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Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business

investors.micron.com

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Re: Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business

#211

Post by echelon »

nradov wrote: post #194
echelon wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just supply and demand. Antitrust laws can/should be applied to, eg., Google for search and web monopolization. If someone is willing to pay more than you for a limited supply of some resource, that isn't a market monopoly.

Monopolies never last in the tech industry. IBM had a monopoly on mainframes. And they even kind of still do, but now no one cares because disruptive innovations in other computing platforms have made mainframes nearly irrelevant. Now startups like OpenAI and Perplexity are using disruptive innovations to rapidly make Google's traditional web search business irrelevant.

OpenAI is having to pull insane amounts of funding to even stay alive.

Google is about to lay waste to everyone.

Google is using their nation state wealth to once again dominate a new sector. Wealth gained from unfair monopolization of search and web and mobile.

Google changed the notion of the URL bar to search. They control every ingress. Now, if you want to access a name brand registered trademark, it flows through Google search. Brands have to pay extortion money to Google to keep others from sniping their rightful name brand.

Google gets even more money because there's a bidding war.

Google pays to put themselves as middle men in front of nearly every web access.

Google doesn't just have a monopoly on this, it's downright unethical and should be tried in court or have laws written to make this illegal.

I have no love for OpenAI, but how do they even compete with the hundreds of billions of dollars this nets?

> Monopolies never last in the tech industry

Google is an invasive species in the ecosystem. They're killing viable competition by engorging themselves and taxing non-productively.

Capitalism should be hard. It should be live or die regardless of size or scale. Google is barely breaking a sweat.

Re: Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business

#213

Post by donflamenco »

khhu2bnn wrote: post #203
Aurornis wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s never been easier to be a hobbyist or a small electronics company. Honestly I don’t know what you’re talking about. Micron is exiting this business because it’s a commodity. It’s everywhere. There are numerous companies producing parts in this space. Their investments are better spent on other things. > I wonder if it's possible even for a company to make even 1980s-era electronics without massive capital expend…

> Micron is exiting this business because it’s a commodity. It’s everywhere. There are numerous companies producing parts in this space. Their investments are better spent on other things. Numerous as in plenty? Or basically three? Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron make up over 90% of the market share of DRAM. Micron saying goodbye to the consumer market basically leaves us with yet another duopoly.

Micron isn't exiting the consumer business. Their consumer brand (Crucial) is going away.

You don't buy SK Hynix or Samsung RAM (unless you are an OEM typically.)

Consumers can still buy RAM from companies like G.Skill, TeamGroup, Corsair, Kingston, etc. Those companies can use chips from any of the big three.

Re: Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business

#214

Post by vablings »

Aurornis wrote: post #184
linguae wrote: post #139

I'm sad. I'm a software guy, not much of a hardware expert, so please bear with me if I"m too pessimistic. However, I feel that if trends like this continue, it might be the end of enthusiast-level personal computing as we know it. No more being able to head down to the electronics store and purchase RAM, motherboards, processors, GPUs, storage, and other components. We're going to be limited to locked-down terminals…

It’s never been easier to be a hobbyist or a small electronics company. Honestly I don’t know what you’re talking about. Micron is exiting this business because it’s a commodity. It’s everywhere. There are numerous companies producing parts in this space. Their investments are better spent on other things. > I wonder if it's possible even for a company to make even 1980s-era electronics without massive capital expend…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS5ycm7VfXg

Here is a video of Sam Aloof who now runs Atomic Semi with Jim Keller. It likely took thousands of dollars to make his own custom Z2 chip that only has 1200 transistors and its nowhere near the likes of the 68k or Intel 386. They might have more advanced stuff now at Atomic Semi but they haven't announced anything

Re: Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business

#216

Post by toomim »

linguae wrote: post #139

I'm sad. I'm a software guy, not much of a hardware expert, so please bear with me if I"m too pessimistic. However, I feel that if trends like this continue, it might be the end of enthusiast-level personal computing as we know it. No more being able to head down to the electronics store and purchase RAM, motherboards, processors, GPUs, storage, and other components. We're going to be limited to locked-down terminals…

It's like the loss of Radio Shack, all over again.

Re: Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business

#217

Post by gnabgib »

pabs3 wrote: post #215
httpz wrote: post #28

I'm half joking but if this AI boom continues we're going to see Nvidia exit from consumer GPU business. But Jensen Huang will never do that to us... (I hope)

Wonder if Google will ever start selling TPUs.

Beyond the Coral, you mean? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_Processing_Unit#Edge_TP...

Re: Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business

#218

Post by cogman10 »

nradov wrote: post #191
cogman10 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that works in the situation of fabs. They are big and expensive pieces of tech with the latest fabs being the most expensive to construct. You can't exactly break up a chip manufacturer when they have just 1 or 2 plants tooled for the latest memory. IMO, recognizing chip fabrication as a national security asset and turning it into a public corporation would be the better way to go. Let the likes of inte…

Is that a joke? Socializing important industries has always been a disaster. Government run organizations have never been able to innovate on a sustained basis.

Lots have even in America. 2 famous ones are the NIH and the National Laboratories.

In fact, the largest, most advanced, and best known semiconductor manufacturer is primarily government owned: TSMC.

The only thing that gets in the way of their ability to sustain innovation is administrations hostile to publicly funded research.

Outside of innovative industries, there are plenty of examples of important government ran organizations aren't "disasters". Some of which can only be effectively ran via government. For example, healthcare.

What's been a disaster is relying on privatization and capitalism to solve all problems. That's the system of government we had in the dark ages.

Re: Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business

#220

Post by listenallyall »

alecco wrote: post #89
listenallyall wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This brand has existed for what, 20+ years? You dont think they can look at long-term trendlines of revenue and expenses? Please explain how this is "short term" thinking.

Betraying a decades-long loyal customer base for a bunch of AI companies that might get wiped out in a couple of years.

Or maybe, consumer volume is dropping precipitously as more and more people rely on non-upgradable mobile devices, while competition is ramping up, and monopolistic sales channels, (i.e. Amazon), take a larger share of revenue?
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