Market research for new PowerPC system

[Konstantinos Margaritis]

> What makes the system stand out, from say a Atom based PC?

As you said, PCI Express, *actual* low power and probably higher speed  
-all cpus mention are faster than the Atom at least in relative terms.  
The SoC design means less components on the board, so smaller sizes  
might be achieved.

> Go for QorIQ P1022, it's the ideal SoC for many applications.
>
I know, I like the chip very much, the thing is that it won't be  
available till Q4/2010, so it will take quite a bit more thinking.

> Alternatively, it's predecessor MPC8536E available now, ~same specs,
> but higher power.  But not the two you mention please.

Why not? I mean seriously, why would you dislike them?

>> End price is estimated to be ~around~ 350EUR for the P1022 board or  
>> ~500EUR
>>
> Pico P1022 or Pico MPC8536E pls.

> and throw PCI Express (x4) in the party!

definetely PCI Express for all CPUs anyway.

> (hint: I haven't seen an Intel board with Atom and PCI Express yet).
>
> Will the board be open hardware? I.e. an open sourced design?

I don't know yet, to be frank, I haven't thought about it, though I've  
worked with open source software for years, I have no experience  
whatsoever with open source hardware, I don't know the dangers,  
pitfalls, advantages, etc.

Konstantinos