness should be measured for a white screen while on battery and be set at the lowest possible setting, no lower than 60 nits.” One needs a nit meter and yes, we have a few of those in our labs. :-)
So what is a nit? Wkipedia defines a nit as a “candela per square meter.” Yes, that really helped me too. Think of a “nit” as a unit of measure of brightness.
How does 60 nits compare to brightness of other home electronics?
I pretend to be a technically-capable business, strategy and marketing guy, which according to the engineers, makes me REAL dangerous. You see, 95% is good enough for my trade, but for theirs, its 99.999% and I respect that.
So I wanted to know what 60 nits really related to, as I didn’t know nits from nuts. You should have seen the look on the engineer’s faces when I asked them to borrow their nit meter. Chad, his real name J, showed me how to use the nit meter and instructed me how to use the nit meter and to make sure to have a white background on all devices.
I literally went around my house testing many of my home electronics and tested them without changing any settings outside shutting off “auto adjustment” on the phones which I am told is best practice. I suppose I can call this my family’s “comfort setting” based on the setting my family and I actually use the devices. So there is variation in room setting, light, etc. that dictates this.
Here are the test results:
Net-net, the lowest nit measurement I observed with my “comfort setting” was still 2.58X brighter than the MM07 brightness level of 60 nits on which notebook battery life is measured.
I then wanted to see how nits related to notebook screen brightness. So I tested a few notebooks I had in my office to see what the “max nits” were when the screen was set to the highest setting.
As you can see from the figures above, the MM07 requirement was between 20-30% of the samples notebooks’ max screen brightness.
What notebook display brightness setting do consumers use?
Now, I know that a sample set of one doesn’t represent anything, and I’m far from normal, as my friends frequently tell me, but the results of my home survey were interesting – interesting enough to make me real curious about what others are doing with their screen brightness settings.
So last week I started Tweeting and Facebooking questions to real users on what is the display brightness setting on which they place their notebooks. I received qualitative and quantitative responses. Yes, I know, this isn’t a 17-country, global discrete choice, double blind methodology survey followed by focus groups, BUT there were telling, directional indicators.
Quantitative: I wasn’t expecting anything like the response I got from Neowin respondents. They actually placed a poll on their community website asking the question, “What brightness level do you run your notebook?“ Over 1,100 community members voted in a few days, and according to Shane Pitman, Editor-in-Chief, “Polls require a member account, and to be logged in to said account. Provides accountability, keeps people from voting multiple times.”
The results were overwhelming in that 75% of the Neowin community member respondents kept their notebook display brightness between 61% and 100%. Somehow, I don’t think that fits into the 60 nit range.
Qualitative: These responses were as valuable as the quantitative as they gave insight into “why” they did this. Some comments gave insight into the folks who use their notebooks at very low display settings. I didn’t use their Twitter names to protect the innocent. :-)
Here was the response to my question, improper grammar and all, “Research question: what display brightness do you run your notebook at? (Please RT)”. Here is just a sampling of public tweet responses.
- “On the machines I see, normally I prefer to have them fully backlit with the slider up to around 75% or so.”
- “I run my laptop at maximum brightness unless the battery is really low, or I have an external screen. “
- “Now running MBP 15.4″ 3.1 at 75% brightness with auto adjust turned ; but was at 100% without auto adjust til you asked! “
- “90 – 100% brightness, 90% of the time. “
- “depends entirely on my battery level and surroundings. “
- “Research question: what display brightness do you run your notebook at? (Please RT). I run full bright 95+% of the time. “
- “oh sorry , 100% unless I’m running low on battery, where I bring it down to a minimum, I’m guessing 50%, but thats rare”
- “usually around 60-70%”
- “i don’t use them much, mainly desktop, but i either have brightness at full or minimum: latter at night and if battery low”
- “When running laptop on battery, i set brightness to 25-40%, when plugged in -100%.”
