The Dangers of Sibling Rivalry in the Mobile Processor Market

A long time ago, the word “Pentium” made geeks shake in excitement. For years Intel used the “Pentium” title to refer to their processor brand as a whole (and later – the upper-class of the  brand).  When you bought an Intel processor, you’d get a Pentium: Pentium 2/3/4, Pentium: Extreme Edition, Pentium D.  Now Pentium refers to Intel’s lower-end Core 2 Duo and later Core i7 brand; they’re the same die of the processor with half (or less) amounts of the ultra-speedy on-die L2 and L3 memory cache, effectively reducing performance markedly but making the processor cheaper and take up less power as a consequence.

Of course, you don’t hear about the Pentium much anymore. Instead, you hear about the Atom. This is unfortunately starting to turn out to be a problem for Intel.

The Netbook and the Demand Function: How Technological Development Can Thrive in a Recession

For economists in Microeconomics and Consumer Choice, the demand function (or demand schedule) is one of the most powerful analysis tools at their disposal. The market demand function is a powerful information machine that processes an extraordinary amount of data about market variables and returns them in a legible and quantitative analysis-ready format. From the demand for another competitor’s good to the expectations of the market, the results of a demand function reflect not only upon what consumers in the market want. They also reflect on the market itself.

As of the time of this writing, the United States (and much of the developed world) is in a significant economic recession. According to the Department of Labor, the United States’ unemployment rate rose to 7.8% in January 2009 and U.S. imports are down 1.1%[1]. Both are signs of a weakened domestic economy, as the unemployment rate continues to be a salient variable in determining the overall health of the economy and the import rate is an indicator of how willing and able US companies and households are to invest and purchase foreign goods. Here in California, home to Silicon Valley – the home of powerful software and hardware names such as Intel, Google and Yahoo!, the situation is particularly dire. California reported an unemployment rate of 10.1% in January, 29% higher than the national average[2] . Major tech firms such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! have engaged with massive layoffs in an effort to cut costs as banks and investment firms have turned gun-shy at helping them finance their operations in the downfall of major investment banking companies such as Lehman Brothers. In this environment of scarce resources, it seems nearly suicidal for technology companies to dare to innovate and produce new technology through demanding and potentially fruitless research and development investment when so much is on the line.

And then came the Netbook.