Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S270833AbUJUTrC (ORCPT ); Thu, 21 Oct 2004 15:47:02 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S270848AbUJUTiI (ORCPT ); Thu, 21 Oct 2004 15:38:08 -0400 Received: from mail.scitechsoft.com ([63.195.13.67]:62445 "EHLO mail.scitechsoft.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S270864AbUJUTaD (ORCPT ); Thu, 21 Oct 2004 15:30:03 -0400 From: "Kendall Bennett" Organization: SciTech Software, Inc. To: Linux Kernel Mailing List Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 12:30:01 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: HARDWARE: Open-Source-Friendly Graphics Cards -- Viable? Message-ID: <4177ABC9.8291.20E9CB7A@localhost> In-reply-to: <9e4733910410201808c0796c8@mail.gmail.com> References: <4176E08B.2050706@techsource.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (4.21c) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-description: Mail message body X-Spam-Flag: NO Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1825 Lines: 44 Jon Smirl wrote: > I have heard a lot of complaints from embedded people about having > few choices for graphics chips. Many of the low end chips from > ATI/NVidia are no longer in production and you are forced into > buying more chip than you want. You should ask about this on > embedded developer lists. Most embedded customers care less about overall performance of the graphics hardware but more about low cost, low power and longevity. That is the reason that ATI committed to continue production of the Radeon Mobility M1 for many years to come. That is also the reason the Chips & Tech (now Asiliant) 6900 chipset is so popular for embedded customers, because they have been using the same hardware for years (but now that the 69000 is winding down, many are moving to the Mobility M1). So the biggest hurdle with selling a solution such as this to the embedded market is going to be customer confidence that if they invest the time and energy building a solution around a particular chip, that the chip will still be around for them to purchase from the suppler in 5- 7 years time. If the company is small and not well known, that might be a problem. Then again if the solution is 'Open' so that the customer could second source it from a different vendor, you may get a lot of traction in the embedded space. So that might be an angle to play. Regards, --- Kendall Bennett Chief Executive Officer SciTech Software, Inc. Phone: (530) 894 8400 http://www.scitechsoft.com ~ SciTech SNAP - The future of device driver technology! ~ - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/