Qualcomm Is Going After Intel and AMD in This Lucrative Market

The server CPU market has long been dominated by Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and AMD (NASDAQ: AMD). Both companies make chips based on the x86 architecture. While there are other types of CPUs used for specialized purposes -- think IBM mainframes -- x86 reigns supreme in the data center. Software is compiled and optimized for x86 chips, which creates significant switching costs.Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) has already tried and failed once to bring chips based on the Arm architecture, which dominates the smartphone market, to the server market. Qualcomm's Centriq server CPUs failed to gain any traction when they were launched in late 2017, leading the company to greatly scale back its efforts. Switching to Arm-based chips or mixing-and-matching architectures just wasn't worth the effort for any major server CPU customer.Qualcomm launched its first Arm-based PC CPUs last year, and although they haven't exactly been a smash hit, partly because of compatibility problems, Arm-based PC are likely to be here to stay. Qualcomm is now seemingly looking to re-enter the server CPU market with new chips.Continue readingWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool