Even as we were enjoying great success with our PC133 chipsets, we were well aware that to remain competitive in the future we would need to be able to provide a complete platform solution. That was why in a few short months we acquired the Cyrix and Centaur x86 processor design teams from National Semiconductor and IDT, as well as entering into a joint venture with S3 Graphics.

At the time, many people questioned our commitment to the processor business and openly speculated whether we would be able to sustain it over the long term. But while there’s no denying that it has been tough for us to compete in the processor business, slowly but surely we have been able to create a clearly differentiated position for ourselves in the market based around our low power design capabilities.

When we first started talking about low power consumption a few years back, it was very difficult to get people to pay attention because they were much more focused on MHz and benchmark numbers. But over the past year or so, their attitude has changed quite dramatically as they have become more and more concerned about energy efficiency for desktops and battery life and heat dissipation for mobile devices.

Naturally, our competitors are also preaching the energy efficiency message now that the MHz wars are well and truly over, but we still have a strong advantage because of the years of experience we have gained in this area, such as in the development of the Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX, and most recently Pico-ITX form factors.

On the silicon platform side as well, we have also been developing more tightly integrated low power platforms for emerging new segments such as Ultra Mobile Devices and will continue to further enhance them in the future. I’m sure that our competitors will focus on these areas too, but instead of VIA chasing them in the race to more and more MHz, they will be following us down a much more complex path towards ever higher levels of integration and ever lower levels of power consumption.

Quite an interesting change in the dynamics of the x86 processor market!