Because of Intel’s relative weakness at the moment, Arm has an opportunity to move outside of its smartphone base and solidly into PCs. Instead of backing Qualcomm’s play, Arm has decided to cancel Qualcomm’s license. This move not only appears to be an abuse of power but is extremely ill-timed, given Intel and AMD have correctly identified the threat and formed a partnership to fight it.
It suggests that maybe Qualcomm shouldn’t have blocked Nvidia’s attempt to buy Arm because, to get government approvals for the deal, Nvidia would have had to protect Qualcomm’s interests and be blocked from doing what Arm is now doing to Qualcomm.
Further, Arm is at risk even for smartphones because the hottest smartphone currently on the market is from Huawei. It doesn’t use an Arm processor but a Kirin processor, which, on paper, might be better. My Product of the Week is a Huawei phone pulling interest in line with the original iPhone. So, this Arm vs. Qualcomm war is ill-timed.
Qualcomm’s PC Effort Is Struggling
While there is a lot of focus coming out of Huawei from Qualcomm on the performance of the new Snapdragon processors for laptops, the big problem for them isn’t performance but compatibility. This compatibility issue, while not pronounced for those of us who don’t use many custom apps, has become a bridge too far for large companies with a lot of custom Windows apps.
In addition, over the last few months, AMD and Intel have stepped up their laptop processor game. While Qualcomm can still successfully argue it’s better in terms of efficiency, the need for emulators detracts from this, and x86 is the entrenched technology. This means all Intel and AMD need to be is good enough, but Qualcomm has to outperform them.
One critical mistake was the failure to drive more 5G capability into these Snapdragon notebooks. Qualcomm’s biggest advantages are its wireless capability and powering a laptop that has not only all-day battery life but also instant and pervasive connectivity. However, only the Microsoft Surface Tablet has this capability.
Coincidentally, I understand that the Surface Snapdragon AI PC products are significantly outselling everyone else’s, suggesting that 5G capability was a significant potential game changer.
One of the significant reasons the line is struggling is that it is both different and not well-marketed. When a product is different, its marketing requirement is higher because we don’t like different unless that difference has key benefits.
For instance, the LG Prada phone (on which the first iPhone was allegedly based) didn’t sell well because people didn’t like virtual keyboards and preferred phones like the Blackberry. But Apple marketed the consumer benefits of a screen phone and pivoted the market to it, knocking dominant companies like Palm, Research In Motion (Blackberry), and even Microsoft out of the market.
That’s the power of well-funded and fully executed marketing, and we just didn’t see that with these offerings.
The x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group
Intel and AMD recently formed the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group to defend against Arm and any other challenging technology. This group has pretty much every major PC OEM within it, as well as several server and web providers, including Google, Meta, and Microsoft.
This is a “hell froze over” type of relationship, given AMD and Intel have been at each other’s throats for years. But these two competitors rightly saw the risk, put aside their differences, and moved collectively against the Arm threat.
While the group is still too young to make much progress, it provides significant resources with the goal of not only blocking Arm from entering the broader computing ecosystem but also the potential to challenge Arm for tablets and potentially smartphone alternatives in the future.
Arm should have moved immediately to consolidate its licensees into a similar group, much like the partnerships formed during wars where countries put aside their differences to address the broader threat. Instead, Arm decided to go to war with Qualcomm. This would be like Russia in World War II deciding to bomb the United Kingdom while being invaded by Germany. The outcome of that war would likely have been very different.
The Huawei Threat
Right now, Huawei is contained because of its alleged close relationship with the Chinese government. Nonetheless, its products have for some time had significant price and performance advantages that appear to be increasing.
Much like the electric car companies in China have started to outstrip even Tesla, Chinese companies appear to be advancing far quicker than their Western counterparts. Should relations ease again between the West and the East, Western tech companies like Arm, Qualcomm, and Tesla will be at greater risk.
This situation is a threat to Arm’s and Qualcomm’s current core markets, making this conflict between the two companies not only ill-timed but incredibly stupid because it puts a cloud over both companies’ futures.
Wrapping Up
Arm has significant potential to redefine the personal computing space, but so do x86 and challengers like Huawei. This is not a time to launch preemptive attacks on licensees; it is time to gather them to counter the AMD and Intel Advisory Group effort.
This fight between Arm and Qualcomm has the potential to create the same kind of dynamic that resulted in the iPhone taking out Nokia, Blackberry, and Palm, among others, and destroying the otherwise bright future of both firms.
Let’s hope the adults eventually step in because should this fight continue to escalate, it won’t end well for either firm.
Huawei Tri-Fold Mate XT Smartphone
The Huawei Tri-Fold Mate XT may just be the most amazing smartphone launched so far.
Thanks to the Chinese and Huawei sanctions and restrictions, this phone is available only in China for now, but it has Samsung worried and again points to how far off the cutting-edge Apple is.
This phone expands from a good-sized 6.4-inch screen to a whopping 10.2-inch tablet, creating an iPhone and an iPad in one device. Its cameras are as good or better than any premium phone in the market, and when folded, it has nearly the same thickness as a single-screen phone.
Given it has only two hinges, the “tri” refers to the number of screens, not the number of hinges. The phone can be used with a single screen, a double screen with the spare screen on the back, or with all three screens as needed. The UI, which is based on Huawei’s Harmony OS (not Android), handles all three configurations with ease.
One shortcoming is battery size. It has a small, smartphone-sized battery, not a tablet-sized battery, giving it a relatively short battery life in tablet mode. Another shortcoming is the price, nearly $3,000, making it one of the most expensive phones out there.
It isn’t waterproof, and the screens are relatively fragile. Screen protectors typically don’t work well on foldable phones. You can gray market buy it on eBay, but with prices often pushing a whopping $10,000 and little compatibility outside of China, even I wouldn’t buy one that way. But the massive premium prices suggest enough people want this phone to justify that unaffordable price.
Shortcomings aside, this thing draws a crowd because there is nothing quite like it. Plus, it may show how Qualcomm, assuming it survives the Arm insanity, could move more aggressively on the PC market by creating a different class of PC, much like the iPhone initially was a different class of smartphone, similar to what Huawei is doing with the Trifold. Embrace the difference and push it with a uniquely interesting design.
Qualcomm is the only processor company with something that could effectively compete with the Kirin processor in this phone. If the Arm community doesn’t step up to this threat, they may wish they’d studied what Apple did to Nokia more deeply. In the end, even though I can’t use it, I have lust in my heart for the Huawei Mate XT Tri-Fold smartphone, and it is my Product of the Week.
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