Hardware is dead • Hacker News Board

Re: Hardware is dead

#111

Post by wpietri » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 9:43 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #80

thaumaturgy wrote: post #7

Hardware is dead; long live hardware. The free-fall in PC prices in the 90s "killed" the PC, except that every major PC manufacturer still sells high-end models, and retailers still make money on them. The free-fall in automotive prices in the 20s "killed" the automobile, except that people kept buying faster, sleeker, newer models anyway. Like so many other electronics and everyday devices, the commoditization of ta…

Came here to say exactly that. Markets are zombies and dollars are brains. But the title is less thrilling than "Ok everyone knows how to make a tablet now, that won't be a high margin business." In this case margin being the proxy for expertise in putting together a tablet. But there actually is a story here which VentureBeat came so close too and missed, the cost of compute. Even in the 80's when I went to work for…

Markets are zombies and dollars are brains.

That is beautiful. Like, "I may need to get that as a tatoo" beautiful. Is it yours?

Re: Hardware is dead

#112

Post by ippisl » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 9:43 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #93

Let's make an important clarification here: When the word "hardware" is used in this article (and this thread) it is really to mean "commodity consumer hardware". There's far more to the hardware business than what you can buy at BestBuy or Walmart. That said, even industrial and specialty hardware is under pricing pressure in markets where reasonable volumes can be had. That's the secret, really. Any market where pr…

>> Why are we paying so much for tablets in the US?

Because of few factors:

1. It's relatively hard to find a Chinese tablet that can you be sure it has good quality. That's what branding is for, but chinese tablets don't have good branding.

2. Marketing does help to sell products. Promotion is needed.

Re: Hardware is dead

#113

Post by eupharis » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 9:57 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #105

ChuckMcM wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMD is a good example of how competing with Intel doesn't work well. They kicked Intel's ass with the AMD64 architecture but they didn't get commensurately rewarded. Look at their lawsuit vis-a-vis Intel and their predetory approach to Dell. They accused Intel of threatening to cut off Dell if Dell put an AMD chip in their servers. At NetApp where I was arguing for Opteron rather than the turd Intel was pushing (Itan…

Tangentially, because I'm finding your comments so fascinating: it looks to me like AMD doesn't really know how to compete with Intel from a technical standpoint in the desktop and server space, but their default approach works much better in the cheap and ARM space. For example, AMD seems to have bet a lot on their bulldozer architecture, but as far as I can tell it's been almost a total flop in the space where Inte…

AMD put a lot of resources toward the desktop. And from all the benchmarks I've seen they achieved their goal. Bulldozer is a pretty competitive desktop processor. Bulldozer is powerful.

But not energy efficient. There can be no Bulldozer laptop.

And the world switched to laptops. Right now the split is 18% tablets, 60% notebooks/netbooks, 22% desktops.[1] And desktops are losing ground rapidly.

AMD simply has nothing to compete with Intel in the laptop space.

For the same price, Intel scores something nearly double on the benchmarks (1700 for a4-3400m vs 2900 i3-2350m). For everyday computing in the real world, that performance difference is:

  AMD: "This is so slow I want to tear my hair out."
  Intel: "The CPU is no longer a bottleneck.
  I need a new SSD for CPU speed to even matter."

And the Intel chip does all that using SO MUCH LESS power than the AMD (a4-3420m=35TDP and i3-2350m=15TDP).

And as you move up away from the budget laptops on the price/performance curve, things rapidly get worse for AMD.

AMD's failure was strategic, not technical. Even if Bulldozer had been 50% faster, AMD would still be on the verge of irrelevance.

[1]http://www.inquisitr.com/76157/tablets-to-overtake-desktop-s...

Re: Hardware is dead

#114

Post by zerostar07 » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:00 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #7

Hardware is dead; long live hardware. The free-fall in PC prices in the 90s "killed" the PC, except that every major PC manufacturer still sells high-end models, and retailers still make money on them. The free-fall in automotive prices in the 20s "killed" the automobile, except that people kept buying faster, sleeker, newer models anyway. Like so many other electronics and everyday devices, the commoditization of ta…

I don't think the author meant hardware will stop selling, but that it has been commodified to the point where there's little future for innovation.

Re: Hardware is dead

#115

Post by sien » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:03 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #110

thaumaturgy wrote: post #7

Hardware is dead; long live hardware. The free-fall in PC prices in the 90s "killed" the PC, except that every major PC manufacturer still sells high-end models, and retailers still make money on them. The free-fall in automotive prices in the 20s "killed" the automobile, except that people kept buying faster, sleeker, newer models anyway. Like so many other electronics and everyday devices, the commoditization of ta…

>>The free-fall in PC prices in the 90s "killed" the PC, except that every major PC manufacturer still sells high-end models, and retailers still make money on them. Yes, but how lucrative is the market in general compared to before? How many new players do you see, and how much innovation is happening? I've always been of the opinion that commoditization is good for the consumer only in the short run (since prices d…

True.

