[cbvinh]

Yeah, how did that work out for them?

Even if vendors play Google's game though, it still doesn't stop them mucking about with things. Samsung Touchwiz anyone?

Amazon is still in the business of making hardware and it was never about gaining tablet market share, or even phone market share for them. They wanted a platform for their store and services.

Yes, that's a good example where Google sets rules and vendors are still free to embellish.

[BGRS]

For me Blackberry is not Blackberry if does not make devices. But that's me. Is there are reason why they don't make Hub for an iphone? Their email client is horrible...Just switched to an iphone and installed Outlook but not even outlook is nowhere near Hub.

[cbvinh]

I see. ignorance is blessing ;-). Semiconductor Engineering .:. Rethinking Processor Architectures
many companies head back to hardware for a good reason... New Hardware in dire need... who would be the king is unknown at this stage.

Did you even read the article?

-----
"Perhaps the biggest shift in some markets is determining what is the starting point for designs. While traditionally it has been hardware defining the software, increasingly it is the other way around.

�We�re seeing more and more hardware being defined by software use cases,� said Charlie Janac, chairman and CEO of Arteris. �It�s not always the case, but it�s happening more and more. This is software-defined hardware. The big change is that before, people would put out a chip and the programmers would write software for it. This is a big change.�

ARM�s Shelby believes this ultimately will change even more in the future because the number of embedded developers is growing while the number of hardware engineers is flat to shrinking. �We�re seeing estimates of 4.5 million developers getting involved in the IoT by 2020,� he said. �These developers are demanding a whole stack out of the back. They expect security to be there. They don�t want to write a TLS (Transport Layer Security) stack or develop a crypto device. And we�d better deliver it or they�ll go somewhere else.�"
-----

"Software defining hardware" and "security is expected". BlackBerry got out of hardware and is concentrating on securing IoT.

Summary for those short on time: IEEE is writing a roadmap/"best practices" guide to give direction to hardware development. General purpose CPU's may give way to more specialized chips for software defined tasks.

[cbvinh]

For me Blackberry is not Blackberry if does not make devices. But that's me. Is there are reason why they don't make Hub for an iphone? Their email client is horrible...Just switched to an iphone and installed Outlook but not even outlook is nowhere near Hub.

They made the Hub for BB10, then Android, because they switched out OS'es. Making the Hub available for other Android phones probably required very little extra effort, definitely compared to porting for iOS. Maybe if Hub+ Services does well on Android, they might port one day?

[BGRS]

They made the Hub for BB10, then Android, because they switched out OS'es. Making the Hub available for other Android phones probably required very little extra effort, definitely compared to porting for iOS. Maybe if Hub+ Services does well on Android, they might port one day?

Wouldn't that be worth of an effort since there is a potential there? Their mail client is so bad that I uninstalled it. But then it is BB famous for making bad or late moves, or both at once.

[cbvinh]

Wouldn't that be worth of an effort since there is a potential there? Their mail client is so bad that I uninstalled it. But then it is BB famous for making bad or late moves, or both at once.

Is there any demand in the iOS community to use something like the Hub? Sure, you want it because you've been exposed to the Hub and know what it can do, but wouldn't most iOS users be happy with what Apple supplies by default?

[ohaiguise]

They're reiterating "we're a software company", which is not terribly earth shattering.

You mean a software company that no longer supports its own software (BB10) and is releasing new Android handsets?

[ohaiguise]

Did you even read the article?

Summary for those short on time: IEEE is writing a roadmap/"best practices" guide to give direction to hardware development. General purpose CPU's may give way to more specialized chips for software defined tasks.

All the handsets look the same and are manufactured in the same place (i.e. China) using the same parts, so that's not a bad idea.

[ohaiguise]

This was a very odd post from blackberry. They essentially came to terms with how they failed over the years, and how they're pushing to succeed again in a different way. It's a very odd, honest post from them. Just weird timing.

We love our Dear Leader, Comrade John Chen.

He is our Saviour.

We are a pathetic irrelevant company now ...

[stlabrat]

Did you even read the article?

-----
.

I did and many more... how do you define the hardware if you know nothing about it? you think BB can dictate the hardware if they want optimize performance? I know there is more of problematic issues, that software and hardware are not use same "language - can't communicate"... it showcased well here... boy oh boy...
"Deciding which pieces of the software should run on which homogeneous core is the old problem. Several new ones are arising. “Today it’s difficult to optimize or scale GPU+CPU applications, or to port from one SoC platform to another,” ---( remember the qualcomm driver someone mentioned before?) continues Aldis. “Software programming models for coherent heterogeneous processors aren’t standardized, and even when they are, they are different for different types of processors, making heterogeneous applications very inflexible and non-portable. You need to decide before you code your app which parts are on GPU, which are on DSP, and you probably even need to know whose DSP and whose GPU you will be running on.” (apple A10 vs others?... SoC ?)