- “100% brightness. Left default setting (and I appreciate it that way… old eyes). “
- “slammed up to full when possible, monitor screens vary though”
- “mine is usually as bright as I can make it. I hate dim screens. “
- “max brightness notwithstanding battery impact. “
- “I lower my screen brightness to the lowest, usable level that’s comfortable. It’s all about the battery life.
“ - “Agreed…I think mine is usually around 30% or so. “
- “it varies by location due to lighting levels. Usually around 30% or 40%. Never > 50% when on battery. “
- “ME: 90 to 100% on AC, about 50 % on battery when I’m watching movies and about 20 to work. “
I also received some really interesting responses related to interpretation, explanations, tools and resources on brightness after asking about 60 nits. Got to love social media.
- “not all that hard. Need 800+ nits to read screens in direct sun, 30-150 for night highway signs: http://bit.ly/cjxJB“
- “60 nits = table in an office with 300 lux illumination: http://bit.ly/FvoKe BTW sRGB calibration target = 80 nits. “
- “oh and here’s a Kodak guide on how to use a digital camera and gray card as an ad-hoc nit estimator: http://bit.ly/1IMLK3“
You be the judge
I titled this blog, “MM07, 60 Nits, One Nit-picker and you” and now I ask you, am I just nitpicking? I ask you to make that decision for yourself. I have described a few things:
- First, MM07 test requires a 60 nit or higher display brightness. To maximize battery life benchmarks, systems are set at the minimum allowable 60 nit level. This setting is thereby integrated into this battery life benchmark that is then used in consumer advertisings.
- Secondly, worst case, the display brightness of many electronics inside my home at my family’s “comfort setting” is 2.58X more than the MM07 nit setting requirement. Based on the small set of notebooks I tested, MM07’s 60 nits equated to around 20-30% of the max notebook brightness. Your mileage will vary, maybe.
- Third, my unscientific querying last week says many classes of users crank their screen beyond 61% and many at max brightness. Yes, I said max. Some self-selected a lower brightness setting to conserve battery life.
Nuff said, you be the judge. Agree, disagree, I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
(1) MobileMark 2007 White Paper, March 2008, Revision 1.0. 4.2.1 “Display brightness”
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 9:46 AM
Craning my head to peer over the giant wave of debate and dialogue washing across the tech landscape with last week’s antitrust ruling against Intel in Europe, I thought it might be helpful to reiterate what AMD seeks in the wake of this third straight antitrust ruling against Intel. Simply stated:
We want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to prevail because the truth is on AMD’s side.
What if you were knee-capped?
As we said from the beginning, we do not seek special treatment from competition regulators in any way, shape or form. We crave a fair fight. If the other guy tries to injure you, preventing you from making it onto the field of play, that doesn’t strike me as fair (or legal).
I don’t recall anyone ever blaming Nancy Kerrigan for getting assaulted with a metal club by those who wanted to put an end to a level playing field in Olympic skating. Should Nancy have just accepted her clubbing as something that “goes with the territory” in an ultra-competitive endeavor, as some seem to indicate AMD should? Did Nancy demand special treatment when she went to the authorities? You know the answers already. As the victim, of course Nancy wasn’t seeking special treatment at all. She sought justice, pure and simple.
We may not have had our knees bashed in with a metal pipe, but AMD was no less injured in a business sense, and we are entitled to seek justice for that. Joe consumer was robbed of a full spectrum of marketplace choice by Intel. Sadly we cannot go back in time and undo the damage that was done to our business, and we will never know what the state of play may have been today if not for Intel’s monopoly abuses.
Was there a cover-up?
One thing that was found by European investigators that appears to have gone under-reported is that Intel apparently went to “great lengths to cover up its anti-competitive actions“. Let me ask you this: If Intel truly believes that it has done nothing wrong why would they go out of their way to deliberately hide evidence? What’s the truth?
Obama, the innovators and the entrepreneurs
I’ve also seen speculative pieces regarding the Obama administration’s apparent get-tough stance on antitrust, and what that may mean for Silicon Valley. I argue that any fear and loathing about what might come to pass is premature, and also misplaced. Am I an expert in this field? No. But as a technologist working for a company that innovates on the bleeding edge, do I have an informed opinion? Yes.
