The past few months have been a battlefield for PC manufacturers since Microsoft launched Copilot+. Qualcomm initially had a big lead, but then AMD and Intel announced the Copilot+ PC, which was cut to its advantages.
AMD outperformed Intel in its wider compliant products, but Intel focused on the premium market. Meanwhile, Qualcomm has shifted more since its design decline and the laptop PC market has been courtesy of AMD, but Intel is the dominant player overall.
Why didn’t we see a big shift to Qualcomm and what happened to Intel, which sacrificed its CEO?
Let’s break it down. And we conclude my product for the week that made my driveway clear last week or so.
Why Copilot+ PCs struggled to gain traction
Microsoft has rushed to the market using Copilot+ for PCs, with two main features. One was Cocreator, a derivative of Dall-E. The other was Recall, an automatic indexing tool designed to help users find files that are difficult to locate. That was mostly the case at the time of release.
But Microsoft had to place the recall inadequately and pull it back. On laptops, it turns out to be less interesting in itself, in contrast to how people usually ruin graphics on desktop PCs and workstations.
So for a while, Qualcomm only had a Copilot+ PC. People weren’t that excited about Copilot+, and by the time the office started introducing AI features, AMD and Intel PCs could do it. Unfortunately, Qualcomm’s brand name was less well known on PCs than AMD and Intel. Furthermore, Qualcomm products have compatibility issues and are hardly acceptable to large companies, so companies and large business sales did not actually occur outside of testing.
Selling people about the ability to run Copilot+ locally required a heavy marketing campaign. It never appeared, so AI PCS became AMD and Intel projects, and Qualcomm became increasingly on the sidelines.
What should Qualcomm do?
Qualcomm had three advantages on the market: Excellent battery life, the best wireless network of any of the three vendors and the advantage of premium smartphones, essentially a pocket PC.
Qualcomm pushed harder towards the AI side. I mentioned battery life, but the advantage was removed as I was not successful in creating a PCS 5G compatible. Finally, they didn’t have a “better together” story that would take advantage of the advantage of a powerful smartphone.
It’s extremely difficult to take on established vendors like AMD and Intel, but Qualcomm has acted less important despite taking serious action on this market. Furthermore, due to compatibility issues, users who did not experience this drawback, influencers, small business owners, consultants, lawyers and others, had to target marketing of drooping fruit. You need to play PC games on many custom apps or laptops.
However, Qualcomm did not target these users. The result was an improved compatibility, but people tended to lose interest in Qualcomm’s offer over time.
Qualcomm may have created a Halo product that demonstrates its strengths. The HP Folio PC is ideally configured for many of the audience needed for capture, and is released with an older Snapdragon processor and a 5G modem, and is almost perfect.
Intel replaced Qualcomm with inferior products (for this use case), and eventually HP discontinued PCs with Qualcomm. Losing the Folio was a shame as it was my favorite PC. With proper internals and effective marketing, Qualcomm-based PCs may have gained traction with users who appreciated their unique benefits.
If both HP and Qualcomm had some degree of marketing behind this laptop, it would help build interest in Qualcomm’s solutions and would be in a much stronger position than it is now.
Intel’s challenges and leadership reforms
Intel and Microsoft don’t often look at their eyes. This has been a problem with the implementation of both companies for many years. Intel appears to view Microsoft’s requests as a bad suggestion, and Microsoft has been forced to work with Qualcomm, not Intel. AMD’s reputation lies in its high performance aspect, and although AMD ran well, nothing was ready when it was released. That gave Qualcomm a major early advantage that it failed to capitalize.
The obstacle appeared to be linked to the previous CEO’s decision to reduce the focus on PC technology that is beneficial to smartphones. This is a spectacularly failed effort due to some suspicious actions by Apple that removed Intel from the step on both AMD and Qualcomm.
Most recently, Intel has lost its CEO partly due to a change in US leadership, in which Intel CEOs are close to their previous administration.
This situation underscores market resistance to important strategic moves that come at the expense of short-term performance. This is a disappointing reality given the strategic importance of US-based semiconductor manufacturing.
Currently, Intel has a CO-CEO, which is tactically strong, but makes it difficult to implement strategically. Additionally, Intel’s CMO support is where you need it, Intel’s CTO is like a COO, and key CTOs have performed poorly. The CTO sets the vision for strategic moves. Without it, the short-term issues likely contributed significantly to the early departure of Pat Gelsinger’s CEO.
Intel must appoint a real CTO. There is a new CMO, but Intel will need to support and fund him to reform Intel’s image as a market leader.