[conite]

You mean a software company that no longer supports its own software (BB10) and is releasing new Android handsets?

Yes, as it would be silly to do so.

[conite]

Wouldn't that be worth of an effort since there is a potential there? Their mail client is so bad that I uninstalled it. But then it is BB famous for making bad or late moves, or both at once.

Android has captured 88% of the market. BlackBerry's efforts are best spent there.

Apple is continuing to decline and sits at 12% now.

[cbvinh]

I did and many more... how do you define the hardware if you know nothing about it? you think BB can dictate the hardware if they want optimize performance? I know there is more of problematic issues, that software and hardware are not use same "language - can't communicate"... it showcased well here... boy oh boy...

I'm getting the impression that you've never debugged hardware, wrote drivers, or software of any kind...

"Deciding which pieces of the software should run on which homogeneous core is the old problem. Several new ones are arising. �Today it�s difficult to optimize or scale GPU+CPU applications, or to port from one SoC platform to another,� ---( remember the qualcomm driver someone mentioned before?) continues Aldis. �Software programming models for coherent heterogeneous processors aren�t standardized, and even when they are, they are different for different types of processors, making heterogeneous applications very inflexible and non-portable. You need to decide before you code your app which parts are on GPU, which are on DSP, and you probably even need to know whose DSP and whose GPU you will be running on.� (apple A10 vs others?... SoC ?)

It's not difficult for Qualcomm to port their drivers to QNX. They want money to do, to make it worth their development costs, when BlackBerry would only be ordering a low quantity of chips. If BlackBerry were buying 100 million units, Qualcomm would probably do it for "free".

You could have all the code run on homogeneous processors, but if you want to optimize certain intensive portions of the code in specialized hardware, then yes, you'll need to consider what heterogeneous hardware is available. That's been going on long before now. It used to be that if you wanted fast floating point, you needed a separate chip and needed to know ahead of time whether the chip was available or not on your target system. Now, floating point units are integrated on the same chip. Similarly, radios, GPU's, DSP's, etc. are being integrated into a single chip. It's why we have heterogeneous chips and associated development kits.

[sorinv]

Why would Google, Microsoft, Facebook or Apple want their own 10nm CMOS fab when they can pay someone else to fab for them?

They may have to buy them because they (the fabs) don't make enough money to invest in new research and fabs and they have reached a roadblock.


Posted via CB10

[sorinv]

Did you even read the article?

-----
"Perhaps the biggest shift in some markets is determining what is the starting point for designs. While traditionally it has been hardware defining the software, increasingly it is the other way around.

�We�re seeing more and more hardware being defined by software use cases,� said Charlie Janac, chairman and CEO of Arteris. �It�s not always the case, but it�s happening more and more. This is software-defined hardware. The big change is that before, people would put out a chip and the programmers would write software for it. This is a big change.�

ARM�s Shelby believes this ultimately will change even more in the future because the number of embedded developers is growing while the number of hardware engineers is flat to shrinking. �We�re seeing estimates of 4.5 million developers getting involved in the IoT by 2020,� he said. �These developers are demanding a whole stack out of the back. They expect security to be there. They don�t want to write a TLS (Transport Layer Security) stack or develop a crypto device. And we�d better deliver it or they�ll go somewhere else.�"
-----

"Software defining hardware" and "security is expected". BlackBerry got out of hardware and is concentrating on securing IoT.

Summary for those short on time: IEEE is writing a roadmap/"best practices" guide to give direction to hardware development. General purpose CPU's may give way to more specialized chips for software defined tasks.

Yes. That's not new. Hardware accelerators were popular in the 1980's. For example, people developed an IC to hardcode a spice circuit simulator.

We are back there now with search engines and neural network processors developed as hardware.

That does not make hardware less important.

On the contrary, that means that there will be a variety of ICs and the two fabs that can make them will dictate the rules, just like Google dictates the rules for app developers.

Developing a new CMOS technology has a much higher barrier of entry (5-10 Billion dollars in equipment investment) than developing a software ecosystem.

Watch out for more vertical integration...

Posted via CB10

[cbvinh]

They may have to buy them because they (the fabs) don't make enough money to invest in new research and fabs and they have reached a roadblock.

