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From * November 19, 2010, 3:25 PM GMT

Intel Microprocessor Business ‘Doomed,’ Claims ARM Co-Founder

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By Ben Rooney

Intel’s microprocessor business is doomed claimed one of Europe’s leading tech entrepreneurs as mobile computing will replace the PC in the next wave of computing.

Austrian-born Dr. Hermann Hauser, a co-founder of ARM, a rival chip designer, also said the value of chips which ARM collects a royalty on has overtaken Intel’s microprocessor revenue this year for the first time. Dr. Hauser remains a share holder in ARM, but is not on the board of directors.

Approximately 95% of the world’s mobile handsets and more than one-quarter of all electronic devices use an ARM chip.

From the Register:

Microsoft ARMs Windows for iPad assault (allegedly)

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Tablet OS hits ARM chips next month, says report

Microsoft is set to unveil a new incarnation of Windows that runs on ARM chips, according to a report citing two people familiar with the company's plans.

Bloomberg reports that Redmond will announce an ARM-friendly version of Windows early next month at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. According to Bloomberg's unnamed sources, the new OS is designed for battery-powered devices, including tablets and other handhelds, and it will also run on Intel and AMD chips.

Microsoft declined to comment on the report. But this summer, the software giant signed a new pact with ARM Holdings to license the chip architecture. Microsoft has previously worked with ARM on other versions of Windows, including Window Phone and Windows Embedded. From the late 90s, ARM chips ran most Pocket PC handhelds as well as Windows CE-based netbooks and tablets.

“If you look at the history of computing there was mainframe, which was dominated by IBM, then came the mini computer dominated by DEC, then came the third wave with workstations dominated by Sun and Apollo, then the PC, and now it’s the mobile architecture that is going to be the main computing platform at least on the terminal side.

“There is no case in the history of computing where a company that has dominated one wave has dominated the next wave and there is no case where a new wave did not kill the previous wave — as in obliterate them…the people that dominate the PC market are Intel and Microsoft.”

Mainframes and Minis are still with us (IBM, including AS400). Many of the people who buy into mobile computing will still have a desktop, just as stereo console were not made obsolete by portable radios. It is lazy thinking, especially in a still emerging industry, to think that every wave obliterates rathers than complements the last one.

Intel will still sell plenty of microprocessors. They will sell them for desktops, they will sell them for all those servers running cloud apps that all the mobile units are accessing. They will sell them because processors scale well, and Intel has the means to make a WHOLE lot of them, and can therefore have adequately performing products that are profitable on a consistent basis.

ARM is, and will do very well, too. But saying Intel has a bad business model for the next wave is as stupid as Michael Dell saying a few years ago that Apple should just give up.

The integrated graphics and shrinking architecture will keep Intel ahead of the power-usage curve. I like competition, works out better for all, but ARM is going to succeed in the same way that AMD has — day late, dollar short. The only company Intel seems to fear is NVidea, and for good reason.