Other than PCI, PCIe, USB, Bluetooth, discrete 2D graphics cards, 3D accelerators, multi-core x86, DDR, SSDs, High quality LCDs and hundreds of other improvements it is worth saying has you do, Reg, 'What has commoditization ever done for us?'

Re: Hardware is dead

#116

Post by habitue » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:11 PM UTC

gregsq wrote: post #18

habitue wrote: post #6

2 thoughts: He isn't saying anything except "margins are razor thin". Hardware companies have made money on razor thin margins in the past, and will continue to do so. Razor thin margins don't mean "0 margin". He seems to be ignoring the costs of distribution. The reason the tablet is $49 is because you can walk to the factory from where it's being sold. Try to take advantage of that price and import it to the US and…

Distribution is usually via Hong Kong at something of middle man markups, but still cheap. The last time we ordered this way, the item arrived declared for customs as 'Contents: Gift'. I'm not sure what the preferred weight limit is for them. There's a sea of knockoffs over there, some terrible, others very good.

Yeah the "Contents:Gift" trick is cute, but illegal if you're actually importing.

Re: Hardware is dead

#117

Post by nitrogen » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:20 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #13

noonespecial wrote: post #8

I've already started sticking them to the walls of my house to control lights, the thermostat, the garage door etc. This didn't make sense at $400/device but as soon as they hit $100 or so the game was afoot. Now they're so cheap, its literally cheaper to grab one from "the pile" and whip up a nice html5 interface for the task than to buy a dedicated Insteon controller or Nest thermostat. Hell, it was cheaper to auto…

What hardware are you using? I've wanted to try home automation for a while but all I can find is either the lowend stuff (X10) or the really highend stuff that requires a dealer to install it for you.

Something that isn't often considered for home use is DMX-512. I use DMX to control lights with the Nitrogen Logic automation controller. It has the lowest per-channel dimming cost of any system I've found (cheaper per light even than X10 and Insteon dimmers), but requires home run wiring.

Using my libdmx485[0], you can control a DMX network very easily using a highly affordable FTDI USB-to-RS-485 adapter, or (shameless plug time) you can buy a Nitrogen Logic controller if you don't want to write your own software.

[0] http://sourceforge.net/projects/dmx485/files/ (I need to move it to Github)

Re: Hardware is dead

#118

Post by programminggeek » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:23 PM UTC

So what he's saying is there's room in the market for a software company to take these $35 tablets(in volume), add custom software enhancements, and sell them for $200? Sounds like a business opportunity, if maybe a bit short lived.

Also, why has nobody pointed out the opportunity in taking these and making custom software for various industries like Medical, Automotive, Automation (home or industrial), Sales (of various things).

Custom software on disposable hardware could really turn into some big money businesses. Maybe there's no money in the hardware, but you can add some serious margin by bundling it with custom software and maybe add the tag "enterprise" if you want to sell to large companies.

Re: Hardware is dead

#119

Post by majormajor » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:27 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #110

thaumaturgy wrote: post #7

Hardware is dead; long live hardware. The free-fall in PC prices in the 90s "killed" the PC, except that every major PC manufacturer still sells high-end models, and retailers still make money on them. The free-fall in automotive prices in the 20s "killed" the automobile, except that people kept buying faster, sleeker, newer models anyway. Like so many other electronics and everyday devices, the commoditization of ta…

>>The free-fall in PC prices in the 90s "killed" the PC, except that every major PC manufacturer still sells high-end models, and retailers still make money on them. Yes, but how lucrative is the market in general compared to before? How many new players do you see, and how much innovation is happening? I've always been of the opinion that commoditization is good for the consumer only in the short run (since prices d…

A lack of groundbreaking innovation leads to commoditization, not the other way around. A commoditized market is ripe for new innovation to set an offering apart—and if that innovation is big enough, it may just end up creating a new market.

The feature phone market was pretty commoditized, but that didn't stop people from trying to figure out ways to create a new, less-commoditized, market by making phones smarter. And touch-based smartphones, too, will become increasingly commoditized until someone comes up with another revolution.

Similarly, the basic functionality of a car has been commoditized for decades, but competition keeps innovation going.

Re: Hardware is dead

#120

Post by wslh » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:52 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #7

Hardware is dead; long live hardware. The free-fall in PC prices in the 90s "killed" the PC, except that every major PC manufacturer still sells high-end models, and retailers still make money on them. The free-fall in automotive prices in the 20s "killed" the automobile, except that people kept buying faster, sleeker, newer models anyway. Like so many other electronics and everyday devices, the commoditization of ta…

Yes, Bill Gates vision of one computer per home was wrong: now we have more than three computers for every family member (notebook, mobile, tablet, e-reader)!