Hubert Joly, CEO of Best Buy, talked with Re/code about the overall health of their company and various industry trends. The first question (at least in the order Re/code presented them) asked about the decline of the PC industry. He responded that PC sales are actually recovering, to some extent, but that Android tablets are, now, "crashing".
His view is that laptops are adopting the successful bits of the tablet market, especially as a result of various two-in-one initiatives. He believes students, in particular, appreciate tablet/laptop hybrids. This is certainly what Intel has been hoping for, through its recent Ultrabook efforts. He hopes that innovation will be done at the high end, so consumers will not simply settle for the $300-tier.
He did back off on his "crashed" statement, regarding the tablet market, however. The growth of tablets, from the start, were amazing. However, like the argument with "good enough" PCs, there does not seem to be a compelling argument for users to move to the next device, at least not yet. Like PCs, devices are being replaced, just not driven from industry forces. Also, like smartphones, the market seems to have matured, slowing in growth.
Naturally, Joly believes that Best Buy will be around for years to come. I agree with his reasoning. He acknowledges the squeeze between online resellers and boutique shops, which puts Best Buy in an awkward middle niche when the goal of a big box store is to be not niche. My interpretation of his strategy is to, instead of being crushed, strive to overlap. Embrace what the customers want on either side while doing your thing in the middle.
It is still questionable whether it will work, but it seems like the right move.
Whenever they start shipping
Whenever they start shipping tablets with Full Linux distros, they may see some improvements in the market! Phones are filling the need for Android, but tablets could do better by offering a full function OS, Nvidia should see that their K1, and its Denver variant, could do better if it ran a full Linux, and took advantage of the open source graphics software, to become low cost graphics tablets for students! Apple will not see any improvement in its tablet sales unless it, likewise, offers a pro tablet that can run the full OSX, and all the software available to Full OSX. The tablet, new and shiny toy, factor has worn off, and the only new demand will require that tablets become tools for creation, which Android, and RT, will not allow. Android is more suited for phones, but there is currently few choices for full Linux on a tablet, and there is definitely people who would buy a tablet if it came with a full linux distro. Apple could do even better by pairing its tablets with a Mac Mini, and creating Hybrid system in which the iPad, could control/remote to a mac mini, out of the box, with the mac mini functioning as a headless server/streaming device to one or more iPads. A custom Mac Mini with a Hybrid CPU/SOC that had the ability to throttle down, and run like a laptop when on battery, and throttle up to full desktop thermals, and speed/power, when plugged in, all this while the mac mini acted together with the iPad/s to form a more powerful portable hybrid mini desktop/Tablet pairing, for music/lighting control, and other portable creative uses. People have already been doing this with iPads and Mac Minis, but Apple should support this functionality right out of the box, and go even beyond handoff to a full asymmetrical wireless computing system, where the mac mini and the iPad/s form a seamless unit for more portable computing power.
Linux isn’t the solution
Linux isn’t the solution because it isn’t easy to use and open source drivers aren’t reliable for the standard user.
You mean the standard console
You mean the standard console user, but not the high end gamer, and Linux can, and is, fully updatable through a GUI. Linux will be used, and Steam OS will be the first, of many gaming OSs! The standard user of tablets, and phones uses Linux drivers just fine, but Windows with its jack of all trades, bloat, can not be reduced to just running the essentials for gaming, and leaving those CPU cycles alone, and only available for better gaming. Just wait until whole PCI based gaming systems appear, and they will run optimized gaming OSs, on the PCI card, along with the gaming engine, and games, all running on the PCI card, with no need for the motherboard CPU, or motherboard OS to be involved in gaming, except to provide some simple BUS arbitration, for I/O, and other simple services for support. The games, gaming engines, and gaming OS all tuned for gaming ONLY, and in the future some games may load their own optimized for the game OS distro/gaming engine and drivers, all running on the PCI based gaming device, the whole environment specially tuned for the game. Linux is coming, and so is the discrete gaming APU/SOC, all on the PCI card, with the ability to add as many extra complete gaming APU/SOC systems as there are PCI slots to allow for more CPU/GPU power, and the gaming OSs will be able to automatically load balance the game across multiple PCI based gaming systems, over the motherboard bus, or over a background (crossfire/sli) backplane bus, or both. Linux already has the ability via its use in HPC, to run clusters of GPUs, and CPUs, and for users without any abilities, the Gaming engines will become their own OS, built from a base Linux distro, and targeted to run on the PCI base gaming card/s, so easy even Jethro could do it, Vittles is served!