Is there any reason why you can't speak in specific terms instead of these vague "answers"? For example, can you say that Intel is losing money in fab and can't keep up with Moore's Law, so they're going to shutdown operations because it's not profitable anymore? "roadblock" can be anything.

[cbvinh]

Yes. That's not new. Hardware accelerators were popular in the 1980's. For example, people developed an IC to hardcode a spice circuit simulator.

We are back there now with search engines and neural network processors developed as hardware.

That does not make hardware less important.

On the contrary, that means that there will be a variety of ICs and the two fabs that can make them will dictate the rules, just like Google dictates the rules for app developers.

Developing a new CMOS technology has a much higher barrier of entry (5-10 Billion dollars in equipment investment) than developing a software ecosystem.

Watch out for more vertical integration...

And these two fabs are? And they will dictate what "rules"?

The "vertical integration" you keep hinting at... who's going to do it and what will be their integration? Be explicit... or you're just hand waving and have no idea what you're talking about.

[Bbnivende]

Android has captured 88% of the market. BlackBerry's efforts are best spent there.

Apple is continuing to decline and sits at 12% now.

Except that most of the profit is over at Apple and their app store.

I agree though, I am not sure that iPhone users are all that interested in the hub or any BlackBerry software.

I would not be surprised if Apple brought their own "hub" OS feature.


PS . Instagram post conveniently passes over all of the missteps between Chen coming on board and the decision to no longer manufacture in house .

[stlabrat]

http://arch2030.cs.washington.edu/sl..._tom_conte.pdf
(1) hardware selection impact greatly for the success of platform - the new world has some fragmented requirements... IC MFG (not just FAB) earn the money based on volume production... if you select wrong platform, your software may (a) impact performance - e.g. need a additional layer of virtue machine. (b) limited your software to the available hardware in market only - in extreme case, force to be obsolete. (c) could be very costly if it need to be customer made (or FPGA - again, may be a bit slow compare to the ASIC... but you might have to if your scale is not there to justify the ASIC). Have you heard some wrong selection of memory that impacted whole device to be obsolete (no design re-use - that cost money).
(2) Fabless - not intel... Intel got their own Fab. Qualcomm is full force on the new gen IC - spintronic in production?... GPU battle also race on at current level...(the stock price of the companies showed power of graphic processor compare to the prior years) The under current is after Moore hit wall...
(3) short term BB rely on 3rd party hardware to benefit from the volume - such as handset... as a software only company, BB at mercy of device and system provider. In house key knowledge would prevent the pitfall from the future... can't change the past... ignore the hardware would be short sighted, especially at current non-std situation for the next gen system that required new hardware (including AR VR for handset). (you would want to have a seat at IRDS if possible, to monitoring wind, make sure nothing detrimental std spec you out of the game in near term, mid term... if no long term in sight.... spec someone out is the cheapest way to get rid of your competitor, sometime, it might not succeed - chinese version of cdma?). IMHO. enough being said with the love of BB....

[BGRS]

Is there any demand in the iOS community to use something like the Hub? Sure, you want it because you've been exposed to the Hub and know what it can do, but wouldn't most iOS users be happy with what Apple supplies by default?

Have you used iphone's mail client? I have talked to at least 10 iphone users since I bought mine and they all use something other other then native mail app. Even Google mail client.

[BGRS]

Android has captured 88% of the market. BlackBerry's efforts are best spent there.

Apple is continuing to decline and sits at 12% now.

12% is still lots of devices...

[conite]

12% is still lots of devices...

Of course. But would you spread yourself thin to grab that extra 12%, or would you focus your efforts on the 88%?

[stlabrat]

12% is still lots of devices...

the 12 % claimed 104% of profit in the market - (more than 100% because someone sell at lost). I would take 1% of market with 2% of profit if it is possible... (not easy...but can be a starting point... consider 1% profit from good design and 1% security).

[BGRS]

Of course. But would you spread yourself thin to grab that extra 12%, or would you focus your efforts on the 88%?

All I am saying is that with apple they may have bigger chance then with android that already has natively very good email client. Plus ipads email clients. They wasted so many years on their own 1% so now to say that they don't care about 12% is funny at best.
But I guess that just speaks for itself about JohnC "we don't want to build our own ecosystem, but rather to make all of the others ours" or something along the line...

[BGRS]

Of course. But would you spread yourself thin to grab that extra 12%, or would you focus your efforts on the 88%?

I would not put all of their eggs in one basket...