2006: The year in PCs and chips
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(InfoWorld) - Vendors in the PC and chip industries moved boldly in 2006, changing the marketplace map through mergers, recalls, layoffs and lawsuits. Oh, and they launched some impressive new products too, keeping Moore's Law moving as they built smaller, faster chips and cooler, more efficient computers. Here, in chronological order, we share a sampling of the biggest events of the past 12 months. Apple releases Macs that run on Intel chips Apple Computer Inc.Â in January sells its first Mac PCs that run on chips from Intel Corp.Â instead of IBM Corp. and Motorola Inc. chips, fulfilling a promise made in June 2005. Apple substitutes Intel's Core Duo chip for the PowerPC and G4 chips in its iMac and 15-inch MacBook Pro, soon followed by the Mac mini and 13-inch MacBook. The move also lets Apple expand from its own operating system. In April,Â Apple launches its Boot Camp software, enabling Intel-based Macs to run their choice of Apple's OS X or Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP. AMD announces ATI acquisition Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) announces a plan in July to buy Canadian graphics chip vendor ATI Technologies Inc.Â for US$5.4 billion. Integrating its processors with ATI's chipsets would allow AMD to sell platforms of integrated technologies, competitive with Intel bundles like Centrino, Viiv and VPro, analysts say. Another effect of the merger is to leave Nvidia Corp. as the only independent graphics chip vendor in the market.Â By November, Nvidia also says it will expand, paying $357 million to buy PortalPlayer, a maker of semiconductors for digital music players. Battery recall begins Dell Inc. recalls 4.1 million notebook PC batteries in August as a growing number of customers report they could short-circuit, causing some to overheat and catch fire.Â Within days, other vendors join the recall, leading to 8.1 million recalls of the lithium ion cells manufactured by Sony Corp. Other PC vendors affected by the largest recall in consumer electronics history include Apple, Fujitsu Ltd., Hitachi Ltd., Lenovo Group Ltd. and Toshiba Corp. Intel reorganizes, lays off thousands In September, Intel lays off 10,500 workers -- about 10 percent of the workforce -- as Chief Executive Paul Otellini enacts a promised reorganization that has already included the sale of its media and signaling business, the firing of 1,000 executives, and the sale of its XScale smartphone chip division. Otellini blames slowing growth in the PC market when he predicts Intel's annual profits will reach only $9.3 billion for 2006, down from $12.1 billion in 2005. Analysts point out that Intel had also lost revenue by slashing prices on its chips in an effort to slow gains in market share by rival AMD. DOJ investigates SRAM market The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) launches a probe in October of sales practices in the SRAM (static RAM) memory chip market, serving subpoenas to Cypress Semiconductor Corp., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sony Electronics Inc. and Toshiba Corp. The investigation comes shortly after the DOJ wins convictions and multimillion-dollar fines for price fixing in the closely related DRAM (dynamic RAM) industry. By December, the DOJ also turns its focus to graphics chips makers, demanding documents fromÂ AMD andÂ NvidiaÂ as part of an antitrust investigation.Â Meanwhile, AMD continues another antitrust fight, continuing its long-running suit against Intel over accusations that the much larger chip-maker intimidated vendors from using AMD chips. That case is scheduled to come before a judge in April 2009. HP tops Dell as world's largest PC vendor Hewlett-Packard Co. overtakes Dell in October as the world's largest PC vendor, capping a year whenÂ Dell had reported a series of sagging profits and the start of an accounting investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). HP has its own problems,Â coping with a spying scandal on its board of directorsÂ that leads to criminal investigations and the resignation of chief executive Patricia Dunn. But Dell is unable to stop its loss of market share even whenÂ the company ends its longtime allegiance to Intel and beginsÂ selling PCs powered by chips from AMD as well. Dell Chief Executive Kevin Rollins says the company was also hurt by slashing prices in order to bolster market share, and pledges to spend $100 million to hire more sales and call-center workers. Intel launches quad-core processors for mainstream computers Intel launches the first quad-core processors for mainstream desktops and servers, continuing its effort to rebound from a loss of sales to AMD. The new chips include the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 for gamers and Xeon 5300 for servers, coming just a few months after Intel launches a new family of dual-core chipsÂ including the "Conroe" Core 2 Duo for desktops andÂ "Woodcrest" Xeon 5100 for servers. Still, the arms race continues, as AMD emphasizes its advantage in power efficiency and pledges to launch its own quad-core processor by the second quarter of 2007,Â the "Barcelona" quad-core Opteron 8000 for servers.
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Chips such as the Athlon 64 FX and Intel&#39;s Pentium 4 Extreme Edition populate the very top of the desktop market, appearing mainly in game machines fitted with the latest graphics cards and high-performance storage systems to render games with the
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Six well-designed products from the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show.
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The company will release a desktop PC chip with three cores in 2008, when it will also have quad-core and dual-core chips for the PC market.
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Over the last year, Intel has changed its approach to the processor market and now wants to develop features for specific products, such as desktops, notebooks and handhelds, to make those devices easier to use and more secure.
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Microsoft promises -- in 2006. The market expected the new desktop operating system in 2004, but the company was distracted with security concerns as it marshaled its forces to finish the Windows XP Service Pack 2.
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com September 21, 2004, 10:08 AM PT. With the economy slowly turning up, upgrading hardware has been on businesses radar in the past 12 months as their number two priority.
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High-end chip likely will stay a step ahead of competitors in the multicore processor race. Also, the chip design could be done this year.
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Anyone who's thinking of buying PC hardware in the next few months must keep an eye on the future.
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Performance boost in handheld devices is obtained using Power6 server technology.
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com September 13, 2004, 1:28 PM PT. With the economy slowly turning up, upgrading hardware has been on businesses radar in the past 12 months as their number two priority.
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SUDDENLY, the computer world is interesting again. The last three months of 2004 brought more innovation, faster, than users have seen in years.
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Devices to power to PDAs, cell phones, and laptops could be available next year.