Power 8 blah blah
Power 8 blah blah
And what is Apple going to
And what is Apple going to replace the Xeon with on its Mac Pros, and any one who says Power/power8 Is the same as PowerPC, has a SMOM, Not a MOM. It’s going to happen, Apple does not like giving Intel all of Apple’s juicy profits, Apple is Working with IBM, and Tablets, and Power/Power8 is Licensable Technology, just like ARM, and those Mac Pros could use, the 8 threads per core that Power8 offers, and Apple and their P.A. semiconductor Boffins, can and do Produce some damn fine Microcode/microarchitecture that can run the ARMv8 ISA, Not that they would have to do any rejiggering of the Power8 reference design, The Power8 is a beast, big enough do make a chipzilla a tasty morsel!
Google is testing Power8’s for their giga-server farms, and google could pay GF, or Samsung to fab them some at cost server chips with no middlemen involved, just some subcontractors. I see you’re not using your Duck Wanker account, embarrass yourself some more!
Power8, Power8, it’s the 8 that folks don’t hate, it’ll eat Xeon, and Xeon Pi, their high margin profits are going to die!
IBM isn’t going to do a god
IBM isn’t going to do a god dam thing, this isn’t the 80’s
Yes not IBM, but the others
Yes not IBM, but the others that will license the Power8 ISA/IP will, and IBM and others will benefit from these powerful CPU designs, just look what others have done with the licensed ISA/IP from ARM holdings, and Apple just licensed the ARMv8 ISA, and created its own microarchitecture to run the ARMv8 ISA, and look at the sales of the Apple A7 custom wide order custom silicon based devices! So the Samsungs and Apples of the world will license the Power8 reference designs, and IBM is only the supplier/licenser of the IP/ISA, well IBM does not matter that much, once the entire server market becomes flooded with Power8 based product, look at how the mobile market is built up around the ARM IP/ISA, and Arm Holdings is only a design bureau for the ARM ISA/IP, the licensees are the ones building the ARM based chips, or like Apple only licensing the ARMv8 ISA, and taping out their own, more powerful custom designs. So IBM takes a money losing business, and hands the design of the Power8 out to an entire market, well its out of IBMs hands after that, except for IBM getting its licensing/royalties for the IP, but an entire industry will build up around the licensed IBM Power8 IP/ISA, and IBM will be getting its supply of Power8 CPUs from a competitive Power8 market, at low commodity pricing, For IBMs use, IBM will be getting its CPU fabbed, and Nvidia GPU accelerators added on the mezzanine module, for its high performance Watson/HPC systems, under contract, and getting out of an increasingly unprofitable chip fab business. Oh those supplier economics, You always want you supply of CPU/SOC PARTS second sourced, and the suppliers competing for your business, you know, like IBM did with its supplies of x86 parts for the IBM PC, that started the whole PC business to begin with! You do Know why AMD got its x86 license to begin with, thank you IBM, for the unintended consequences of your need for low cost x86 parts, and the same for Power8, for the market that will build up around Power/power8, and the low prices that will rule the Server CPU/SOC market, like it has benefited the mobile market!
keep dreaming
keep dreaming
Go and Tell that to Google,
Go and Tell that to Google, and the non IBM made Power8 CPUs are scheduled to arrive in 2015, and if Apple has the cash to spare for beats, they certainly have the cash for a Power8 license, and the ability to rewrite their code for any ISA, Apple has done it on more than one occasion, Change of ISA, no big Deal for Apple! So just you keep deluding yourself! The Googles, Facebooks, Samsungs, Apples and others have more money for R&D than even Chipzilla can muster, just look at the R&D $$$$$ that goes into the ARM based SOCs. The only people that compare Intel’s market cap, and R&D budget, to Just Arm Holdings’ market cap, and R&D budget, and do not see where the real money that makes up the ARM based industry including ARM SOC R&D, comes from, well those people are just simpletons.
[and soon Power/Power8 based industry, will be like the ARM based industry]
Get your POWERful ISA, up for license, and made at commodity pricing, Server chips so good, you can’t have just one, same goes for those tasty ARM chips! YUM!