Only time will tell how much the Obama administration is able to help protect the economically suffering American consumer through encouraging vibrant competition. But I can say today with confidence that rather than fear or fight the change that is coming, I would encourage entrepreneurs to embrace it – because I am convinced that robust antitrust enforcement is the innovator’s best friend; perhaps the only friend they have in the dog-eat-dog world of the high tech industry.
Sane innovators and entrepreneurs will only expend the vast amounts of monetary and intellectual capital necessary to bring competitive products to the marketplace if they have a reasonable expectation of a fair return on their investment. In other words, a fair fight.
Look at it from the other side- who in their right mind would dedicate the time, money, and everything else that goes along with a bet-the-business proposition if they knew going into it that their business’ world-beating product was most likely to be taken, boxed-up, and relegated to the top shelf in vast warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant. The answer, of course, is no one.
My humble request
So if you really love technology and what it can do for people the way I do, I urge you to support any effort that gives innovators – both large and small – the confidence to create. Let these independent investigations into Intel’s business practices play out and let the truth speak for itself. Japanese, Korean and now European competition investigators don’t have any skin in the AMD versus Intel technology game. They don’t care about us. They don’t prefer gaming on either an AMD rig or an Intel rig. All they care about is how the facts line up with their rule of law, in an effort to protect consumers.
And by that measure, Intel is “0 for 3″. As one prominent legal reporter so succinctly put it, “Even before this palpable pendulum shift, Intel’s legal arguments looked dicey. Now they’re beginning to look far-fetched.”
So what do you think? Let me know and leave a comment and I will respond.
Are You Being Duped by the Intel Innovation Spin?
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 9:29 AM
The EU ruling against Intel was an exciting day for consumers and the entire technology ecosystem. For my part, I spent the day giving press interviews and interacting with the Community over Facebook, Twitter and various tech site boards. Based on all these conversations, there was one common thread I feel I must address and examine. Unfortunately but understandably, it’s based on an argument that serves Intel’s world view.
The Intel World View
“AMD needs to innovate, not litigate.” Also worded as, “When AMD has a product lead, it gains all the share it deserves.”
Here’s the way even my friend Kyle Bennett of HardOCP expressed it on Twitter:
Kyle’s primary audience who we love is the PC hardware enthusiast where small differences in performance may seem dramatic (as in, a car that goes zero to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds is 9 percent slower than one that does it in 5.0 seconds flat. Both are damn fast, but the discussion is focused on the 9 percent), it’s understandable that he would imply that all AMD is missing is “better processors”. But I can’t help but point out and appreciate that Kyle’s well-respected site Hard OCP has issued awards to AMD for both our AMD PhenomTM II processor and ATI RadeonTM HD 4000 Series graphics in the last 6 weeks alone – our hardware enthusiast products.
With others, the discussion goes like this: “Those who have the most competitive products gain share, those who don’t lose share.” All things equal this could be true, but when there is law-breaking, and as the European Commission put it: “exclusive payments” and “pay to delay” tactics, the equation gets thrown out the window.
The Reality
This ruling from the European Union makes it clear that it doesn’t matter how much innovation AMD pours into its products. The better positioned the product, the more Intel uses its overwhelming position to illegally block or wholly shutdown customer segments and sales channels to AMD. The rewards AMD reaps from having clearly superior or differentiated products is broken into fractions of what they should be through Intel’s behavior. A healthy competitive environment should allow AMD to hone its focus and R&D spend to design and develop future innovative products and platforms, rather than distracting dollar and human resources into fighting Intel’s monopolistic practices.
But now let’s even put that aside.
Others new to this debate may ask: Even with Intel illegal behavior, does AMD have great products and technologies?
