Better late than never
Graphics giant NVIDIA has staked its future on the mobile market with its Tegra SoC, an apparently sound strategy with mobile devices now the dominating the technology business. But this move will only pay off if device makers choose Tegra over the many other SoC options out there, something that hasn't happened very often right now.
When we last spoke to Tegra boss Mike Rayfield, he revealed that he'd made a mistake in not realising how quickly Android would become a leading mobile OS. Since then Semi Accurate - a blog whose author has a long track record of breaking NVIDIA bad news - has reported that Rayfield is leaving NVIDIA, but this remains unsubstantiated. Either way, the pressure is on NVIDIA to deliver a return on its massive investment in Tegra.
As Rayfield predicted in our interview, Android devices sporting Tegra 2 are starting to emerge with expected launch dates before the end of the year. One was announced to the WSJ yesterday by LG as part of its Optimus series, which also reminded us that an Android tablet is on the way. The interviewee also said LG plans to launch ten more smartphones by the end of the year.
On that note, we've chatted to a few OEMs recently about the fact that it's taken the rest of the technology industry nearly a year to come up with a response to the Apple iPad. They explained that they've been able to to make the hardware for quite some time, but the delay has been caused by a wait-and-see approach.
Firstly, there remained doubt about the demand for the tablet form factor, so everyone wanted to see how popular the iPad would be before taking the plunge. Secondly there hasn't been a viable operating system that lent itself to tablets - both in terms of price and compatibility with ARM-based chips - until recently. The success of Android has resolved that problem, and its free.
