The SSD Power Consumption Hoax?

This is an extended version of the article I wrote for the latest edition of Custom PC Magazine in the U.K. Once again, if you're looking for the sexiest PC Hardware Magazine in Europe (and one of the best in the world) you should get his magazine! It's full of the best hardware photography ever, and the quality of the paper is to die for.

Toms Hardware just wrote an interesting article called The SSD Power Consumption Hoax.

While they have some interesting points, I would suggest that there is much more involved with evaluating the potential increase in battery life with Solid State Technology.

A Solid State Drive can affect battery life in two situations: 1) Poor Performance, and 2) High Idle Power.

You cannot estimate the power savings of a solid state drive simply by looking at the hard drive subsystem and then extrapolating based on datasheet power specifications. That methodology does not comprehend the work being performed, and performance impacts energy efficiency. If a solid state drive can complete a workload 2x faster than a hard drive, then the entire platform can enter a power efficient state sooner.

We suspect that one reason that Tom's measured worse solid state battery life than a 7200 RPM HDD is likely that the particular solid state drive performed worse than the 7200 RPM HDD.

If the solid state drive completed the workload later, then the platform consumed more power. It also appears Tom’s chose solid state drives that use FPGAs, and these devices probably have very high idle power.

So bottom line is that power efficiency must comprehend the work being performed (during the power measurement.) A better metric is power per IOs per second. I know of at least one solid state drive that consumes only 60mWatts during idle, and it consumed less than 100mW on average in Mobilemark.

...and uhhh, a mobile hard disk drive consumes between 1 and 1.5 watts during a Mobilemark run.

So, does this mean that Tom's Hardware was right? Perhaps with their specific benchmarks - but even unintentionally, it's a pretty glorified "lets be controversial" slightly narrow view of the world. I'm not going to tear it apart - but it seems the author assumes that all solid state drives are created equal. There is a profound difference in performance and power depending on the product architecture and design. Tom's itself reported up to a 10x span in solid state drive raw performance depending on vendor, so it's interesting that this author assumed they are generic.

To put it in perspective, even if the hard drive were removed entirely, it only represents ~5% of the total battery consumption. So even if we halve the consumption with solid state we'd typically only gain 10 minutes battery life (out of 3 hours). Therefore a solid state can have a slight improvement on battery life. So what's the point of even writing about it? Ugh, wasting my time.

Trust me, this is NOT the end of the story. Stay tuned for later this year when the solid state $@#* hits the fan and spinning disk heads start to roll. There are some new players in town and they are bringing the big guns.

Revolutionary Tech

The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly includes a list of what it calls the 25 gadgets and innovations with the biggest effect on pop culture since 1983. The list includes the DVD Player (as number one), Napster (number two), realistic CG characters (number six), and Game Boy (number 20). While I agree with a lot of them, it makes me think about other, more recent, technologies that will surely change the landscape of pop culture.

Now, please excuse me while I give our own product props, but with pure confidence, I can say that the Voodoo Envy has revolutionized the Windows PC notebook. In a few short weeks its design and unique functionality has blown people away – at least based on what we showed. Now we just have to deliver, and believe me deliver we will.

Other revolutionary innovations? The Wii. It absolutely changed the way people game on their consoles. I am also confident that Guitar Hero and Rock Band will revolutionize the music industry by creating a new way to monetize music. PhoneTag, a product I truly couldn’t live without, has definitely revolutionized voicemail. The iPhone of course changed the smart phone industry – no doubt about it. I believe Tag will revolutionize the watch industry with their belt driven Monaco V4, if it ever shows up. ...and the HP Touchsmart IQ500 has revolutionized desktop PCs. Have you seen this thing?

What products would you add to your list?

Audi & Lamborghini...

I haven’t really had time to update the site lately as I have been on a whirlwind travel schedule. Between getting my wisdom teeth removed I have also found myself in Atlanta, NYC, DC, and Toronto. Next week I’ll be in Montreal, and then Seattle – and finally San Francisco, and San Diego before heading back to Calgary. Then Europe… ahh yes, my life isn’t getting any easier, but I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me.

I wrote this article for Custom PC Magazine in the U.K and thought I would include it on the blog.

In this industry there are quite a few of us who appreciate cars. I appreciate them so much that we built a strategy around a direct parallel in the car industry. In 1997 Audi acquired Lamborghini. Back then Audi cars had some of the coolest ground breaking technologies in them including the highly regarded Quattro all wheel drive system. Although the design of Audi vehicles was somewhat “boxy”, they were incredibly good - and more importantly they had unique innovations that Mercedes or BMW did not. Audi made quality cars packed with incredible innovations, and I think if there was one thing that was obvious it was that their style was somewhat conservative.

In 1997 Lamborghini shipped a little over 200 vehicles for the year. Their cars featured aggressive design, no compromise service, and great performance, but the quality was somewhat inconsistent. Believe me I know, imagine getting stuck inside the car with no way to open the door. Yes, it’s true, the cars had many problems, not least of which was the fact that the door latch would get stuck – and in the event of a vehicle fire you were basically screwed. So you would end up dropping well over a hundred G’s on a car and sometimes you would catch yourself in a very embarrassing situation. That was over ten years ago, mind, and a lot has changed since then.

Since the acquisition of Lamborghini, Audi invested a great deal of resources into the company to get them moving in a positive with profitable growth direction. Not only are new Lamborghini cars such as the Gallardo and Murcielago amazing, but they leverage innovations from Audi such as the Quattro AWD system. All Lamborghini’s now feature all wheel drive! The quality of their cars has never been better – if you ask anyone now with a Lamborghini what they hate most about the car it’s likely the attention they get from driving it around (and we know how much they really love the attention).

2007 Lamborghini Murcielago

On the flipside, Audi has completely changed their outlook. Their designs are more aggressive, and their vehicles continue to raise the bars of innovation and engineering. Take for example the Audi R8, one of the best cars ever released by any car manufacturer. Audi has certainly come a long way – and while ten years ago they struggled to position themselves as an alternative to BMW or Mercedes, they have now put themselves ahead of both companies in many aspects.

2008 Audi R8

I always tend to borrow analogies from the car industry to get people to understand parallels between what they’re doing to what we’re doing. It also sets an attainable vision for all of us to consider as we go forward.

Pay attention to this blog, because soon we’ll have a huge announcement. We look forward to sharing it with all of you!

Games for your Mom...

