Taipei Times: ARM set an ambitious target of seizing more than 50 percent of the world’s mobile PC chip market by 2015 at a time when mobile devices have grown 2.5 fold to about 750 million units from 300 million units this year. What do you see that makes your company feel optimistic about its market share expansion?
Ian Drew: Three things. I think the whole product range going from smartphones to digital TVs — which are smartbooks, ebooks, media tablets, clamshell [laptops] and everything else — and I think what we’ve got now is something we haven’t had in the PC industry for a long time, which is the ability to differentiate from different things.
Like your laptops now may be not much different from what you had three years ago, while your tablets can come in different sizes, or tablets that dock with phones or other things.
That is No. 1. And No. 2, I think there is a lot of software. You have Web browsers, Android, Microsoft’s browser, Chrome OS.
The third thing is, everybody wants the Internet everywhere. This whole connectivity is really driving new growth.
We already had about 10 percent [market share] last year. We expect to grow to between 15 percent to 20 percent this year. So, if you look at new software and new products coming out, I think it’ll be about 50 percent [by 2015].
TT: How will ARM benefit from Microsoft’s decision to use ARM architecture in its next-generation operating system? Will this give a boost to ARM’s royalty revenues?
Drew: I think it opens a new market for us. It opens a new opportunity for Microsoft as well, and I think one plus one is more than two in this case. I think our ecosystem and Microsoft’s ecosystem will have great future growth opportunities.
I really think we have two worlds — the mobile world and the PC world. Cloud computing and Internet everywhere means it is harder and harder to differentiate between what is the phone world and what is the PC world. We have to redefine everything. What we used to call PCs is personal computers, but a phone is more a personal device to you now than your PC.
We get royalties from chip, CPU companies like Qualcomm, not from software companies. The partnership with Microsoft helps us shift to new area like notebooks. But we do not get royalties from Microsoft, but from notebook computers and others. It will indirectly increase our royalties.
TT: What is the next big thing?
Drew: Servers and data centers. When I click on my [Apple Inc] iPhone, it’s going to the Web and it goes to data centers. These mobile phones and tablets will fuel data center usage. I see big data center growth because of the explosive content demand everywhere. The next big thing is making sure that is energy efficient as well.
When you say the hope is on the enterprises, but in reality, a lot of growth comes from consumers using all these devices.
TT: Being a long-term partner with Intel and Microsoft, Taiwanese companies are slow to pitch new products into the mobile PC market. They do not know what consumers really like, but are just being followers of Apple and the like. What do you think?
Drew: They used to do what Intel told them to do. Intel has a traditional concept of what a laptop should look like. Now they have more freedom. [Local companies start adopting new open software such as Android and Chrome, which gives room for hardware makers to design their products without a product stereotype for them to follow.]
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
RSS