Transmeta now officially out of the CPU business

The only thing surprising about Transmeta's quiet exit from the hardware component business was the good amount of time they took to make their not-so-grand exit since selling their CPU business nearly two years ago. The ailing company is shedding about 100 employees and closing its offices in Taiwan and Japan in an effort to save up to $23 million annually -- what they hope will be enough to keep them afloat while they transition to an IP portfolio-driven business. While we won't miss our old Transmeta gear all that much, but we can certainly appreciate what they were on to at the time -- cheap, efficient, low powered chips when everyone else was pumping out bucks and megahertz. Now we just have to hope Transmeta won't turn into an NTP or SCO-like industry nuisance whose business model is less about technological innovation, and more about taking advantage of the outmoded legal system in order to sap larger companies of their profits.

[Via ChipChick]

[Macchar @ Feb 12th 2007 4:55AM]

Well I forgot that some tiny tweeny company was trying to do what Intel is immitating now! Make chips to work on low power

[JP @ Feb 12th 2007 5:39AM]

Wasn't it rumoured that Transmeta was the company behind Apple's Rosetta technology? If so there's what has to be a not insignificant revenue source right there - but then who knows the licensing terms for that.

[JP @ Feb 12th 2007 5:41AM]

Actually no, ignore me. Come to think of it, that was Transitive.

[Derek @ Feb 12th 2007 1:12PM]

I wish they'd come and take their garbage crusoe out of my Fujitsu laptop so I can put something in it's place powerful enough to do something useful.