Ion still has a future, insists Nvidia's CEO

Posted on 5 Oct 2009 at 15:27, by Tim Smalley

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has said that he believes Ion will continue to exist in the market, despite pressure from Intel with its new chip designs.

"I think you're going to find Ion continue to find its way into the market through the desire of the market to differentiate," he said. "If you look at the netbook market right now, it's one size fits all. It's exactly the same chip, exactly the same system - everybody has exactly the same.

"I don't know a single PC OEM in the world who wakes up in the morning and says 'I want to be exactly the same as everyone else'." He believes Nvidia's Ion chip is "one way to differentiate" and believes that firms which are determined enough will find a way to bring it to market.

"Ion stands for differentiation; it almost stands for rebellion." He continued by saying that, "despite enourmous willpower to suffocate it [from the competition], Ion will continue to exist" in the market.

"Intel is a formidable company with extraordinary capabilities," he said. "They can beat you with semiconductor technology, they can beat you with marketing, they can beat you with bundling..." at which point a member of the audience interrupted him to say "I thought bundling was illegal?"

Huang, not wanting to miss an opportunity, continued "they can beat you with bundling, they can beat you with the extraordinary influence they have on customers. When a customer buys 90 per cent of its parts from one manufacturer, it's easy for them to be influenced.

"And if all of that doesn't work, they can beat me with a stick," he finished.

We spoke to a number of Nvidia representatives after the Q&A in order to try and work out how Nvidia plans to connect its Ion chipset to future Atom processors. It's quite simple though, as it'll use PCI-Express.

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