How AMD surpasses Intel and Qualcomm
The people at AMD bowed their heads and executed, suggesting that of the three vendors, they would ultimately do their best and buy Intel. Qualcomm was on the list of companies looking to buy Intel. However, Intel is much more complex and larger than AMD or Qualcomm, so neither company will make this acquisition comfortable.
AMD will be the strongest of the two as it shares both market coverage and X86 technology. This means you can step seamlessly to lead Intel. Still, given how complex Intel is and how underwhelmed the cloud is, it seems unlikely that either company will be able to acquire Intel.
So, when AI hit, Qualcomm had its first potential profit, but AMD mainly just ruled out two other companies.
There’s something I have to say about focus. AMD has shown an incredible level of focus over the past decade, which has helped us achieve great growth and benefit from the latest trends. The recent financial results were impressive.
AMD could have banished Intel during this cycle, but that would have required a significant additional investment. As mentioned above, the market does not reward strategies that pull from the present to create a stronger future. AMD played the market well in this cycle.
Summary: Nvidia’s AI supreme and the future of PCS
The months since Microsoft launched Copilot+ have been interesting. Running is important, and AMD outperforms Qualcomm and Intel by sticking to what it is good at. However, Nvidia is the king of AI in hardware, and with arm-based processors coming into the market, it could destroy the market as AI matures.
Thanks to Nvidia’s AI leadership, it is already in a better position to steal market share than Qualcomm. Deepseek, which primarily uses older Nvidia technology, shows progress that it can support Nvidia in future hardware if it decides to expand. Unlike Qualcomm, Nvidia is more likely to target both the desktop and mobile PC markets. In particular, desktop PCs were overlooked in the Copilot+ rollout, despite being a platform that prioritizes tools such as Koctor, commonly used in graphics development.
But we are still at the forefront of AI waves. By the end, we hope that both smartphones and PCs will replace hardware that better addresses the need to interact with AI in ways they have never done with PCS. There’s been a massive disruption and it appears that only Nvidia is really located to drive it. Well, and Huawei, save it for another column.
Yarbo AI-equipped snowplow robot
Image credit: Yarbo
I got my first Yalvo over a year ago, but I didn’t put it together as I broke my back and couldn’t ruin anything too heavy. After all, there’s a problem with that first generation, and Yalvo generically offers the option to upgrade to a new unit due to a relatively small upgrade cost compared to Yalvo’s $5,000 selling price. I did.
Yalvo is an AI-driven, GPS-connected yard robot. I only have snow blowing and security configuration (it can patrol the outside of your home), but depending on the accessories you purchase or use, it will mow your lawn and fertilize Unfold, pull the trailer (to store it), and then blowfish. The mine is only a blower, but if you want to patrol your garden after the snow melts, it also comes with a trailer hitch and a security head unit.
Some of the Yalvoyard Robots and Accessories (Image Credit: Yalvo)
Yarbo has sold over 5,000 units so far, making it one of the most, if least successful, robots outdoors last year. Since this is an AI/GPS robot, you don’t need to put the boundary line into the groove, like many of the early robotic lawnmowers. Request inductively. This means you can run and charge even if you’re not at home.
You need to see GPS satellites that can make the placement of base stations difficult (base stations communicate with Yalvo). My first base station arrangement installed in the house didn’t work, so I had to move it to one of my sheds. I’m not a fan of having to drive an extension cord over my driveway, but it works fine now.
I realized that Yalbo really doesn’t like uneven pavement. And, not even Honda snow blowers, but at least I can shake it and go through problematic areas. You need to set the yalvo to make the blower a little higher. This means you won’t get off the road. I hope future software patches address this.
Jarvo Snow Blower at Work (Photo by the Author)
Plus, it comes with a winter tread with built-in studs that can tear the floors of an epoxy garage like me, but so far it’s fine for a summer tread. Running it from the garage is somewhat problematic anyway, as it requires a gaze to the GPS satellite.
It comes with something that looks like an Xbox controller that you can use to drive Yarbo manually and map the area required for your service. I also use a smartphone app. Yalvo does a good job of detecting people and animals, and stops when either of them approach it. There is also an emergency off switch.
I have a large, long driveway of about 3,000 square feet. Yalvo will complete the task for about an hour and a half (using half the battery). You can know where to put the snow and create a much better plan than you’ve made to clear it all.
Yalvo is not a cheap date, but you can’t wake up early in the morning to clean up the snow. Run autonomously as long as you don’t get into trouble (them shitty of them. I really enjoyed setting it up and using it. As a result, Yarbo is my product of my week.
