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Andrew Grove, a co-founder of Intel and the man who coined one of my favorite concepts, the strategic inflection point (SIP), is rallying corporate and government support for electric cars in the US. He realizes that Americans are reluctant to buy an all-electric vehicle, however:

While car makers have been developing plug-ins, Grove says the nation should consider ways of retrofitting the 80 million low-mileage pickups, sport utility vehicles and vans on the road to make them capable of running on both gasoline and electric power.

Giving these vehicles “dual fuel” functions would be similar to changes made in other technologies. DVD players, for example, were often combined with VCR tape players when they were first introduced to help consumers make the transition.

See this Associated Press article titled Ex-Intel head pushes electric cars for more details.

Related articles and pages on billso.com

• Strategic inflection point
• 12 November 2007: I want a better television - but it’s not ready yet
• 7 March 2007: Microsoft vs. Google

A concept developed by Andy Grove to describe the point in time when a company’s competitive environment undergoes a major change that requires a fundamental change in business strategy. See Grove’s 1998 speech at the Academy of Management meeting in San Diego for more details.

I often abbreviate strategic inflection point as SIP.when I’m grading papers or writing on a whiteboard.

Related articles and pages on billso.com

• IS 7010/6700 Technology Strategy
• 1 July 2008: Andy Grove wants more electric cars
• 12 November 2007: I want a better television - but it’s not ready yet
• 7 March 2007: Microsoft vs. Google

Google is teaming up with Clearwire, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Intel to build a national WiMAX network. See the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Branding Post for more details.

The new joint venture will retain the Clearwire brand name and Clearwire’s existing consumer WiMAX business. Sprint contributes its network infrastructure and 2.5 gHz frequency allocation. It’s possible this deal will clear the FCC and antitrust regulators, because Google isn’t a major owner in the JV.

Yesterday, a Wall Street journal blog referenced my billso.com article of 18 April 2008 in a discussion about Yahoo and Google’s possible cross-licensing deal. The Clearwire deal is a more direct combination that may help the JV partners lock in consumers, businesses and advertisers.

Too many partners?

I’m reluctant to believe if this large joint venture can actually work. Sprint is the lead partner with a 51 percent stake, and this seems like a desperation move to being acquired outright by Deutsche Telekom or another company.

Pricing and marketing may determine if consumers will pay any attention to this JV. Can Clearwire and Sprint can offer their existing customers some compelling reasons to get some new hardware and try WiMAX? Verizon earns 23 percent of its wireless revenue from data calls on that company’s EVDO and other networks.

Google does need a vast network in the US to support its Android smartphone platform, and the company can’t wait or afford to build it from scratch.

WiMAX would give Google an alternate medium for data service, instead of relying on one telecom carrier as Apple has done with AT&T. Even with 3G service, the iPhone’s data transfer rates will seem slow when the user can’t get WiFi access.

Yes, the iPhone does support WiFi. But I’m sure Clearwire and its partners will market Android phones that support WiFi as well as WiMAX and the sponsoring carrier’s cell phone service, but the battery drain for a typical mobile device user may be a serious problem.

Related posts on billso.com

• 6 May 2008: T-Mobile’s parent may buy Sprint
• 29 April 2008: New iPhone will be subsidized, faster and thinner
• 22 April 2008: Android vs iPhone
• 18 April 2008: Antitrust regulators would fight a Yahoo-Google combination
• 18 March 2008: The 700 mHz auction is over
• 28 February 2008: The Google cable
• 22 February 2008: Customer lock-in
• 20 January 2008: Nokia, Sprint announce layoffs
• 9 December 2007: The mobile office in Honolulu
• 12 September 2007: The Google Phone and the iPhone – both looking for software and spectrum
• 27 August 2007: Wireless providers gird themselves for battle
• 14 June 2007: Clearwire signs WiMax deal with DirecTV, EchoStar
• 5 February 2007: Wireless from the inside out

Thirteen months ago, Intel showed off a prototype CPU with EIGHTY cores on the same piece of silicon. It uses about as much electricity as a traditional desktop CPU. This news.com article has some information:

Intel used 100 million transistors on the chip, which measures 275 millimeters squared. By comparison, its Core 2 Duo chip uses 291 million transistors and measures 143 millimeters squared.

The hard part of the design isn’t putting the cores on the same die. The chips have to talk with each other. Routers on the silicon die help assign computations to individual chips, and move finished computations to neighboring chips.

It’s a prototype, so the chips are very basic. It’s incompatible with Intel’s x86 platform. Writing software for a multi-core CPU is difficult, so the demonstrations are very limited. The chips need their own RAM, because external RAM modules like those used in personal computers won’t work. Wikipedia’s article on multicore processors is a good read, and the reference list is helpful.

Intel has a web page about the project, and here’s two YouTube videos with more details.

A few weeks ago, my face-to-face IS 7010 students talked about the high-definition DVD format war. Apple, Sony, Disney and Fox supported Blu-ray. Warner’s defection from the HD DVD camp last month was an indication that Blu-ray was winning the battle, according to this New York Times article.

The rival HD DVD format was supported by Universal, Paramount, Toshiba, Microsoft and Intel, according to this Wikipedia article.

Of course, Blu-ray discs won’t play in a standard HD DVD player, and vice versa. Engadget has a chart that compares the two formats here.

This format war is reminiscent of the Beta vs VHS video tape battle in the 1970s and 1980s.

It seems that this format war is over, and Blu-ray has won. Wal-Mart had been pushing HD DVD in its stores, but the company announced yesterday that they will no longer sell HD DVD movies, according to the New York Times. The shift was announced on Wal-Mart’s corporate blog in this article. Engadget has sounded the death knell, partly because Wal-Mart sells 20% of the DVD in the USA.

Toshiba made one desperate last attempt to promote their HD DVD technology with an expensive commercial during the Super Bowl earlier this month. However, Netflix and Blockbuster had previously announced they would support Blu-ray. Now Toshiba is suspending their HD DVD marketing.

Computer manufacturers have long wanted a single standard high-def DVD format. Software publishers don’t really need high-def DVDs and the moment, and game publishers have to go along with whatever format is used in the game consoles.