A Chip Start-Up Aims to Slay Intel

dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com (Aug 16 2010)

1. A group of investors, including companies from the United States, Europe and the United Arab Emirates, has formed in a bid to disrupt one of Intel’s most lucrative franchises, The New York Times’s Ashlee Vance reported Monday. The companies have put $48 million into Smooth-Stone, a start-up based in Austin, Tex., betting that it can modify low-power smartphone chips to run servers, the computers in corporate data centers. If successful, Smooth-Stone would undermine Intel’s server-chip business and offer companies, especially those with vast data centers like Google, Amazon.com, Facebook and Microsoft, enormous energy cost savings. Acknowledging the David vs. Goliath struggle ahead, the company’s name is a nod to David’s weapon. “He approached things in a totally different way,” Barry Evans, the new venture’s chief executive, told The Times. “His approach was efficient — one shot.” (Read Full Article)

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