I wrote this article for the latest issue of CPU Magazine just after we returned from GDC. Check out the latest issue over here!

Last month in this space, I wrote about my own confusion surrounding Games for Windows. We had a meeting with Microsoft at GDC, and while they still face challenges, it does seem that they are dedicated to making good on their initiative based on what they said at the meeting. Whatever it is that Microsoft is trying to do, we’re all in agreement that the PC Gaming experience needs to be improved.

Speaking of improving PC Gaming, a group of us had an interesting meeting with the WildTangent team during GDC. As many CPU readers know, Alex St. John, the widely known “father” of DirectX, is the CEO of WildTangent and also a regular CPU columnist. I have always liked Steam’s approach to digital downloads, and their DRM system is pretty well managed. I always have thought that Gabe Newell is a genius, and when I heard that Alex St. John felt he had a good alternative to Steam, my interest piqued.

I always thought WildTangent was about making games easier for my mom to play, and as much as I like looking at Bejeweled, I can’t see myself playing it until my 50th birthday.

Well, surprise, surprise, Alex’s team has been working on a really cool core gamer module that will allow you to play AAA gaming titles (think Company of Heroes or Call of Duty 4) free with ads or on a pay-as-you-go basis. You can even choose to buy the game outright if you’d like and have it downloaded directly to your PC so you can start playing immediately.

The way it works is simple: You log in to your game software and, using a standard gamepad or mouse, you choose a game from a list of titles. If the game is already installed, you may choose to play it. Otherwise, you can cue it up for a download to play later.

Sounds a lot like Steam, right? Not quite. The cool thing about this software is you don’t have to buy the game in order to play it. You can choose to either watch an ad from a sponsor (if there is currently a sponsor) or pop a few virtual WildCoins in to play. WildCoins are the currency WildTangent developed to facilitate its pay-for-play system on casual games, and now they’re alluring to hardcore gamers, as well.

Another way to look at this is you no longer have to worry about spending $50 on a game that sucks; you can play it for $1.50 until you close the application. Or if you prefer not to spend any money you can choose to watch an ad for a particular sponsoring product prior to playing and then play. For those of you who prefer to buy the game outright, WildTangent also gives you the option just to buy it and download it to your hard drive.

So it’s cool to see dedication like this in the PC space, and it gives me big hope for the future—a future where PC gaming should be as easy as consoles, yet deliver the richness you can only get on a PC. That said, the more we try to port console content to the PC, the greater chance we have of killing the creativeness of developers.

Now, who was it who said that PC gaming is dying again? Make no mistake: PC gaming is growing. It grew last year and the only thing that’s changing is the distribution model. WildTangent is definitely doing some wild things, and as long as the gaming experience on the PC gets easier, I’m all for it.

This brings me to the PCGA (PC Gaming Alliance) announcement at GDC. I was representing HP for our PCGA “go or no-go” decision, and since the announcement, people have been asking why we chose not to become a founding member.

While we believe it’s important to make PC gaming easier, we don’t believe that PC gaming is in trouble, and perhaps once we work out our own plans in the performance PC space, we’ll revisit this initiative. For the moment, I’m still enthusiastic about the future.

First it was four, then it was three… could it be two?

I wrote this article for Custom PC Magazine in the U.K. - it's the latest issue, and it's awesome. A warning though, this article is pure speculation! There's my disclaimer before people start freaking out - this is pure "hookah smoking, sitting around with a bunch of friends and chatting" speculation...! I will write an extended version of this later.

A few months ago I wrote an article on some of my own personal thoughts about AMD’s strategic position in the market. I included some ideas around AMD potentially creating strategic partnerships with companies whose pieces fit snugly in their holes (can you guess who?). In the process of doing this they would also need to lighten up some of the assets, and scale the business back enough so profitable growth can be sustained.

Its funny how things seem to make sense when you’re involved in a business for more half your life. If you put all the pieces on the board and stare at them long enough they start to tell a story.

Going further into the potential strategies for AMD, I think they could try to spin of their CPU, chipset, and graphics technology businesses into a separate entity. At the same time they could spin the foundry business into a separate entity or division. I continue to believe that somehow they would need to be linked in order to maintain their X86 license among other things.

Now imagine if they did both of the above; their value on the foundry side would be cut, but on the technology side they may get some great valuations with higher multiples, and thus the IP side would become a great target for acquisition for Nvidia.

Now the question is who in their right mind would want to own shares in a foundry business? Perhaps they could work a deal so existing shareholders get a share of one and half of another, and perhaps if Nvidia decides to come out and play they could also offer some share benefits to existing shareholders.

In my mind it would be easier dealing with two or four giants, then the three header four armed abomination we’re currently contending with. It’s just too bloody confusing.

Ten things you didn't know about..................

The guys over at TGDAILY did a quick interview for a new feature they have called "10 personal questions and 10 personal answers".

10 personal questions and 10 personal answers: We are launching our new series with Rahul Sood, chief technology officer of the HP Voodoo Business Unit. Sood oversees the technical strategy and product vision for the business unit’s products, including the Voodoo Omen and Envy product lines, the award-winning HP Blackbird 002 and other products with the Voodoo DNA ingredient brand. He is also responsible for identifying intellectual property from HP and its partners for use in consumer gaming and high-performance devices. Sood joined HP in November 2006 after it acquired luxury and gaming computer manufacturer VoodooPC, a company he founded in 1991.

I couldn’t survive without … my wife. I wouldn’t be who I am today without her, she’s an amazing person.

The best advice I ever got was … from my father. He basically told me you don’t just plant a business and watch it grow. I think he said something like “it’s not an f#@!ing plant son! You have to work at it in order to make it successful!”

The person I admire most is … Bill Gates. Bill Gates understands that the process of giving away money for the betterment of society is harder than it sounds. It requires a higher level of entrepreneurialism that very few people in the world possess, and perhaps many more don’t care.

If I could go anywhere, or do anything, I would … move to India and live like a king. At the same time I would work out a way to export medical services all over the world profitably while giving it away for free to people in need.

A technology I have no use for is … voicemail. What the hell is voicemail? It’s garbage, I don’t check it, I don’t like it, and in fact we have an answering machine at home and I never check it. So, thanks to my friend Jeff, I found a solution that totally eliminates the need for voicemail.

The best idea I had was … learning how to ride a road bike so we could figure out a way to partner & merge with Hewlett-Packard (check my blog if you don’t know the story). No, but seriously, the concept of taking a high end brand and plugging it into a mainstream company was borrowed from the automotive industry. Lamborghini and Audi is probably the most successful example of this, and thus inspired some of the thinking behind this decision.

Luxury is … in the eye of the beholder. Some people would say spending $5000 on a Vertu phone or accepting an invitation for an American Express Centurion card at $7500 a year is nuts. Yet if you ask anyone who has done either, they will likely tell you that they’ll do it again. A true luxury product should have a noticeable and attributable value attached to it.

I wish I had invented … Rather than talking about what I wish I invented, I’d rather help find the cure for Autism, or at the very least, an explanation for how it happens. Right now there is no known cause or cure and a new case of autism is now found in one in every 150 births. It’s an absolutely incredible phenomenon that requires awareness, research, and compassion.

My tombstone should read … Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A person/trend/technology to watch is … Simulscribe. This company is hot. They have a great solution which eliminates the need to check your voicemail. I think they’re going places fast.

Interview with Notebookreviews.com

I recently answered some pointed questions for the fine people at NotebookReviews.com. This site is a fantastic resource for those looking for information on new notebooks and notebook technology.

Check out the interview with yours truly by Perry Longinotti over here.

by Perry Longinotti

What happens when you combine a PC gamer, a brilliant entrepreneur, and HP's industry muscle? You get Rahul Sood, one of the biggest names in the world of PC gaming and now the man raising HP to new levels in the world of luxury and gaming computers.

Rahul Sood is the chief technology officer of the HP Voodoo Business Unit (VBU), part of HP 's emerging businesses group. Sood oversees the technical strategy and product vision for Voodoo's cutting-edge products, including the Voodoo Omen and Envy product lines, the award-winning HP Blackbird 002 and other products with the "Voodoo DNA" brand.

Sood joined HP in November 2006 after it acquired VoodooPC, a gaming computer company he founded in 1991. As founder and CTO of VoodooPC, Sood was the first to bring liquid cooling and active liquid chilling to the high-performance gaming PC market. These innovations helped VoodooPC's Omen desktop earn the coveted Ziff Davis Editors' Choice award in the Ultimate Gaming Machine competition for five years in a row.

Since joining HP, Sood was instrumental in the design and architecture of HP Blackbird 002, the VBU's flagship product.

NotebookReview.com contributor Perry Longinotti spent some time asking Sood some serious questions about notebook gaming, Voodoo, and HP's plans for the future. Here are a few highlights:

Two segments of the notebook market that seem to be generating a lot of interest right now are Gaming Notebooks and Ultra Mobile PCs.

Let's start with Gaming Notebooks first as that is a VoodooPC forte:

I had a chance to interview Ravi a couple of years ago during a factory tour article - this was before the HP acquisition. At that time, he mentioned that Voodoo was pursuing its own notebook chassis design. Can you update us on that?

Yes. One of the biggest hurdles we faced in the past was getting the ODMs to take us seriously based on our volume commitment, distribution channel, and market size. Even though almost all of them were familiar with the Voodoo brand and believed in us, they couldn't get past the other issues. So this is simply another reason why we merged with HP.

It's amazing how quickly things have changed since. People are calling on us to introduce us to new technologies on a daily basis. ODMs are no longer asking a billion questions, they are excited to work with us, and we now have a team based in Taiwan working for the Voodoo Business Unit (VBU). It seems that everyone is stoked about our future.

Several folks in the NBR forums asked questions along similar lines, how does Voodoo deal with the perception from some people that your notebooks are simply re-branded Clevos? On the desktop side you can point to extensive in-house fabrication as the differentiator, it must be a lot tougher on the notebook side.

Well, for the most part your community is right. How can I argue that? The notebook business, especially in the channel, is bloody challenging.

Prior to the acquisition Voodoo always did our best to differentiate our notebooks by modifying thermals, software, and adding different levels of personalization. In fact, we were the first to offer gaming notebooks with custom high quality automotive paint jobs. Then others came into the market and the space became very competitive and extremely stale. Let's face it; there are only so many ways you can paint a product before you ask yourself what the heck you're doing in the business.

Joining HP has taught us a ton about notebook development. The mainstream notebooks that HP have created feature some cool long lasting imprint designs, quality finishes, and quickplay innovations. Although Clevo notebooks look appealing from a feature set standpoint, from a reliability and engineering standpoint you just cannot compare them to any of the tier 1 companies.

There is a significant difference in engineering and testing that goes into HP notebooks. It's somewhat unreal to me, the development cycle tries our patience, but the results speak for themselves. The bottom line is we are in the business of selling notebooks, not hand grenades.

Comparing Voodoo pre acquisition to today is like comparing a Lamborghini from the early years to the ones of today. Audi brought in significant R&D and engineering resources to Lamborghini allowing them to create some of the best cars they have ever created including the Gallardo and Murcielago. On the flipside Lamborghini brought in some style and edge which allowed Audi to create the new award winning R8 (car of the year in Robb Report Magazines).

What's my point? Tell your community to stay tuned. We're working on some obvious holes in our portfolio.

Are there any plans to develop Voodoo notebooks using existing HP chassis as a starting point rather than more commonly available ODM units?

That's a great question. The 20" HP HDX consumer notebook (aka the Dragon) is an incredible system for gaming, yet we haven't gone ahead and used the same chassis. The fact is HP has afforded us the resources and time to dream up the ultimate portfolio which will be authentic to the Voodoo brand.

We also renamed our business unit from "The Gaming Business Unit" to "The Voodoo Business Unit". This quiet announcement, while seemingly small, has profound implications on our charter.

Mainstream notebooks makers seem to be targeting gaming-capable notebooks as a growth category with some offering high end features such as Nvidia 8800m GPUs at the $1200 price point. How does this trend affect Voodoo's pricing strategy?

In the past Voodoo branded products have never put price ahead of everything else, however "customer value" continues to be (and always has been) very important to the team. I'll say it again, value is huge, and without it we'd be nowhere today. That said, the definition of a good value always changes, and if you don't spent time to revisit it over and over again you'll never be successful at this business.

HP scale has made it possible for us to ensure that we can deliver a killer value in our systems. For example, if you compare a high end Blackbird 002 with our competition, there is no comparison. Blackbird is built better, engineered better, and includes a much better out of box experience -- and you absolutely get what you pay for. You can assume that as we fill out our portfolio we'll keep this in mind.

Why does Voodoo use AMD processors in high end notebooks when Intel products perform better?

Indeed Intel processors currently perform better in most instances. However, HP is agnostic; we offer both AMD and Intel processors in many of our machines including those that fall under the Voodoo Business Unit. That said, as we move forward into our own "grounds up" designs, you can rest assured that we'll use nothing but the best technology in our flagship devices.

On the subject of Ultra Mobile PCs:

Andrew asks: What are your thoughts on this new push for budget $300 / $400 laptops such as the Asus Eee PC and Everex Cloudbook? We know that HP is planning to enter this segment; will Voodoo bring a high end companion device to market?

Though I cannot discuss future HP product possibilities, I do think the ultra mobile is an interesting space. We are actively pursuing new attractive markets in our business unit.

Some general questions:

You are well connected in the industry, where do you see notebook technologies going in the next couple of years.

I'd love to share our vision with you; however this industry is way too competitive. Over the years (especially in the last year) we have found that our competitors look to us for leadership -- so personally, I would rather surprise them with our view of the market.


What non-Voodoo computing products are you most excited about recently? Outside of HP and Voodoo whose products do you respect the most?

Easy answer, respect Apple immensely -- I really like their complete ecosystem view. Their undivided focus on the customer should be a wakeup call for everyone in this industry. If "boutique companies" ignore Apple they might as well shut their doors now.


Is Voodoo planning any entry level products, or will the focus remain strictly high end?

This question requires a bit of background to answer.

At HP we created Blackbird 002 with Voodoo DNA. It's an HP branded product with the Voodoo DNA ingredient brand. It's build by the team at Voodoo in Calgary, and meets the stringent HP standards of engineering excellence. Borrowing from the automotive industry, a similarly tight combination of engineering and design is the creation of the Audi R8.

We really believe in what we're doing currently. That said, even though HP Blackbird is a premium performance PC, the price point in many instances is significantly less than our competition. From a value standpoint there is no comparison, you really have to see it to understand.

As far as Voodoo exclusive products, we plan to refresh our entire portfolio. You'll have to wait and see, but let's just say no matter what you buy - whether it's Compaq, HP, HP with Voodoo DNA, or Voodoo - you will receive value for your money.

As I said before, Blackbird is a start, and it's our pace car, we still have a portfolio to fill.

How has the HP acquisition impacted Voodoo sales?

We don't discuss our sales numbers externally - however, as a result of the HP acquisition we quadrupled the square footage of our facility in Calgary, hired more than 100 people, and expanded office space in Cupertino, Calgary, Taipei, and recently Houston.

We just finished scaling our Calgary facility to accommodate a much larger professional downdraft paint booth. The paint facility now includes three booths, one of which is dedicated to mixing custom colors. It features a clean room which eliminates all dust, and ensures that any personalization you order from us will remain absolutely flawless.

We also ordered some really cool equipment which we're not going to talk about just yet - but let's say that that the investment is going to put us further ahead of the competition in the high-end and performance PC space. HP is clearly committed to this space and based on our expansion on the customer care, sales, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and business side we're not stopping

I understand you have expanded your facility, is that primarily a result of the HP acquisition? Is the extra space for construction and fabrication or have you added more support and product development capacity too?

Good question. We actually put a higher proportion of resources in our customer facing departments in anticipation for our pending growth.

How has the Blackbird performed for HP? What was Voodoo's role in that project?

Blackbird has been a great success for HP, and is a product which was created from the ground up by our business unit, the Voodoo Business Unit. HP started the Blackbird 001 project prior to the Voodoo acquisition but it was canned before we joined.

All said, I have never been involved in a more successful product launch, ever. We started with Blackbird, and took some time to scale the business while we prepare to fill the portfolio around it. Now that our expansion is complete we're ready to launch new products and initiatives.

Will we see Blackbird notebooks?

Wouldn't that be the most insane thing ever?

Will there be more HP products that have Voodoo DNA contributed to them? When can we expect to see them? Any hints to what they may be?

Not only will you see products with VoodooDNA which feature our core heritage of performance gaming and second-to-none build quality and engineering from HP, but you'll also see Voodoo dedicated products which will continue to tap the luxury and highly personalized market. In the process we will still take full advantage of the engineering, scale, leverage, and quality strengths that HP has brought to the table.

Are there plans to leverage HP's presence in retail to sell more Voodoo PCs? Will we ever see your products at Best Buy?

HP is a huge company with some incredible long-standing relationships in the retail channel. We have not publicly discussed our retail strategy, but you can assume that we will continue to scale our business while delivering the best experience possible to our customer.

The HD optical format war is over, when can we expect to see Blu-Ray in Voodoo notebooks?

We will offer Blu-Ray in our notebooks sometime in 2008.

K-TRON, owner of a couple of Voodoo PCs asks: when is the Vootique is coming back, and when are the new forums supposed to be up?

I'm not sure about the Vootique, but the new community is on the way. It will be hosted by both Kristin Reilly and Greg Vederman so needless to say it should be a pretty cool place to visit. Both Greg and Kristin are currently contributing to my blog at www.rahulsood.com prior to the transition to our new community so it's definitely getting closer. Tell K-Tron I said hi.

Nvidia's Next Chapter

I wrote this article for the latest issue of Custom PC Magazine in the U.K. Here is an extended version of it - it's about Nvidia and their next chapter.

About a year ago Nvidia pulled the unthinkable when they broke the news that they would not be supporting Hybrid Graphics with any non-Nvidia branded chipset. What seemed like a direct hit against Intel Centrino didn’t stop there. Nvidia also gave Intel the finger when they said that SLI would only be supported on Nvidia based chipsets. Clearly Nvidia drew a line in the sand suggesting that they too would get into the platform business. Nvidia wants more, and they have Intel dead in their sites.

I concluded awhile ago that Nvidia likely pissed Intel off and no matter what anyone tells you the writing is on the wall – Intel will push back hard, and I am certain that they will do whatever they can to position their next generation graphics as leading edge.

More proof of their somewhat dysfunctional relationship was evident during the launch of the Intel 45nm parts. The bottom line is Nvidia was nowhere to be seen because you could not stably operate an Intel 45nm processor on an nForce motherboard. Some suspected that Intel didn’t communicate things to Nvidia until the last minute, while others think there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Let’s face it, it’s not like Nvidia to screw up – they rarely do. It seems to me like they have written their future based on the strategic choices that they made. Even more weird is to see ATI and Intel work together on certain configurations. I call them ATI in the article because Intel refuses to refer to ATI graphics as AMD graphics.

The landscape continues to get interesting as Intel acquired Havok Physics who both AMD (ATI) and Nvidia have been pushing as the greatest physics API ever. They both have suggested that Ageia sucks. What a wallop (and a laugh) when Intel purchased Havok from under them.

So what does Nvidia do? They buy the one company that they have been bashing ever since it started – Ageia. Hey, I think it’s a great move for Nvidia, and who cares if they bashed them as competitors. It’s stayed the course even in the most desperate of times - they deserve to be in the seat they’re in now.

It’s almost clear to me what the next logical move for Nvidia will be. Think about it. They need to expand their ecosystem. They have now have control over one of the best chipsets, arguably some of the best graphics, some of the best software, a new ESA standard, and now physics. All they need now is solid state storage, wireless, and a CPU. Take your pick.

Is Tito Ortiz starting a new MMA League?

Every now and then I write an article that's not quite related, yet somehow parallel to our industry. As many of my friends know, I am a huge fan of Mixed Martial Arts - and the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). I have been following this sport since 1993, essentially since UFC 1. I have watched as they broke into the mainstream market with the help of some saavy investing, an aggressive visionary (Dana White), Spike TV, and Direct TV. I have been telling our marketing team for the last 10 years that the UFC will take over boxing without question - and it will be the mainstream fighting sport of the future.

...I'm not sure if our marketing people believed me then -- in fact I would say they thought I was crazy, and obsessed about a sport that would end up nowhere.

Needless to say UFC has broken mainstream, and as I thought ten years ago it has not only gone mainstream but it has become a brand icon with gamers and 18-34 year old males (yet the demographic is expanding further!).

The interesting thing about UFC is they built a brand around the actual fight, but not the fighters. Tito Ortiz has been outspoken about this, as he says "The UFC treats the fighters like S@*T", and he still fights for them. Tito believes the fighters should get a much higher share of the revenue, and somehow I agree and disagree.

UFC was able to pave the way so people like Tito could make a great living, and now this guy is doing things like "Celebrity Apprentice" and dating Jenna Jameson. He's a star in his own right, and he's actually a really great spokesperson for MMA. I would caution Tito not to say things like "The UFC treats its fighters like S*#T" or he could end up in a major lawsuit - not to mention the fact that if not for the UFC he would not be in the same position that he's currently in. Though love him or hate him, Tito kicks ass, and he's an icon in the UFC and in the mix martial arts world.

I have always wanted to sponsor a UFC fighter, and my current favorite is George (Rush) St. Pierre. This guy is an amazing spokesperson for MMA and the UFC brand as a whole. As UFC acquired Pride Fighting (the superbowl of MMA in Japan) last year, there might be yet another interesting twist in the sport. I'm sort of sitting back to see what happens later this year.

So what's the point of this article? Well I believe Tito is playing a role to start up a new fight league, likely with the help of Donald Trump and WWE founder Vince McMahon. Of course this is a wild prediction, but there are many reasons I would say this makes sense. No need to get into detail, but the reasons are becoming somewhat obvious if you understand the dynamics of the sport, the UFC franchise, and the fighters general complaints about compensation.

Needless to say there is room for another fighting league. The UFC seems to be over commoditizing the fighters, and they are running way too many pay per views. The last pay per view was totally useless, and probably the first that I've avoided buying in years --- there was only ONE fight that was worth watching, but I wasn't about to pay $40 to watch BJ Penn destroy Joe Stevenson.

Regardless, if my prediction is correct we will see some major announcement in 2008. Tito Ortiz, along with a few others, will likely be at the forefront. Tito, if you're reading this, feel free to contact me privately to discuss.

Hyderabad

I wrote this article for CPU Magazine this month - and posted it just before leaving Hyderabad last month. There is so much going on in India at the moment that I could write a book - seriously, my writers block is pretty much gone.

This December through January, I traveled with my family throughout India. We spent two weeks in an extremely modest environment—a roadside Super 8 Motel would be five-star accommodations in comparison. We toured villages where we were welcomed with open arms into modest homes where more than 20 people sleep in candlelit 8-x 10-foot rooms with no air conditioning. They cook in a little courtyard, and restroom facilities are in the back in a ditch with wooden planks. Temperatures hovered around a steamy 32 degrees Celsius, in the middle of winter.

It was an amazing experience. Not only were all the people we met gracious, but they were also seemingly content with their lives. The village children were overjoyed as I took pictures of them with my digital camera and was instantly able to show them the results. It became clear that the children of these villages are voracious learners; when given an opportunity to study, they eat it up. They dream of something bigger, and believe it or not, none of the children we met had ever seen a digital camera.

My father-in-law lives in Hyderabad, India, and has founded about 13 colleges and schools there, mostly for the underprivileged. We went to one of the colleges to check out the computer and mechanical engineering programs, as well as various other departments. He introduced me to a number of professors, and in the process they asked if I could do a talk there for their graduating class.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to speak about at first because I really didn’t know much about the audience, but as I met a few of the students coupled by what we saw in the village, it started to become clear.

When you think about IT in India, two things naturally come to mind: call centers and database development. But there are other vastly unexplored areas.

So I spent a few days on and off campus talking to people, researching online, and touring here and there. I was very impressed by what I found, both in terms of the base of knowledge in the area and the pragmatic way in which the people we met go about solving the problems they face.
Pollution is a huge problem there, and I met a professor who made it his life’s work to research new ways to power motor vehicles. His Air Car runs completely on air, recycling the air via the exhaust back into the system, and currently uses a small tank of compressed air. The inventor wants to swap out the cylinder of air in favor of an air pump, or as he described it, a breathing apparatus that works like a lung. The concept may seem way out there, but he has a working model and it’s quite impressive. Although it is only a 5hp model, it would be simple to create a 20hp prototype using a similar method.

A car that runs on air, you say? That is correct. I daresay anything is possible, and this was just one of a few research projects that I got to see firsthand. After much deliberation, I knew what I would talk about in addressing a group of Hyderabad graduates. I wanted to give these students something to think about going forward. They are living in a society that’s highly commoditized and are naturally put into positions where their talents are used as a commodity to compete against richer countries. While this can be a highly profitable business, it can also be bad when the people end up commoditizing themselves and devaluing their own work.

So my talk consisted of a few ideas that many of us could stand to keep in mind:

• Find something you’re passionate about and make it your area of expertise.

• Find a problem that needs solving in your area.

• Don’t fall into the trap of commoditizing yourself.

• Don’t face a giant head-to-head; rather, find ways to complement the giant’s strengths so that eventually you will have the potential to exit or partner.

• Constantly revisit your strategy and see if it makes sense. (Thanks to Mike Perkins for this one!)

Well, that’s it for this month. I took some great pictures of our expedition that you can view at vdhd.zenfolio.com.

All Aboard The AMD Roller Coaster!

Here is an extended version of the article I wrote for print this month - it's about the rise and fall and continuous trials and tribulations of AMD.

What happens when a company grows too quickly? AMD clicked and clacked along a fairly bumpy track for a few years before beginning a sudden, 90-degree climb. The company rose higher and higher, building up speed and picking up passengers on its way to the top of the hill. Then all of a sudden, the now massive green roller coaster crested the towering track it had climbed and plummeted downward to mediocrity at the speed of sound, perhaps accelerating even faster as a large, new group of riders jumped on.

This seems to be the story of AMD in a nutshell, and unfortunately, things are looking somewhat bleak for the moment. Some are quick to defend the chipmaker, pointing out that AMD has seen tough times before, and that’s true. The difference, of course, is that the company is now vastly bigger than it was five or so years ago. AMD has more people and greater manufacturing capacity than at any time in its history, and all the baggage that comes with them. And now, as it fights for survival, the company has also placed great importance on a very expensive legal battle with Intel. In the midst of all of this, it seems as though AMD has all but lost its focus on its core competencies. In the meantime, Intel has grown stronger, nimbler, and more competitive than ever before.

AMD acquired ATI on the way down the roller coaster, or later than would have been ideal. I am still a firm believer that the ATI move was a good one; the vision of Fusion is a compelling one, but it will require laser-focused execution to make that vision a reality.

To make matters worse, AMD took on new and demanding customers who all but forced it to increase manufacturing capacity, only to get caught in a price war with Intel, which caused some shifts in the industry that the company didn’t expect.

AMD may lose key customers in the near future, but maybe that’s a good thing. Some customers are absolute grinders at any cost. They’ll take out the biggest meat grinder in the world and press it hard and long against their suppliers to the point where it could be detrimental to the quality of their own product.

A wise man once shared an old Mexican proverb with me over lunch. He said, “Rahul, when you sup with the devil, use a very long spoon.” It seems AMD may have used a slightly shorter spoon than it should have when making some of its strategic moves and now finds itself involved in some unhealthy relationships that are likely costing more money than the company can afford.

Is the outlook all doom and gloom? Certainly not. I believe AMD can turn it around, but it’s going to take some work. I think it’s time AMD takes a look at articles I wrote about Intel a couple years ago and substitutes “AMD” for “Intel.” In other words, if I were CEO of AMD, here’s what I would say as we began to turn things around.

“It’s time to focus on what we do best; it’s high time we build and nurture key partnerships. Partners and how we structure our partnerships are going to be a key to our success going forward. We should also drop money-losing opportunities, scale back, and reignite the innovation team. We should bring ‘Customer-Centric Innovation’ back to the foreground. Coupled with the right partners, this may actually work to help us turn things around. And don’t worry about what Wall Street says when or if we lose a big account—as we turn things around, the numbers won’t lie. It’s time to go back and figure things out; we don’t have much time to mess around. It’s time to heal our wounds, back off from a head-to-head battle, and eventually we’ll be back.”

Of course, all of this is just my opinion, and as usual I wish AMD nothing but the best of luck in the future.

Anyways everyone, good cheers to a fantastic 2007, and on behalf of me and my family, I wish you all a safe and prosperous New Year in 2008!!

I'm starting a new forum - it's time for you to join!

Many of the readers of this blog (and the articles I write for CPU and Custom PC) consist of Wall Street regulars, enthusiasts of technology, start-up owners, and early adopters. The forum we are creating is a great place to share ideas and concepts with like minded individuals such as yourself. I am starting this as a pilot and if it`s successful it will continue.

You may visit this group to discuss anything related to hi-tech companies, to pitch new ideas and technologies, and to learn more about the companies you’re investing in. I imagine it will be slow to start, but hopefully we'll build a new and interesting community. I am hoping to learn about new technologies along the way, you never know what might come out of it. In the meantime please excuse the work in progress, there will be many modifications along the way - especially during the beginning.

I am heading to Dubai and India for about five weeks, so I thought I would launch just before I left. I'll monitor it along the way - and I'll try and appoint some moderators as well.

So you're all welcome to join 328KPH.com Rahul Sood's official Tech Entrepreneur & Investor Forum.

If they only had soul...

Here is an extended version of the article I wrote for print this month - describing the correlation of the car industry to the PC industry. It's a long one, don't say I didn't warn you....

I recently traveled to California for some meetings, and as is my wont, I rented a car in San Francisco and drove to Cupertino. I was pleased to hear that the car was an Impala when I checked in at the Hertz counter because I am currently in the process of restoring a 1964 Impala SS Convertible. As I walked down the aisle looking for the Impala, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I certainly didn’t expect the uninspired piece of crap I found waiting for me.

As I sat in the car, I began to see a correlation between the soulless American cars of today and the potential reasons why American car manufacturers are in trouble. I, like many, appreciate cars with “soul,” and as most would agree, almost every 1960s-ish American car had a soul. Take the 1965 Lincoln Continental Convertible with suicide doors, for example. This car was a thing of beauty, perhaps way ahead of its time. Of course, the 1960-plus Corvettes and the Mustang pony cars would make anyone smile. These are some serious cars with an incredible heritage, so what happened to the soul? Where did it go?

At the risk of making Mark Solomon (our lead industrial designer and the guy who designed Blackbird) puke, I’m about to tell the story that I’ve been telling a lot at HP for the last little while. Also, a warning to longtime CPU readers: I touched on this topic (albeit not nearly as much detail) in my very first CPU column back in 2005. As you can probably tell, it has a deep meaning for me and, I feel, directly correlates to our industry. Back in the 1960s, Henry Ford II recognized a correlation between winning races and selling cars. He led the charge with the help of Lee Iacocca, then president of Ford and the father of the pony car, to help sell more Mustangs. It was Lee Iacocca who said, “Race on Sunday, sell on Monday.”