Standout Product Innovations So Far in 2009
In 2009 alone, AMD has introduced the world’s first 40nm and the world’s first 1 GHz graphics processors, created the affordable ultrathin notebook category, delivered a world-record setting desktop PC platform, and introduced the most energy-efficient quad-core server processor in our history. We feel these innovations stand tall in the industry, and have real value for their intended customer segments.
Let me provide another recent example in the notebook space where I believe AMD has earned the right to claim “most competitive product”. Please, if you disagree, please let me know in the comments section and I will respond.
AMD creates the affordable ultrathin technology platform
If you recall, as the world fell in love with netbooks last year, we asked the question, “is this the best the industry can offer”? Would consumers want a full PC experience with HD video, Blu-ray, larger display, and ability to play games… by spending a few more bucks? Well, yes. AMD’s platform technology for ultrathin notebooks codename “Yukon” was born and materialized with the award winning and game-changing HP Pavilion dv2 ultrathin notebook. What did others say?
BusinessWeek: “The bottom line for mobility-minded buyers is that the need to choose between expensive executive ultralights and cheap but underpowered netbooks is nearly over.”
Tech Report: “Compared to the average Eee PC, the dv2 packs two thirds more
desktop area, double the hard drive capacity, four times the memory,
a faster CPU, and dramatically better graphics…and it allows the system to do things most netbooks can’t, such as play many recent games and high-definition video, including Blu-ray movies.”
If these appear cherry-picked then here are a full page of accolades on the HP dv2.
Hopefully this example in the notebook space shows that AMD has great products and others are saying it too. We’re creating product categories of unquestioned value to the consumer, Keep in mind, this is true even with Intel’s abusive monopolist practices determined by the EU. I ask you to reject the line of thinking and spin Intel would like you to believe. Do you agree/disagree? Let’s chat.
EU Decision and the Secret Sauce in Innovation
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 12:32 PM
I’m still coming to terms with today’s news from Brussels. Wow. I encourage you to read Nigel’s assessment which details how the fallout from Intel’s third straight conviction by government watchdogs comes down to three issues: price, innovation and choice. If you love technology and what it can do for people the way I do, perhaps the most exciting thing to emerge from yesterday’s ruling is the huge potential for a step change in the pace of innovation. Why?
I believe competition is the “secret sauce” that drives innovation. That’s true in any industry, and it’s also true in life. Would the U.S. have put a man on the moon if not for Sputnik? Maybe, but there’s no question that the Space Race and attending accelerated pace of innovationwas fueled by very high stakes competition between the US and the former Soviet Union.
Goliath with brass knuckles
At AMD we live to compete and innovate, and it starts by asking questions like “What will it take to deliver the next-generation computing experience?” And while innovation with impact is our calling card, it’s more than fair to say that AMD also loves a good fight. But hopefully the world now knows that we’ve fight an enormous opponent that rigs the game to ensure AMD can never fully win fair and square.
Like Nigel said, competition investigators have for a third time (Japan, Korea, European Union) collected evidence showing that especially when AMD opens commanding product leads on Intel and we take those innovations to the marketplace, Intel uses bribery and coercive tactics to block those innovations. Whole AMD customer segments and sales channels are effectively shutdown by Intel.That’s Don Corleone type stuff, folks. That’s David versus Goliath, with Goliath packing brass knuckles on one hand and a brick-filled sock in the other.
The AMD Critic: “AMD should innovate, not litigate”
I’ve heard the Intel apologists say: “AMD should innovate instead of litigate.” If you doubt we fear an innovation fight with Intel or that we can truly compete with Intel, remember that we have proven that we can out-innovate or remain competitive against Intel, a company with about 10x the resources. We are champing at the bit to attack an open, competitive marketplace that is no longer artificially manipulated by Goliath.
You may be sitting there saying, “OK Pat – that’s your opinion, and a biased opinion at that!” Fair enough. If that was opinion, here are 10 facts that should do some of the talking for AMD in terms of theinnovation chops we have under our roof:
Fact #1
Billions of financial transactions are conducted quickly and efficiently every day by major stock exchanges around the world on AMD-based servers.
