Strategy for a multibillion dollar behemoth is not the same as a strategy for a nimble startup.
For years Intel provided just enough cpu power and cultivated a broad ecosystem of software developers such that any new hardware solution had to compete against the enormously more fun and flexible general purpose software solutions running on windows (and before that, dos).
Custom closed source Hardware was a dead end. It either worked or it didn’t. Software could be infinitely flexible and was fast to iterate on. And every kid could train themselves to write software almost for free. This is why software ate the world.
Closed source and complex compiler toolchains with hardware interfaces that require closed source drivers are practically just as inflexible as hardware. They should be avoided at all costs.
For years Intel provided just enough cpu power and cultivated a broad ecosystem of software developers such that any new hardware solution had to compete against the enormously more fun and flexible general purpose software solutions running on windows (and before that, dos).
Custom closed source Hardware was a dead end. It either worked or it didn’t. Software could be infinitely flexible and was fast to iterate on. And every kid could train themselves to write software almost for free. This is why software ate the world.
Closed source and complex compiler toolchains with hardware interfaces that require closed source drivers are practically just as inflexible as hardware. They should be avoided at all costs.