Henry Ford II asked Lee Iacocca to find out who the best race car builder was, and of course at the time it was Ferrari. They then set out to buy Ferrari, not knowing that Ferrari had already approached Ford by way of a dealership in Germany in order to figure out a way that they might partner. Long story short, Enzo Ferrari needed Ford just as much as Ford needed Ferrari.

They eventually worked out a deal where Ford would buy all of Ferrari for $18 million dollars, and Ferrari would run the races while Ford would handle production cars. Believe it or not, both Enzo and Lee were sketching “Ford Ferrari” logos for production sports cars and “Ferrari Ford” logos for race cars. The goal: to create the ultimate race car, win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and sell more Mustangs.

The Indianapolis 500 is renowned as the world’s biggest single sporting event, and the Monaco Grand Prix is also very famous and prestigious, but the 24 hours of Le Mans stands apart as the most revered of all motor races. Le Mans has hosted races since before the turn of the century and was the site of the first officially recognized French Grand Prix in 1906.

Well, it was all good until it became clear that Enzo wanted control of Indianapolis, as well, and Ford would have none of it. In the end, the relationship quickly dissolved and Enzo killed the deal, enraging Henry Ford in the process. Ford was so incensed that he pledged to crush Ferrari by spending as much as it took to destroy the company at Le Mans.

Ford charged Iacocca with finding another racing partner. Iacocca made a deal with Lola Cars and also hired a consultant named Carol Shelby to help create what was then the most talked-about race car in American history, the Ford GT 40.

It took a few years to get it right, but in 1966 there was jubilation in Dearborn as GT40s swept the first three places at Le Mans against the best Europe had to offer. Ford had accomplished something no American company had ever done before.

Ford repeated wins in ’67, ’68, and ’69 when lighter, more powerful GT40 Mark IVs again beat the Ferraris and Porsches at Le Mans. The GT40’s lap record stood until 1970, and its speed and distance records until ’71.

The bottom line is Ford was successful, and sold more Mustangs during that period than expected. But after proving it could be done, the company stopped. Japanese and German car companies entered the market, gas mileage became an issue, costs were cut, parts were shared, and fast-forward to today, where by and large cars have all but lost their soul. Many American cars look the same, and most models are created to fit certain “price bands” rather than cater to a specific customer. Sound at all like the PC market?

Well it does to me.

About Sharing Parts: There’s nothing wrong with sharing parts, when done right. When done wrong, however, you end up with way too many models which all look the same, with a different badge on the back, and a different price range. You end up with a bunch of models with no significant difference! American car manufacturers should take a page from Audi and Lamborghini and learn how to share parts without ruining a brand. They should simplify their portfolios and cut out the models which have no customer affinity. Ford is starting to do this, and thus they are starting to turn around.

About Winning Races in the PC Industry: The phrase “Win races on Sunday, sell cars on Monday” has huge implications across multiple industries, including ours. I believe it was Jen-Hsun Huang (CEO of Nvidia) who first brought this correlation into our industry when Nvidia went out years ago recruiting the best gaming companies to use their cards in our review systems.

AMD was quick to follow suit, most likely under the direction of Henri Richard, a car enthusiast, and a bit of a marketing guru.

(side note: Interestingly, AMD isn't even close to winning any races at the moment, although their graphic side is starting to pick up. ...It's probably worth noting that I'm very surprised and disappointed at AMD's constant mis-steps in execution on the CPU side as of late, we really expected and hoped for much more at this stage in the game. Like any of our partners, we wish both well and hope competition remains but it looks like Intel continues to school AMD on execution.)

Thus Intel is actively picking up the slack, they're winning the race in a big way and their numbers prove it.

We also see companies like Dell doing similar things with the XPS to help lift their entire portfolio. Of course at HP there is Voodoo DNA, Acer with Ferrari, and so on.

A couple of years ago most of the industry was made up of little more than re-marketers for large companies such as Intel and Microsoft. There was as a lack of innovation, they were sharing parts, cutting margins, cutting retail prices, up until the point where the personal computer completely lost its soul.

Then customers started to change. They became smarter about technology buys, because the emerging demographic “grew up” on computers. I’ve said much of this before, but the dinosaurs of technology are almost gone. I have customers in their 50’s using high end PCs to play games on. It’s amazing how the demographic of advanced technology users is expanding in both directions (age wise) and to both male and female. It's therefore important to design devices that look and feel great - devices that include compelling user experiences.

By the way, if any of you have any comments on the car industry – and why you think the American’s lost their soul, we would love to hear from you. This kind of thinking helps inspire new ideas at our company.

I am still a big believer in what Ford is doing. Can you believe the new Shelby 500KR is already a collector before it's even released? That's pretty cool.

The 3 Headed Abomination...

There are many emails coming in from Intel fans asking why we haven't launched 45 nanometer (based on this post) on HP Blackbird. We're working on it....and if you're a fan of ATI (AMD)Crossfire and Intel chipsets with Intel 45 nanometer you'll probably see more solutions coming out in the future.

Many die hard Nvidians will choose to wait for Nvidia to get their newer nForce chipsets out - which is perfectly cool. Others might wait for newer motherboards, regardless of what they choose with Blackbird you can order a machine with an Nvidia based graphic system now, and you can always perform an upgrade later. It's pretty simple to upgrade - so our recommendation for those who want a system with Nvidia graphics - buy now, upgrade later.

Just to be clear, us not launching 45 nanometer was not a "diss" towards Intel. We love working with them, and quite frankly this chip is the best currently available CPU on the market. If you doubt that, check the HP Blackbird website and show me one AMD based configuration. Right now you won't find any, at least not with current product.

No matter how good a chip is, however, a chip is just a chip - then you need a platform to build around it. So it becomes a situation of balancing performance from various segments of the PC.

Thus you can get great performance from an Intel 45 nm + Intel chipset, but the question is whether or not Nvidia will be able to eke more performance from their chipset. History has shown that they have always owned the enthusiast chipset segment, and if anyone knows how to eke performance - it's Nvidia. ...but Intel's chipsets have always been rock solid (yeah, shut up about Granite Bay please - that was years ago).

Intel is getting very aggressive, and based on what's happened in the last year between these two giants, I don't think the aggression is going to come down anytime soon. I personally believe Intel's latest chipset is very much worthy of an enthusiast class stamp - the question is whether or not you want to be locked down to ATI(AMD)Crossfire graphics going forward (or a single Nvidia graphics card).

