Monday, December 16th 2024
Intel and Qualcomm Clash Over Arm-based PC Return Rates, Qualcomm Notes It's "Within Industry Norm"
In an interesting exchange about product stance between Intel's interim co-CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus and Qualcomm, both have offered conflicting statements about the market performance of Arm-based PCs. The dispute centers on customer satisfaction and return rates for PCs powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X processors. During the Barclays 22nd Annual Global Technology Conference, Holthaus claimed that retailers are experiencing high return rates for Arm PCs, mainly citing software compatibility issues. According to her, customers are finding that typical applications don't work as expected on these devices. "I mean, if you look at the return rate for Arm PCs, you go talk to any retailer, their number one concern is, wow, I get a large percentage of these back. Because you go to set them up, and the things that we just expect don't work," said Holthaus.
"Our devices continue to have greater than 4+ stars across consumer reviews and our products have received numerous accolades across the industry including awards from Fast Company, TechRadar, and many consumer publications. Our device return rates are within industry norm," said Qualcomm representative for CRN. Qualcomm projects that up to 50% of laptops will transition to non-x86 platforms within five years, signaling their confidence in Arm-based solutions. While software compatibility remains a challenge for Arm PCs, with not all Windows applications fully supported, Qualcomm and Microsoft have implemented an emulation layer to address these limitations. Holthaus acknowledged that Apple's successful transition to Arm-based processors has helped pave the way for broader Arm adoption in the PC market. "Apple did a lot of that heavy lift for Arm to make that ubiquitous with their iOS and their whole walled garden stack. So I'm not going to say Arm will get more, I'm sure, than it gets today. But there are certainly, I think, some real barriers to getting there," noted Holthaus.
Overall, the Snapdragon X PC sales have been a bit slow. Even with a launch in mid-2024, it has been a few months now, and adoption has been underwhelming. According to Canalys, Qualcomm sold around 720,000 Snapdragon X devices, which accounts for only 0.8% of all PCs sold in Q3 2024. Snapdragon X-powered devices represent less than 1.5% of the Windows-based PC market, which is a tiny share compared to the massive x86 ecosystem that AMD and Intel control. Next year, NVIDIA and MediaTek are preparing a joint entry into the Arm-based PC world, so competition will heat up. Even so, Qualcomm allegedly skipped Oryon 2 cores and went straight to Oryon 3 for their following Snapdragon X2 processor lineup.
Source:
CRN
"Our devices continue to have greater than 4+ stars across consumer reviews and our products have received numerous accolades across the industry including awards from Fast Company, TechRadar, and many consumer publications. Our device return rates are within industry norm," said Qualcomm representative for CRN. Qualcomm projects that up to 50% of laptops will transition to non-x86 platforms within five years, signaling their confidence in Arm-based solutions. While software compatibility remains a challenge for Arm PCs, with not all Windows applications fully supported, Qualcomm and Microsoft have implemented an emulation layer to address these limitations. Holthaus acknowledged that Apple's successful transition to Arm-based processors has helped pave the way for broader Arm adoption in the PC market. "Apple did a lot of that heavy lift for Arm to make that ubiquitous with their iOS and their whole walled garden stack. So I'm not going to say Arm will get more, I'm sure, than it gets today. But there are certainly, I think, some real barriers to getting there," noted Holthaus.
25 Comments on Intel and Qualcomm Clash Over Arm-based PC Return Rates, Qualcomm Notes It's "Within Industry Norm"
The problem is software compatibility. I would compare this somewhat to Intel's ARC launch where people were hesitant to buy the first generation due to driver problems.
Now most of these issues have been fixed but it's been years.
And problem for Qualcomm is that unlike Apple that can force a top down change since they control the ecosystem, Qualcomm cant make Windows on ARM better by themselves.
Considering how MS has fumbled even the simplest things on x86 i dont have high hopes for ARM version of Windows to improve very fast.
I mean until lately did did not even have public ISO images available (they do now).
Its so obvious and looks so bad. Its like a perfect way to paint a target on your own back. Especially worded the way it is 'I think I would perhaps maybe yeah'. Disgusting. Just be up front about what you're saying or STFU. Blegh.
Cheapest Snapdragon X Plus laptop with Windows starts at 712€.
Budget laptops are 300-600€.
Midrange is 600-1200€ and above that are high end machines.
Like i said. Current prices are not an obstacle. People spend the same or more on their smartphones.
Neither Microsoft nor QC seems to be actually willing to increase market adoption and instead is trying their hardest to make it a luxury product that very few are willing to buy.
Now some people buy it, experience this mess, return the devices and badmouth the laptops deservedly.
There must be some reason why they're not doing it. Contractual obligations followed by change in vision/leadership perhaps?
In any case Nvidia will promote ARM over x86 in my oppinion. The fact they tried to buy ARM says that all their R&D is on that platform. Also investing in the ARM platform is safer than investing on x86 that is controlled by Intel and in a lesser degree AMD(x86-64), your two main competitors.
Nvidia does not seem to be doing much of actual work on ARM cores for now. Grace is running with seemingly bog standard ARM Neoverse v2 cores. They did and do a lot of things around organization, interconnects, packaging etc plus software support of various kinds, but apparently have not been earnestly doing the cores themselves. Project Denver about a decade ago was promising but fizzed out for reasons other than core/architecture design and they definitely do have the capability and capacity to be a strong player, they just are not doing that right now.
All this is my personal opinion of course.
>>...Intel co-CEO claimed that retailers are experiencing high return rates for Arm PCs, mainly citing
>>software compatibility issues...
Absolutely true based on a number of refurbished notebooks with ARM processors listed on a Bestbuy website. Too many!
why would i want a machine without backwards compatibility. thats pretty much the entire selling point of windows.
Definitely a chip ahead of it's time, however. They didn't spend enough time on the compatibility aspect before trying to roll out a "Premium" product.
When talking strictly about core architecture the cores in state of the art ARM SoCs are already on par in terms of size with what AMD or Intel are doing. Snapdragon X Elite are in the same size range as Zen5, fairly direct comparison as they are produced on the same node. Intel's Arrow Lake cores are about the same size if not a bit smaller but they are on 3nm as well. Apple cores are slightly smaller in comparison but they are also on 3nm as well as looks like the high density variation of that.
Make no mistake - RISC V will have the same choices to make. They can stay small, simple and thus cheap as they are and leave a lot of performance on the table. Or they will follow the same path as others and gain performance along with size and complexity. Both are valid ways, just a matter of choice.