The venerable Video Graphics Array (VGA) port and it upstart cousin digital-visual interface (DVI) port will become extinct over the next five years. So says Brian O’Rourke, research director at NPD In-Stat in a recent report published on PCWorld. NPD In-Stat points out how new laptops today come with HDMI and DisplayPort for interfacing with HDTVs, monitors and projectors.
VGA has no upgrade path, and DVI has only gone through one minor upgrade cycle; in comparison, HDMI and DisplayPort are continuously being upgraded, according to O’Rourke. More importantly, chipmakers such Intel (INTC) and AMD (AMD) are phrasing out chipset support for VGA by 2015, while AMD has announced it will phrase out chipset support for DVI by 2015. NPD In-Stat is forecasting shipments of devices with DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort to pass 2 billion by 2015.
VGA’s long history stretching back to its introduction in 1986 makes it difficult to envision a world without it. Still, there have been ample signs of its impending obsolescence, such as the introduction of DVI and HDMI ports in mid- to high-end displays in recent years.
Of course, its forced retirement will mean that VGA will no longer be available as a fallback option for auditoriums and function rooms around the world. The presence of interface adapters can help, though businesses will probably need to give greater consideration to the presence of multiple interface support when acquiring new display devices or projectors.
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OF course the move to HDMI is being driven by big media so they can implement their draconian vision of DRM, HDCP.
Intel has been working on wireless power transmission technology for several years, which I wrote about earlier, that now works over longer distances. At its Intel Research Day at the Computer History Museum in Mt. View California, on 06-18-2009, the company showed off a new variation of the idea that power can be transmitted through the air to run a speaker without any other power source.
Intel now calls the technology Wireless Resonant Energy Link(WREL). Intel’s goal of the WREL project is to cut the power cord. Building on principles proposed by MIT physicists in 2006, the WREL team has lit a 60W light bulb at a range of several feet and with 70% efficiency. WREL works in a fashion similar to the old 1970′s Memorex commercial staring Ella Fitzgerald where a singer can shatter a glass by hitting its natural frequency, at which it absorbs energy efficiently. In the case of WREL, a coil of wire with a natural frequency around 10MHz takes the place of the glass, and a similar coil takes the place of the singer. The technology uses two flat copper coils tuned to resonate at a particular frequency. One wire releases electromagnetic energy and the other picks it up in much the same way an opera singer can shatter a wine glass by singing at just the right pitch, said researcher Emily Cooper. The wireless transmission shows efficiency of 90 percent at distances of up to a meter, she said.
Intel hopes the technology will be useful for charging devices like netbooks or smartphones in a room without wires. Intel also predicts the technology could be used within devices such as a laptop. to replace the fallible wires that connect laptop screens through a hinge, Cooper said
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Intel admits that the next milestone for the WREL project is to build a rectifying circuit that can convert the RF power to DC power without upsetting the carefully tuned pair of coils. Intel has demonstrated they can charge a light bul with 60W of wireless power, which should be sufficient to charge a laptop. However to power a laptop or charge a battery, Intel will need DC power, not a 10MHz AC signal. The need to drive down the power requirements for the next generation of computing devices is also helping drive Intel’s latest attempt to break into the UMPC process market with the Atom chips and the next-generation “Moorestown” processor which boasts lower energy consumption requirements. It is also notable that Intel has a stated long-term plan of 60watts power for mainstream desktop processors, down from a maximum consumption 130 watts of the new Pentium Extreme Edition 840, according to Benson Inkley, a senior processor applications engineer, with Intel in an article at Tom’s Hardware.
While it seems that Intel is on a trajectory to cut the power requirements and costs of owning and operating a PC fleet, it will be a while. It is much more likely that Moorestown processors are going to aided by the pending IEEE 802.3at POE+ specification which will allow up to at least 30W which can be used to charge devices. It is my guess that the reports of the demise of wired networking are greatly exaggerated until Intel figures out how to economically and safely deliver 60W through the vapor.
Like the most of us (except the bankers) global sales of servers have taken a beating since the first quarter of 2008. Server sales have declined over $3 billion due to the economic slowdownmeltdown recession and the growth of virtualization. Today, the global server market stands below $10 billion.
Since Q1 of 2008 IBM‘s server revenues has declined over $1 billion from $3.946 billion to $2.913 in Q1 2009. Big Blues market share also declined from 30% to 29.3% during the same period. On the other hand HP (HPQ) revenues grew from$2.904 billion to $3.624 billion and grew their market share to 29.3%, matching IBM in Q1 2009. Dell’s (DELL) revenues dropped from $1.590 billion in 2008 Q1 with a 12.1% market share to revenues of $1.093 billion and a 11% market share in Q1 2009.
No quick recovery for server sales until general economy recovers (CI)
End users continue to extend life of existing servers (CI, other sources)
Servers remain among the least profitable for solution providers (CI: Market Pulse)
Demand for conventional and blade servers by end users continues to shrink (CI: Market Pulse)•Popularity of data center virtualization technologies have had the collateral effect of shrinking server hardware demand (CI)
rable Video Graphics Array (VGA) port and it upstart cousin digital-visual interface (DVI) port will become extinct over the next five years. So says Brian O’Rourke, research director at NPD In-Stat in a recent report published on PCWorld. NPD In-Stat points out how new laptops today come with HDMI and DisplayPort for interfacing with HDTVs, monitors and projectors.
VGA has no upgrade path, and DVI has only gone through one minor upgrade cycle; in comparison, HDMI and DisplayPort are continuously being upgraded, according to O’Rourke. More importantly, chipmakers such Intel (INTC) and AMD (AMD) are phrasing out chipset support for VGA by 2015, while AMD has announced it will phrase out chipset support for DVI by 2015. NPD In-Stat is forecasting shipments of devices with DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort to pass 2 billion by 2015.
Of course, its forced retirement will mean that VGA will no longer be available as a fallback option for auditoriums and function rooms around the world. The presence of interface adapters can help, though businesses will probably need to give greater consideration to the presence of multiple interface support when acquiring new display devices or projectors.
