Japanese get first taste of Crusoe chip

The first notebook PCs based on Transmeta's Crusoe chip have been released by Sony in Japan, in a move that will be the first commercial test for the much-anticipated microprocessor.

According to Transmeta, Crusoe will double the battery life of Sony's Vaio PictureBook C1VN notebook computer to almost five-and-a-half hours.

The US startup, which has filled for a $140m initial public offering, has developed a family of microprocessors which perform many functions in software instead of hardware, consuming less power than competing processors from Intel or AMD.

Transmeta says these power-saving features, which have come under question by some in the industry, make it possible to design thinner and lighter notepads with much longer battery life.

Thomas Reuner, an analyst at researcher Dataquest, said it is probably too early to judge whether Crusoe-based notepads will be a success and that much depends on support from hardware manufacturers.

"The key thing will be what is Intel's gameplan, and will OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] resist pressure from it? Whether Crusoe is the best processor, and there have been some dissenting voices about its power consumption, is not the main issue," said Reuner. The main issue is how Transmeta will negotiate with OEMs, he said, added that pricing is also important.

IBM and Fujitsu are committed to launching notebooks based on Transmeta's chip, but the commitment of others such as Dell is far more questionable, said Reuner. Whether Transmeta will make any inroads into the corporate space and how it tailors its products to the market will also be closely watched, he added.

European consumers will have to wait until early next year to buy notebooks based on Transmeta's low-power Crusoe chip, the first of which are likely to come from Fujitsu-Siemens.