Fact #2
All 50 Million Wii gaming consoles shipped to date run on AMD technology (ATI Hollywood GPU).
Fact #3
7 of the 10 fastest supercomputers in the world are powered by AMD processors.
Fact #4
AMD processors were trusted to power crash safety test simulations for almost 2 million new cars that hit the road in the US in 2008.
Fact #5
Realistic special effects powered by AMD technology have helped Hollywood amass more than $5.4 billion in worldwide box office revenue.
Fact #6
AMD processors in the Top500 supercomputer list account for more than 4.029 petaflops of computing power (that’s more than four thousand trillion calculations per second).
Fact #7
50% of Internet DNS traffic is efficiently and quickly routed via AMD-powered servers.
Fact #8
Musicians and producers who have collectively won 70 Grammy awards currently rely on AMD technology for their cutting edge digital music production.
Fact #9
Every month nearly 23 million travelers find their ideal trip using online travel services powered by AMD-based hardware.
Fact #10
AMD graphics and slot machine are a winning combination. More than 75% of new slot machines in Vegas use AMD graphics to power their visually stunning imagery, and more than half of those machines also use an AMD CPU.
So to borrow from our corporate philosophy, I’m more than happy to combine these facts with our employees’ passion for innovation. And I’ve never felt better about the future of innovation than I do today. What do you think?
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
AMD: 40 Years of “Just Doing it”
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 10:30 PM
AMD celebrates its 40th anniversary May 1st and I want to provide my thoughts and perspective. Yes, I am a proud AMD employee, so this blog is biased in that I am personally invested in AMD’s future success and its history. To me AMD means a lot of things, but the best way I can express it is to say: AMD means “We can” and “Can do”.
Let me tell you about that.
I met up with AMD during my tenure at Compaq Computer Corp. starting in 1995. Back then, lots of PCs sold for as much as $2,000 and the idea of notebooks for consumers instead of just business people was new. AMD helped change the entire landscape on both those fronts and the market has never been the same.
I also fondly recall loving the ATI RageTM Pro graphics card. In fact it was at that time that Compaq actually soldered the ATI Rage Pro engine onto the motherboard [it was in fact the first motherboard-resident AGP graphics chip]. Soldering anything on a mobo back in the day was a huge commitment and vote of confidence.
In late 2000, I joined AMD and have called it home ever since.
I admire AMD for a lot of things, but three things come top of mind:
1. Integrity, the highest levels.
2. Putting customers first, sometimes seemingly at its own peril.
3. Defying the pundits and “just doing it”
#1 and #2 are reasonably self-explanatory so I will drill down into #3. I will provide the “dialogue” as people may have heard it play-out many times before:
- 1990 Pundit: “You have the 386 mask set, but not the microcode. No way can you make a 386.”
But AMD did it.
- 1992 Pundit: “You don’t have the 486 mask set or the microcode. No way can you make a 486.”
But AMD did it.
- 1997 Pundit: “You have relied on Intel’s infrastructure this whole time so no way you can make a 7th generation CPU with an AMD-based motherboard infrastructure. You are dead.”
But AMD did it.
- 1999 Pundit: “New and proprietary instruction sets from massive companies are the way to go. You are nuts if you think you can drive a 64-bit instruction set by yourselves. You will be dead.”
But AMD did it.
- 2003 Pundit: “No way you can get into the datacenter. You are just a consumer desktop CPU company. Get back in your box.”
But AMD did it.
- 2007 Pundit: “You’ve lost graphics technology leadership and you won’t ever get it back. The competition is too tough.”
But AMD did it.
So I hope I refreshed your memory banks on what pundits may have said, how AMD said “we can” and how AMD “just did it”. I want to highlight that we didn’t do anything on our own without the support of our customers, their customers, and technology and infrastructure partners.
I am excited about AMD, our employees, and our future. I am excited about what we plan to bring to our customers on cloud server computing and media-rich consumer usage models. Pundits will take shots and that’s okay, as it tends to motivate us and enhance the sweetness of our successes in the end.
