We noticed a strange confluence between top Taiwanese PC firm Acer and National Semiconductor which were both on the same platform at last June's Computex. Both Stan Shih, Acer's CEO, and Brian Halla, NatSemi's CEO, seemed to be congratulating themselves on the shared platform which might make sense given the plunging price of PCs and the microprocessors (CPUs) that power them. And so it has come to pass. NatSemi today issued a release saying that its "system on a chip device", the Geode, will form part of Acer's push into PC compliant devices for everyone from children up to geriatrics, at a reasonable price. No one from NatSemi will tell us how much a Geode II costs, but our information is that we're talking about pennies, and not dollars. So much, then, for Intel and its Timna processor. Our informants from Intel are telling us that it will be the future push for next year to replace the Celeron, while Via sources are telling us that its Winchip/Cyrix solution, will be even cheaper. Perhaps both Via and Intel have missed a window of opportunity here. ® See also Big Blue uses NatSemi Geode in Netstation Could NatSemi's SOC threaten Celeron's existence? NatSemi will announce IA chip today