MWC: Stop The Eight Core Mobile Chip Marketing Madness

I spent this week in Barcelona attending Mobile World Congress. Vendors from across the globe came to MWC to market their mobile ideas, opinions, hardware, software and services. I paid particular attention to handset makers and mobile SoC developers. I saw some very positive things from both these groups, but I saw one very disappointing thing that is on the brink of being disingenuous, and that relates to marketing of 8 CPU-core SoCs and handsets. I want to be crystal clear: there’s nothing wrong with having an 8-CPU core SoC versus one with 5, 4, or even 3 CPU cores. What is wrong is marketing 8 mobile CPU cores aggressively as a major differentiator or something that makes an experiential difference.