I still think that Nvidia should eventually get into the business of making CPU's - or turning the GPU computing initiative into a much bigger movement. Like I said before, maybe they should buy VIA - or continue to watch AMD closely.

What happens when you get three giants who are somewhat dependent on one another, yet they constantly fight with each other?

A 3 headed 4 armed abomination...(like the picture? Google Images rocks!)

This co-op-etition stuff is not an easy thing to monitor. Believe me, my job may be fun, but it's times like this when I wonder if I shouldn't be RV'ing across America with my family.

Decisions Decisions.

Intel 45 Nanometer, what happened to HP?

We haven't launched Intel's 45 Nanometer processor as planned. We, like many, were hoping that it would work flawlessly on certain chipsets - and well, unfortunately it doesn't - not yet anyways. Even though we were getting close to qualifying it - last week we received some really bad news. The bottom line is we're working on a solution for Nvidia SLI, but at the moment there isn't one.

Interestingly enough there are those out there configuring this processor in configurations which we *know* are unstable. I think their customers will be in for major disappointment based on current issues. ..although there are certain configurations which do work, the question is whether they deliver a decent value to the customer.

That said, it's not an issue of Intel's chip reliability, it's an issue of platform stability on certain current non-Intel platforms.

I don't want to get into the details, it's not a pretty situation. There is much confusion surrounding this launch -- it's somewhat unbelievable.

Three-Way Chess, Or All-Out FPS Deathmatch?

This is an extended version of the article I wrote for print this month. It's essentially about the tight love/hate 3 way competition between AMD, Intel, and Nvidia.

Things continue to get even crazier -- Should Nvidia think about buying VIA in order to gain an X86 license? Perhaps they should partner with AMD down the road assuming AMD is able to bring their asset light strategy closer to reality... Will Intel get more aggressive? Will Western Digital get taken out?

Stay tuned, in the coming weeks and months I'll write an even longer list of random thoughts, based on what I believe may happen in the industry. ...and now for the article.

------------------------------------------

Nvidia seems to be hitting on all cylinders lately. Although ATI comes close with its latest GPUs, Nvidia has had a very good year so far and seems to be on the winning side of a major battle for a significant portion of the PC platform business. The company has moved beyond building just GPUs and is working to build an ecosystem of multiple Nvidia components, including a masterpiece version of its awesome nForce chipset.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of nForce; just check out the HP Blackbird, which uses an nForce chipset regardless of whether you choose ATI- or Nvidia-based video cards. I like nForce because it’s rock-solid and manages to milk additional performance from PCs in a way that seems to leave Intel and AMD scratching their heads and asking, “How’d they do that?” Of course, this applies strictly to desktops; Intel’s Centrino platform still allows us to deliver the best all-around experience on a notebook.

As impressive as Nvidia’s chipsets have been so far, though, it’s the company’s next big thing that shows it’s not messing around anymore. Nvidia has drawn up a plan to create an integrated graphics chipset and something called “Hybrid SLI,” which on paper looks really tight. Imagine, if you will, a notebook that allows you to handle everyday tasks such as browsing the Web and checking email using a low-voltage graphics processor that also doubles as a northbridge chipset.

The cool thing about Hybrid SLI is it lets you toss in an additional graphics card that in SLI will work in conjunction with the integrated chipset, yielding some pretty compelling 3D performance. If you decide you want to go even further, you can toss in another MXM chip and disable the integrated chipset for maximum enthusiast SLI performance.

What I like best about this idea is it lets the system save power (and, for notebooks, battery life) when using basic 2D apps and then reactivate the discrete GPU or GPUs when you’re playing a game. It also lets us dream up new ways to actively cool a PC via various grades of cooling, depending on what you’re doing. This type of thinking enables companies like ours to create compelling solutions for our customers, and I commend Nvidia for thinking about new ways to deliver a compelling platform with some flexibility.

The interesting thing about all of this is it seems like Nvidia is taking a shot right across Intel’s bow. I think it’s pretty clear that Nvidia wants to grab a share of a very lucrative space that Intel currently owns—the Centrino platform market. Even more interesting is the fact that Nvidia pulled SLI support from Intel (and competing) chipsets. The company is obviously on a mission to be more than a graphics provider, and it’s taking no prisoners. Nothing seems to phase it, except for what happened in the last couple of weeks, perhaps.

Intel bought Havok, a company that both ATI and Nvidia have been touting as the ultimate physics solution. The same company that both ATI and Nvidia have somewhat depended on to deliver more immersive gaming experiences.

That in itself is a statement, wouldn’t you say?

I mean, what other reason would Intel have to acquire Havok? I’m sure there’s more than one, right? Take a minute to list them off and email me, would you?

Whatever Intel’s reasons are, the three-way chess match is about to turn into a multiplayer FPS deathmatch. You’ll soon see other technologies introduced in the “platform” space, and companies that you would least expect will start to toss their hats into the ring.

Solid-state disk tech, for example, is something that we can all see in our crystal ball as the future of mass storage technology. SSDs will allow for faster boot times, smaller form factors, lower power consumption, and ultimately better reliability. The intriguing thing about solid-state is you don’t have to be Seagate, Western Digital, or Hitachi to be an SSD player. You don’t need spinning disks . . .

Very interesting, if I do say so myself, and, um . . . I just did.

Win races on Sunday, sell cars on Monday

Here is an amazing story with some historic significance to Ford, Ferrari, and much of the automotive industry. I brought this up over a year ago in an article I wrote for CPU Magazine regarding Ford's first, second, and third place winning entries into the twenty-four hours of Lemans... They actually cleaned up three years in a row before deciding they proved their point.

Jim Glickenhaus, is a discerning automobile collector, and the people over at CirkitVision managed to spend a day with him - and what a day it must have been. Anyone who knows anything about Jim's collection knows that he has some of the most collectable cars ever - so there some great photos at the links below.

Many of you may not know this, but at one point Ferrari was being courted by Ford, and in fact Ferrari was also looking to potentially partner with Ford on the other side of the pond. What ended up happening is a story that has become legend in the world of auto racing, and it changed the face of racing forever.

Though this has nothing to do with the PC industry, there are some profound parallels that can be (and have been) drawn into this space. I love this story so much that I wanted to share it with you, let me know what you think.

There are currently two episodes, I'm anxiously awaiting for episode three to hear about the Italian princess that Henry Ford II was dating at the time of this war.

Check out Episode 1over here and Episode 2over here...