BDTI’s DSP Insider Archives
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This month:
2004 Race Between TI, ADI Heats UpThe race for the 2004 leadership of the US DSP market is heating up, pitting the incumbent Texas Instruments (TI) against challenger Analog Devices (ADI). BDTI recently completed a poll investigating each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses and found it difficult to predict which will prevail. As the incumbent leader, TI is starting with better name recognition. On top of this, TI has a bigger advertising budget. It is estimated to have a war chest of 150 million dollars, as compared to about 50 million dollars for Analog Devices. However, TI’s size may create some negative customer perceptions. For example, customers may perceive that TI’s size makes it a lumbering elephant that is unable to respond quickly to market changes. In addition, customers may fear that TI will use its position of power to act unilaterally rather than in accordance with the international standards community. Corporate persona is also an important differentiator between the two companies. TI is seen as a down-to-earth company from Houston, while ADI is viewed as a stiff, aristocratic Massachusetts company. However, ADI claims that once you get to know it, it is actually quite warm and charming. In addition, BDTI found that some TI customers are concerned that TI’s friendly “regular Joe” exterior belies its true focus on pleasing its wealthy investors. Customers also want to know that a company has the strength it takes to be the market leader. ADI has switched to all-new architectures over the last three years, and some customers see this as a sign of indecisiveness. In contrast, TI has stood behind the same basic architectures for many years.
Customers will decide who wins this year’s contest by voting with
their dollars. BDTI has completed its early state-by-state
projections of these “votes.” To see the results—with ADI states in
blue and TI states in red—visit
http://www.BDTI.com/dspinsider/archives/dspinsider_040501.gif.
Motorola Reconfigures its Chip BusinessIn February Motorola announced it was changing the name of its chip business from Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector to Freescale Semiconductor. Although the new name is primarily motivated by the spin-off of the chip business planned for this year, the renaming also reflects Motorola’s continuing emphasis on its key strength: reconfigurability. According to Motorola, its foray into reconfigurable processing made it realize it should promote this strength. “Last year, we became a reconfigurable processor company. This year, we want the world to know that we are a reconfigurable company,” said Franklin Smith, the Vice President of Marketing. “After all, we are the industry leader in reorganizations. Can you remember a year when we didn’t go through a re-org?” Some competitors dispute Motorola’s claims of leadership in reconfigurability. A spokesperson for CEVA pointed out that Motorola is long overdue for a name change. “In just over one year, our company has been known as DSP Group, then ParthusCeva, and now CEVA. Plus, we moved our headquarters from Israel to Ireland and then to the U.S. Motorola has been in business for decades with the same old boring name and hasn’t once moved its headquarters to another continent.”
Despite these detractors, the newly re-christened Freescale is
confident that customers will recognize it as the leading
reconfigurable company. “No matter what, you can count on us to be a
different company next year,” said new marketing VP John Hayes.
(Franklin Smith was not available for further comment; he was replaced
by John Hayes in the most recent re-org.)
BDTI “Sounding Board” Service becomes “Good Listener” ServiceFor the last year and a half, BDTI has been helping technology companies improve their marketing presentations through its “Sounding Board” service. Although this service has helped many companies, BDTI has determined that its service was not meeting the basic needs of its clients. “It turns out that most of our customers weren’t really looking for advice,” said Jeff Bier, General Manager of BDTI. “All they really wanted was for somebody to listen to them—and I mean really listen.”
In its revamped service, now known as the “Good Listener” service, BDTI
will no longer attempt to give its clients advice. Instead, BDTI will
listen carefully and ask caring questions such as “How does that make
you feel?” Big hugs are also available for an additional fee.
BDTI Introduces Outside SeriesBDTI is introducing a companion to its popular Inside series of reports on processors used in signal-processing applications. This new Outside series of reports will analyze processors using rigorous field tests. These reports will include new metrics such as:
The reports will also include a thorough analysis of vendor roadmaps.
The first report in the new Outside series will cover the
land-dwelling CEVA-Teak, CEVA-Oak, CEVA-Pine, and CEVA-Palm cores.
Analog Devices’ sea-dwelling SHARC, TigerSHARC, and Blackfin
processors will be covered in a later report.
CMP Media and Ringling Bros. Partner for electronicaUSA 2005Last month CMP Media announced that it was partnering with Ringling Bros. for next year’s electronicaUSA conference. According to CMP Media, the move will make electronicaUSA an even bigger and more exciting event. “In 2004, we extended the electronicaUSA tent to include the Embedded Systems Conference, the Communications Design Conference, the Power Electronics Conference, and the Emerging Technologies Forum,” said CMP spokesperson Linda Williams. “With such a big ’tent,’ it was obvious to us that the next step was to make electronicaUSA a truly big-tent event.”
According to CMP Media, next year’s eUSA will include exciting events
such as the “Pre-empt This!” in which motorcycle riders demonstrate
the latest RTOS features while performing death-defying maneuvers and
the “Technology on the Edge” panel discussion in which industry CEOs
will debate the future of embedded technology while perched on the
high wire. According to Ringling Bros., the addition of these
features will not change the basic nature of electronicaUSA. “If you
ask me, electronicaUSA is already a real circus!” said Ringling
Bros. spokesperson Bello the clown. “HONK HONK! Ha ha ha!”
About BDTIBDTI is an independent source for DSP technology analysis and optimized DSP software, blah, blah, blah, blah...
We’re also a bunch of jokers and if you haven’t caught on yet, April
Fool!
As previously announced, a new—serious—newsletter, Inside DSP, published jointly by CMP Media’s EE Times and BDTI, will soon take the place of the DSP Insider. Both newsletters are free. If this newsletter was forwarded to you and you would like to receive the new Inside DSP newsletter regularly, register at http://www.BDTI.com/dspinsider.htm. If you do not wish to receive the new BDTI-CMP Inside DSP newsletter, send an email message to dspinsider@BDTI.com with the words “Remove me” in the subject line.
Previous issues of BDTI’s DSP Insider are archived and will
continue to be available at http://www.BDTI.com.
BDTI’s DSP Insider © 2004 Berkeley Design Technology, Inc. |
