...and suffer every moment. It has patchy drivers
for Windows, and it's Linux drivers are
incompatible with any remotely-new distro, and
even back then, they didn't properly function. The
onboard GPU especially. That means everything
falls on the CPU's back.
Not touching VIA again.
Via hangs tough but not a real contender
Summary
Via is making headway in some computing market segments but is still some way off from becoming a serious contender to the likes of AMD and Intel, according to an analyst.
Topics
Via is making headway in some computing market segments but is still some way off from becoming a serious contender to the likes of AMD and Intel, according to an analyst.
Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist at In-Stat, told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail interview that both Intel and AMD will still be competitive in the year ahead despite some challenges, such as on the legal and regulatory front for Intel.
"Nothing is going to displace the x86 in traditional servers anytime soon and Intel definitely has a strong position with the release of the Nehalem architecture," he noted. "2010 may be a bit challenging for Intel due to the regulatory and legal issues, but they are still very competitive from a product standpoint. AMD will still be competitive.
Vendors such as Via, said McGregor, are aiming for other segments of the market such as communications--where players including MIPS and Power have traditionally been strong--or other specialized applications. In addition, Via has primarily targeted embedded applications--a good niche for the Taiwanese company.
Another market in which Via is making headway is mobile PCs due to the rising popularity of smaller form factor devices, he pointed out. "Via's products in this segment are competitive.
"The only thing Via has really lacked in the past was a significant design win that provides high volume," said the analyst. "It would seem that Via may finally be getting over that hurdle with design wins like the new Tongfong thin and light notebook. All Via really needs is momentum and continued investment in R&D in the PC and consumer electronics segment."
In the high-end server market, Via products are "not on par" with larger competitors in terms of performance, noted McGregor, and "will be limited to specific applications or segments" in the market.
"Via faces challenges in terms of capacity and engineering support, especially relative to Intel," he pointed out. "It took AMD many years to break into Dell for some of these very same reasons. Via is creative and has competitive products, especially for mobile devices, but they would need a significant investment to compete head-on with Intel."
Timothy Brown, Via's international marketing manager, said in an e-mail the deal to use the Nano processor in Dell servers was important as it served "as a first step into the hyperscale Web hosting server market". Following the announcement, Via received "a lot of inquiries from other customers", he said, adding that he could not provide further information on the potential business opportunities.
According to Brown, the Nano processor was built with planned properties that serve as "core building blocks" for a wide range of products. "An integrated hardware security encryption engine, low power draw, x86 architecture, and now 64-bit and virtualization support which are key for the Web hosting server market, make the Via Nano ideal for these kinds of applications," he added.
To AMD, the Dell-Via tie-up is validation of the U.S. chipmaker's own plan to "address the need among Web and cloud computing customers for energy-efficient, highly dense and economical servers", said its corporate vice president and APAC general manager Ben Williams.
"Those customers do not want to compromise such things as memory addressability and reliability," said Williams. "AMD's 4000 series processors will meet the demands of the rapidly growing cloud computing market in the first half of next year. Today, cloud and Web customers can take advantage of our energy-efficient 40-watt Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors that offer the same features and functionality of our highest-performing AMD Opteron processors, but in a much lower thermal band."
For the first quarter of 2009, IDC statistics showed Intel had a global market share of 77.3 percent, AMD 22.3 percent and Via, 0.4 percent.
This article was originally posted on ZDNet Asia.
Talkback Most Recent of 5 Talkback(s)
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MetzM10th Jun 2009 -
I've built hundreds of ITX computers.
I've used Via CPUs with their ITX format motherboards to build hundreds of Point of Sale comuters for many happy customers.
With the quite small ITX motherboard, a small 3.5" hard drive and cool-running 1Ghz CPU running XP, thermal issues are no problem.
The final product is small, reasonably priced and easily fits under a touch screen monitor.
Really, the only problem with these small Via-based computers is dust and dirt. The store owners seem to *never* clean them and over time normal convection currents pull dust, dirt, grease and bugs into the system finally causing them to overheat. Can't blame us or Via for that! LOL!!
Terry Thomas
President
PC Tech
Atlanta, Georgia USA
PCtechAtlanta(x)gmail.com
AtlantaTerry10th Jun 2009 -
Via tiny PC's rock....
Vyatta + Via + CFCard = Router heaven
2X TCS + Via + PXE = ThinClient heaven
JoeMama_z10th Jun 2009 -
RE: Via hangs tough but not a real contender
The author appearantly forgot to close the anchor href
CowboyJT14th Jun 2009 -
Anchor href tag: please close (to author)
I agree with the above. Please close the link tag;
it's ruining my reading experience.
lemi415th Jun 2009
Talkback - Tell Us What You Think
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