AMD says it will not support Google Android
Click here to post a comment for AMD says it will not support Google Android on our message forum
iako
http://www.smtexas.net/faculty/jackson/CAPPS61011/CAPPS6T2I/Reddy/Webpage/Images/homer-doh-squaregreen.jpg
WaroDaBeast
Not clever at all. Not at all... *shakes head*
dsbig
why does it seem AMD is making alot of bad choices.....
nicugoalkeper
AMD is going down hard, they have some bad bosses at the top.
dsbig
:bang:
oh why. oh why
Tat3
To me this looks like a good call. There are tons of same Android tablets on the (tablet) market, no difference between those, what that market does not need is yet another Android tablet which will be exactly the same as 10 other (ARM) tablets at the exactly same price range. Would not make any money, W8 then again works very well on tablet (so I have heard) and it's different from that, what to me looks like a pile of sh*it, Android (but I do somwhow undertand if people have different opinions of this).
CronoGraal
lol @ betting heavily at windows 8 when everyone has been talking trash about it.
genius.
k1net1cs
I also agree with the direction AMD is taking, but for a different reason.
AMD probably don't have the resources to invest in an ARM architecture outside their x86 line, unlike nVidia that already have Tegra.
The "We're betting heavily on Windows 8," is also just another way of saying "We have no other viable option that doesn't require more funds being shifted from other departments to R&D.".
So at the moment, Windows 8 is their only safe bet, along with the availability of the RT version should they decide to delve into ARM.
Going straight to Android won't help them in any way, at least not in the short term.
Even though supporting Android is (probably) good for the long term, they do need extra revenues from elsewhere first in order to do so.
A bit of catch-22 thing, IMO.
Chillin
Way to ignore the market trends AMD.
If anyone still has any stock left in AMD, now would be an excellent time to dump it.
Noisiv
Any strategy is better than no strategy at all?
IPlayNaked
I think its comical how you guys, the shakers and movers in the industry, think its a bad idea to bet on the world's most popular OS manufacturer and ecosystem.
I mean really. AMD doesn't have something that sips so little power it will fit into an iPad or Nexus 10 or Nexus 7. They have to go for the tablet/ultrabook combo market where people demand slightly more power for less efficiency because that's what AMD has. If they tried to compete in the Android space they would be out of business by next year.
Denial
This.
Intel with probably 15x the R&D of AMD has been attempting to hit the mobile market for what, 4-5 years now? And only until now have they been able to announce anything with sub 10w scale and decent performance. Oh and they had to make their own power term up just do that.
Hitting 4w TDPs at ARM performance is obviously incredibly difficult.
IPlayNaked
4W TDPs for ARM are the high end of what is expected in a tablet. Technically, Intel doesn't even match that.
Best AMD has is Hando? Which doesn't hit the TDP target and which, to my knowledge, doesn't include a connected standby state, which makes it largely useless for a non-PC.
Chillin
AMD has almost no footing in any area on the PC which actually makes money. To try and keep fighting for a small percentage (16.1%) of a constantly shrinking and more demanding (and less profitable) market is suicide...quite in line with what AMD has been doing for the past few years.
Instead of pouring all their efforts into a new and expanding market where their APU idea would be best met, they continue to focus on a shrinking market in which they still can't turn a decent profit.
Then again, I don't own any AMD stock; so I couldn't really give two sh!ts about this sinking company.
sykozis
AMD has an ARM license, as well as prior history with RISC architectures. AMD is also, supposedly, working with ARM to develop a processor.
Denial
AMD has an ARM processor license but not a ARM arch license. They can only use ARM designs and not develop their own.
deltatux
Although AMD won't officially support Android, Android will make itself supported on AMD processors. The beauty of open source is that if it isn't supported yet, make it supported. It's not like Android can't run on x86 devices *cough* Atom *cough*.
Bad decision, but won't really stop anyone to port Android over.
deltatux
Denial
I don't think the issue is going to be support it's going to be power/performance requirements. That's what people are concerned about.
I mean, lets face it, despite what the majority of Guru3D thinks, the future is mobile technology. You're going to have a phone, you're going to set it on your desk and it's going to automagically stream sound and video to your 27" monitor and pick up both your wireless mouse and keyboard.
Now in order to have that type of device your processor has to be operating at ~1w. If AMD is not focusing on this, then they aren't ever going hit it. And consequently you'll never see them in those devices.
Stukov
The reason Intel hasn't been successful in getting into mobile (tablet/phones) is because they are very low margin devices and Intel COULD make a pretty rad chip for it, but doing so cannibalizes its other PC chip sales which have higher margins.
As someone else said, AMD doesn't have an ARM license except to use a tiny part of their encryption/secure technology which is mainly for secure computing in the server/enterprise sector.
This isn't about AMD failing to go after Android, it simply is being misconstrued that the truth is they aren't currently planning (or announcing) using ARM over x86. They already have low end stuff announced (shown at CEbit) for tablets.
This announcement should be read as "We had a meeting with Intel and we both agree its in our financial interest to keep using x86, and we don't have the financial resources to start another ARM project anyways. We will work to scale down our technology to low end devices rather than start new with ARM."
sykozis
According to rumors, ARM is directly involved in the development themselves.....
