Qualcomm Has Just Halted Its Own Aspirations in the Desktop Market.
Just a few days before the first orders were set to arrive, Qualcomm unexpectedly decided to cancel its mini PC that included a Snapdragon X Elite chip.
Qualcomm has experienced notable growth with its Snapdragon X Elite processors in the Copilot+ laptops, but it faces challenges in expanding its initial lineup. Soon after the first orders were placed, the company announced the cancellation of its Snapdragon Dev Kit designed for Windows, as well as the promise of refunds to developers who had requested the mini PC.
The development of this kit was announced in May, coinciding with the launch of the Copilot+ laptops. This kit was part of Qualcomm's plans to enter the desktop PC market with Windows, offering developers the opportunity to work with the powerful Snapdragon X Elite processor, the X1E-00-1DE, which is not available in consumer devices and boasts over 100 watts of power.
After several delays, the kit began shipping in July through the distributor Arrow. Jeff Geerling, a well-known YouTuber, was one of the first to receive it, although he was only able to test it for two weeks. After his testing, Geerling received an email from Arrow indicating that "the Developer Kit product has not met our usual standards of excellence" and announcing the decision to pause the product and its support indefinitely. Other users also reported receiving similar messages during the same timeframe.
Despite Geerling finding the kit notably capable, he expressed disappointment with its status as a developer-exclusive product. The goal of the kit was to provide hardware to software developers so they could create Windows applications on Arm, while Qualcomm seeks to entice programmers to migrate x86 applications to its platform.
The reasons behind the cancellation of the kit are unclear. In June, the company had already expressed aspirations that extended beyond laptops, and the developer kit was part of that strategy. It is possible that Qualcomm faced challenges in controlling its chips in a high-performance environment or that the production costs of the kit did not justify its continuation. Whatever the cause, this cancellation represents a significant setback for the company.
On another front, although the current selection of Copilot+ devices is not focused on gaming, Microsoft has expressed confidence in the potential of Arm-based PCs for that purpose. With the launch of the Snapdragon X Elite platform, several improvements and new initiatives have been highlighted to enhance the gaming experience on such devices.
The transition of Windows to Arm is progressing rapidly, with Arm64 versions of many key applications being developed. However, there are still applications that have not adopted this transition, such as Slack, underscoring the challenges faced by this new architecture.