Pundits laughed when Kennedy set his challenge to send a man to the moon and return him safely by the end of the 1960s. We like our moon-shots at AMD, too, and surprising the pundits again and again.
AMD, happy 40th and I promise I will keep promoting the “we can” attitude and we’ll just do it.
Note: Nigel Dessau, CMO and SVP at AMD is also providing his unique blog perspective on the 40th anniversary here.
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Why Your Notebook Battery Life Never Quite Seems Equal to the Claims
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 4:52 PM
Do you ever feel like the actual battery life on your notebook never quite equals the information that appears in promotional material? For example, you may see “up to five hours,” but actually get about half that. Well, you aren’t alone. I hear it all the time, and if you do a quick Twitter search on the topic, you’ll see lots of discussion.
I can assure you that no devious plot exists to mislead you. It really comes down to three simple factors.
#1: Measurements are best case: Like a car’s “highway miles per gallon” which gauges the best case (cruising at a sustained speed for an extended period without stop-and-go driving), notebook battery life is typically based on MobileMark® 2007. This benchmark primarily measures battery life while the notebook is doing nothing – not even wirelessly connecting to the Internet. A “city-driving” equivalent of notebook battery life doesn’t exist…yet.
#2: Different strokes for different folks: Notebook users are different; we all use notebooks differently, and therefore will see different battery durations. Some watch HD web videos on YouTube, some may just do email, and some play more games than others. ALL which will mean varying battery life. You can see this data from AMD here that shows the phenomenon. This even shows that battery life under system use can even vary by component manufacturer.
#3: Battery life varies over time: The longer you own your notebook, use it, charge, and recharge, over and over again, the more the battery loses its effectiveness. So theoretically, your longest battery life will be on the first day you crack open the packaging. See all the people selling new batteries for old notebooks? Some even say, battery life is variable with heat.
So what should a consumer like you do?
- Grade battery life on a “curve”, let’s say 60%. If the label says 10 hours, my guess is it’s probably only about 6 hours in real use. (UPDATE: this isn’t always linear, so be very careful with this.)
- Ask your retailer and systems providers to provide the “city miles per gallon” or using the tried and tested cellphone analogy, “talk-time”. They all have web sites and when all else fails, you can ask them over Twitter.
I may have not added back 40% of your battery life, but hopefully you know why you only get 60% of it!
(This blog was originally published at the Technologizer web site. Updated with full blog June 8, 2009.)
How Valuable Are Smartphone Battery Life Figures?
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 4:26 AM
I do a lot of hands-on research on smartphones. I do this for two reasons. First, I believe they are fast becoming one of the prevalent cloud clients, and second, they are fast becoming a popular device to consume video. AMD obviously is involved in building the cloud with the AMD OpteronTM Processors but also conversion to make a video smartphone-friendly can take a tremendous amount of compute power, and ATI Radeon TM HD 4800 series graphics and AMD Phenom TM II X4 processors do those conversions quite well.
One smartphone element that needs some more discussion is the value of battery life figures that one finds at the point of purchase or research. Whether it’s the iPhone, Blackberry Bold, Blackberry Storm, or Nokia N96, there initially appears to be variability between claims, tests, and personal usage. Let’s take a look at each phone and see if that’s the case.
iPhone
Apple’s web site lists the following for the 3G iPhone:
- Talk time: up to 5 hours on 3G, 10 hours on 2G
- Standby time: up to 300 hours
- Internet use: up to 5 hours on 3G, 6 hours on WiFi
- Video playback: Up to 7 hours
- Audio playback: Up to 24 hours
The birdseed print states that the testing was done with pre-production handsets back in June, 2008. I also found the methodology interesting in that different features were sometimes toggled on/off during the tests: WiFi association, WiFi “ask to join networks”, call forwarding, and auto-brightness.
