
Google Said to Endorse Qualcomm's Fledgling Server-Chip Efforts - roymurdock
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/google-said-to-endorse-qualcomm-s-fledgling-server-chip-efforts-ik6ud7qg
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mikecb
This is a significant turnaround, because top infrastructure people including
Urs had been saying that arm cores would never be sufficient for single-
threaded performance[1] and most recently we thought they were supporting
OpenPower as competition to intel.[2]

> Google, which purchases as many as 300,000 processors every quarter for
> servers it manufactures, has greater buying power than most.

Good lord!

[1]
[http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/mi/2010/04/mmi2010040020-a...](http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/mi/2010/04/mmi2010040020-abs.html)

[2] [http://www.nextplatform.com/2015/03/18/google-looks-ahead-
to...](http://www.nextplatform.com/2015/03/18/google-looks-ahead-to-openpower-
systems/)

Background, great book "The Datacenter as a Computer":
[http://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00516ED2V01Y2...](http://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00516ED2V01Y201306CAC024)

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fishnchips
Can't really blame them for trying to diversify their suppliers.

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ksec
So why not help AMD with ZEN in this regards?

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hga
Helping to create a viable ARM server market, if that's possible, is an
entirely different and potentially much more rewarding thing than making
another bet on a perennial _long term_ loser like AMD (sometime before their
most recent peak and decline in the x86_64 domain it was noted that they'd
_never_ made their shareholders money if they'd bought and held their stock).

Intel is kind of the opposite, they're usually very good (and have almost
always been a fab line powerhouse (the major exception would be when they
exited the DRAM market)), and only occasionally get really wedged. At this
point, I wouldn't expect support for AMD to do more than drop Intel's prices a
bit, and maybe not at all given how the server, desktop, laptop and mobile
markets are moving.

It's also an indirect bet on TSMC vs. GlobalFoundries and/or Samsung.

