Well, here’s a bit of news that was completely unexpected this week: Texas Instruments, the maker of the popular OMAP series of mobile processors, has announced that it’s no longer interested in pursuing that area of business.
The announcement came as a surprise to just about everyone – except of course to Texas Instruments itself. Here’s the official statement from the company, straight from TI vice president of embedded processing Greg Delagi: “”We believe that opportunity is less attractive as we go forward.”
TI must have been planning this for a while, as it is completely certain that it will have a greater financial return through embedded processing – in things like automobiles – than it would through its current mobile processor business. According to the company, embedded processing will “generate a more stable, profitable long-term business,” even though it will go at a much slower pace.
Unfortunately, that means there will be one less player in the mobile chipset business – a business that is currently dominated (now) by Qualcomm, Apple, and Samsung.
I’ve never had a problem with TI’s great OMAP processors, and I’m incredibly sad to see the company leave the mobile chipset business. What are your thoughts?
[Reuters]