There was a reason why apple
There was a reason why apple switched and there is a reason they’re so popular now. They’re not going to start producing Mac books with shitty ARM chips because people are not going to want them. Nobody wanted them before Intel chips and nobody is going to want them after. Intel is going to continue to shit on ARM in the real computing space while you dream of the crapola that is ARM
Who said ARM, Power8 for the
Who said ARM, Power8 for the Mac Pro, so long Xeon, hello Apple Custom Power8, get at it P.A. semiconductor Boffins, though Apple would need to do little optimization work on Power8, just some system integration work, no big deal! These would be Apple versions, based on the Power8 reference design, with Tweaks, and much better for Apple’s bottom line, than Intel’s overpriced goods! What part of the licensed IP market do you not understand, Power8 is up for ARM style licensing. Apple’s A8(ARMv8 ISA based) is just around the corner, and it will be an all Apple taped out affair for the custom Apple microarchitecture, again, designed to run the ARMv8 ISA, with core i series, execution resources(the A8 will be more competitive in mobile), and twice(the A7, the A8 more so) the IPCs, as the ARM holdings’ reference designs. Apple makes more money on Phones, and tablets, than on MacBook’s, and Mac Pros. Apple has the cash, Apple has the Boffins, power8, up for license, ARM holdings style, do you even Know the difference between the underpowered ARM reference designs, and the custom wide order superscalar designs that Apple, and Nvidia are designing! Tell that to the Mobile devices market, and wait until the non IBM manufactured, licensed IP/ISA Power8s hit the market!
Let’s keep it a bit more
Let's keep it a bit more civil, people!
Scott, do you think this
Scott, do you think this change is going to happen? I’m just tired of this guy trumpeting the merits of Power 8 like it’s going to change the world. Your thoughts?
More high power competition
More high power competition from Power8, to put those Parts Suppliers at Intel, in their place. No More Technology Milking in the CPU/SOC market! The Licensed IP/ISA market has brought commodity pricing to the Mobile market, and now OpenPower, and a Power8 license, is bringing it to the High performance Server/CPU market, and the OEMs, and consumers will benefit. No amount of cleanroom suited dancers, can stop the Licensed IP and ISA market from taking over. Get your Power8, by the bushel loads, with lots of core, and threaded goodness, at pork belly prices. Pork Bellies, Ahaaaaaa, [slobber, drool]
ARM, yes! Power8, Yes! MIPS, yes!, and many more ISAs, up for license, It’s Licensepalooza, and the advent of the home gaming/server Cluster. Daddy, If I am good this year, will Santa bring me an extra gaming server blade to plug into the home server? You Know the new one with 24 CPU cores, 12 threads per core, and the new 20,000 series GPU, with 64 GB of on Mezzanine Module RAM, and the 2048 bit BUS, and Ray Tracing in real time, all streamed to the 8k at up to 240 max refresh.
Power 8 blah blah
Power 8 blah blah
And what is Apple going to
And what is Apple going to replace the Xeon with on its Mac Pros, and any one who says Power/power8 Is the same as PowerPC, has a SMOM, Not a MOM. It’s going to happen, Apple does not like giving Intel all of Apple’s juicy profits, Apple is Working with IBM, and Tablets, and Power/Power8 is Licensable Technology, just like ARM, and those Mac Pros could use, the 8 threads per core that Power8 offers, and Apple and their P.A. semiconductor Boffins, can and do Produce some damn fine Microcode/microarchitecture that can run the ARMv8 ISA, Not that they would have to do any rejiggering of the Power8 reference design, The Power8 is a beast, big enough do make a chipzilla a tasty morsel!
Google is testing Power8’s for their giga-server farms, and google could pay GF, or Samsung to fab them some at cost server chips with no middlemen involved, just some subcontractors. I see you’re not using your Duck Wanker account, embarrass yourself some more!
Power8, Power8, it’s the 8 that folks don’t hate, it’ll eat Xeon, and Xeon Pi, their high margin profits are going to die!
PC?why ?most game are still
PC?why ?most game are still stuck in 32 bit!its all nicer and good to have a uber PC!but so far ?the PC hasn’t been an issue for oh…..since 64 bit was born!in 2003? 4 k won’t change this why?because people are fed up waiting for game that might use all their PC resource and are moving to alternative.oh we still open our PC .I baught wow mop last week (14$)just in case .but let’s face it , game now a day on PC can be played on tablet with say a k1 at 1366*768 (about on par with console of today)and be way more elegant looking then pretty much all my PC toy sleeping at the house and with LTE coming at the end of the month?I don’t see myself updating or getting a new hardcore gamer PC anytime soon .unless ms plan to force pcgame to upgratre to today’s spec?now that I have to see.headline!ms loosing money on everything but royalties.wait that’s what’s actually going on lol.