Anandtech did their own testing and reported the following battery life for the 3G iPhone:
- Talk time: 4 hours 44 mins (284 mins) on 3G; 6 hours 4 mins (364 mins) on EDGE
- Web browsing: 3 hours 17 mins (197 minutes) on 3G; 6 hours, 40 mins (400 minutes) on WiFi; 4 hours and 3 mins (243 minutes) on EDGE
Anandtech’s number confirmed and disputed some of the numbers listed by Apple, but then again they may not have tested exactly the same way. I am impressed by Apple’s depth and transparency of information as you will soon see why…
Blackberry Bold
RIM’s web site lists the following for the Bold:
- Talk time: 4 hours, 30 mins
- Standby time: 324 hours (13.5 days)
I found it interesting that there were no disclaimers evident anywhere on the web site and there were no battery life scores for internet, video or audio.
I looked long and hard and found some testing reviews by Boy Genius and Asian One that listed what I would describe as good “compilation battery remarks”, but couldn’t find as detailed a review as Anandtech had for the iPhone.
BoyGenius commented that their testing had included:
- 300-500 emails a day,
- one hour of web surfing over 3G,
- Wi-Fi usually turned on, Bluetooth turned off,
- JiveTalk connected, and around one hour of phone calling (although they admitted that they didn’t normally use the BlackBerry as a phone), and that their test phone’s battery lasted from 9AM until 4:30AM (or 7 ½ hours).
The talk time figure is around what I get, but I would like to see more granularity by usage model with more details around specific usages around internet use and video playback.
Blackberry Storm
RIM’s web site lists the following for the Storm:
- Talk time: 6 hours
- Standby time: 356 hours (15 days)
As with the Bold, I also found it interesting on the Storm that there were no disclaimers evident anywhere and again there were no battery life scores for internet, video or audio.
CNet reported the following test results for the Storm:
- Talk time: 7 hours
- Music: 14 hours, 45 mins
As with the Bold, the Storm’s talk time figure is around what I get, but I would like to see more granularity by usage model with more details around specific usages around internet use and video playback.
Nokia N96
Nokia’s web site lists the following for the Nokia N96:
- Talk time: up to 150 / 220 minutes (WCDMA / GSM)
- Stand-by time: up to 8 / 9 days (WCDMA / GSM)
- Video playback: up to 5 hours (offline mode)
- Music playback: up to 14 hours (offline mode)
There is an asterisk that disclaims that “Operation times may vary depending on radio access technology, used operator network configuration and usage.”
All About Symbian reported the following activities they could complete in 16.5 hours on the N96 on one charge:
- YouTube Videos: approx 1 Hour playing using the S60 browser through 3.5G
- General Web Surfing: approx 1 Hour using both WiFi and 3.5G
- Mucking about with settings and navigating menus, etc.: approx 1 hour
- Setup Profimail and synced my IMAP account, 3,200 Emails, approx 400MB using WiFi, 3.5G and GPRS
- Downloaded the AAS Podcast, approx 20MB directly on the N96, and played the file using a stereo Bluetooth headset
End users may even find this test methodology the most valuable in that it shows a “day in a life” given a particular charge. This data is impossible to compare against Nokia’s corporate website, but it was nice that Nokia would, like Apple, provide video and music playback numbers. I would like to see Nokia commit to an internet battery life figure.
Conclusions
So what can we take away from this mash-up of smartphone battery life figures? First, there are some significant variances from vendor to vendor in the terminology and the information depth and transparency provided. Secondly, when a third-party review was conducted, it could sometimes be compared to the manufacturer’s specs, sometimes not. In some cases, the third-party review supported the claim, sometimes not. But that could be attributed to a difference in methodology. Net-net, not a whole lot of consistency exists with audio, video and internet battery life scoring.
My single biggest positive takeaway was the consistency with almost everyone on the usage and application of “talk time” and “standby time.” While not as cool as “internet battery” life, if you believe that talking is the primary use for your smartphone, this is good for the consumer.
What do you think about smartphone battery life marks? How is their accuracy and value?
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
