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#11
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Intel's agreement with the FTC
On Aug 5, 5:43*pm, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 8/5/2010 12:12 AM, Robert Myers wrote: You left out the part where the federal government is dictating details of technology (PCI-X for six years). As I said, those were my initial quick reads. But the PCIe issue is something they did for Nvidia, to give it plenty of time to adjust. Also it falls into the general idea of Intel now having to provide product roadmaps to its competitors. This is generally good because Intel has very recently been playing games with the USB 3.0 specs, first delaying giving them the specs, and then when it finally gave them the specs, it decided that it might want to replace it entirely with some kind of optical link instead. Does nothing but provide instability in the PC standards. Good news for fanboys. *For the industry? *For real consumers? *What a joke. Probably really good news for everybody listed above, including you Robert. |
#12
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Intel's agreement with the FTC
On 05/08/2010 6:27 PM, Robert Myers wrote:
On Aug 5, 5:43 pm, Yousuf wrote: On 8/5/2010 12:12 AM, Robert Myers wrote: You left out the part where the federal government is dictating details of technology (PCI-X for six years). As I said, those were my initial quick reads. But the PCIe issue is something they did for Nvidia, to give it plenty of time to adjust. Also it falls into the general idea of Intel now having to provide product roadmaps to its competitors. This is generally good because Intel has very recently been playing games with the USB 3.0 specs, first delaying giving them the specs, and then when it finally gave them the specs, it decided that it might want to replace it entirely with some kind of optical link instead. Does nothing but provide instability in the PC standards. Good news for fanboys. For the industry? For real consumers? What a joke. Probably really good news for everybody listed above, including you Robert. I have yet to read that any of Intel's actions caused harm to consumers (from anyone credible). 5 anti-trust lawsuits with $2.7 billion dollars in fines and compensation later, serves adequately as a credible witness. As to Intel playing interconnect games, so what else is new? Yes, so what else is new? Well namely it's now going to stop, that's what's new. One of the ironies here is that if Intel *did* keep prices "artificially high," it would have benefited AMD, who has a hard time selling chips at a profit. The low prices you've seen up until now are nothing compared to what will happen from now on. With more marketshare AMD will now be able to afford the lower prices without going into a loss. That's what will make it different. As to good news for me, I don't see any. A regulatory tax on Intel's business. More obstacles to innovation. Holding on to PCI-X is *not* good news. Oh boo-hoo Robert, why do you care what regulations are put on Intel? And not everything is a tax, get that straight Robert. There are taxes, and then there are regulations, two totally different functions of government. No taxes here. Enough of the civics lessons. And why do you care if PCI-e stays around another few years or not? It was bound to stay anyways. Fortunately, because of its ruthless business tactics, Intel can just throw money at things, which means we will soon see photons as a bigger part of the mix, and not a moment too soon, in spite of the government (and AMD) interference. Robert. If you think Intel was going to be ready with a photonic interface as anything other than a red-herring to throw the PC market place into chaos, then you're ready to buy the Brooklyn bridge. Intel has played these standards games before and it'll play them again if it wasn't put on a leash. Yousuf Khan |
#13
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Intel's agreement with the FTC
On 05/08/2010 10:20 AM, Intel Guy wrote:
The joke is that PCIe was foisted on consumers as a replacement for AGP primarily to drive redundant video card and motherboard sales when the reality was that there was a negligible real-world performance increase with the new bus. Actually, as I remember it, PCI-e was foisted on the consumers to avoid them adopting AMD's Hypertransport as a standard. When AMD developed HT, Intel had no answer to it for nearly 8 years. So it threw the red-herring of a next generation, serial PCI in as the answer. AMD didn't object, as it wasn't really a competitor to HT, and AMD itself could use it. Video cards that could connect directly through HT would've actually been much faster than PCI-e or AGP, since there would a much smaller overhead, but it would've been proprietary to only AMD systems as Intel would've never adopted it, even if it was free. Do you really want to keep seeing needless forced-obsolescence for your investment in computing hardware? Intel should be forced to support PCIe for 12 years - not 6. At least the version of PCIe available by then. Yousuf Khan |
#14
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Intel's agreement with the FTC
On Aug 5, 7:16*pm, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 05/08/2010 6:27 PM, Robert Myers wrote: On Aug 5, 5:43 pm, Yousuf *wrote: On 8/5/2010 12:12 AM, Robert Myers wrote: You left out the part where the federal government is dictating details of technology (PCI-X for six years). As I said, those were my initial quick reads. But the PCIe issue is something they did for Nvidia, to give it plenty of time to adjust. Also it falls into the general idea of Intel now having to provide product roadmaps to its competitors. This is generally good because Intel has very recently been playing games with the USB 3.0 specs, first delaying giving them the specs, and then when it finally gave them the specs, it decided that it might want to replace it entirely with some kind of optical link instead. Does nothing but provide instability in the PC standards. Good news for fanboys. *For the industry? *For real consumers? *What a joke. Probably really good news for everybody listed above, including you Robert. I have yet to read that any of Intel's actions caused harm to consumers (from anyone credible). 5 anti-trust lawsuits with $2.7 billion dollars in fines and compensation later, serves adequately as a credible witness. Who asked Intel's opinion? Everyone in the business press says that consumers have not been harmed. If the FTC could have made such a charge stick, it would have done so. What do I care what happens if consumers haven't been harmed? As to Intel playing interconnect games, so what else is new? Yes, so what else is new? Well namely it's now going to stop, that's what's new. They won't stop playing interconnect games. One of the ironies here is that if Intel *did* keep prices "artificially high," it would have benefited AMD, who has a hard time selling chips at a profit. The low prices you've seen up until now are nothing compared to what will happen from now on. With more marketshare AMD will now be able to afford the lower prices without going into a loss. That's what will make it different. Wish I could lay a bet with you about market share. How much do you think AMD's market share will grow? It will double? Then it will start making money? As to good news for me, I don't see any. *A regulatory tax on Intel's business. *More obstacles to innovation. *Holding on to PCI-X is *not* good news. Oh boo-hoo Robert, why do you care what regulations are put on Intel? And not everything is a tax, get that straight Robert. There are taxes, and then there are regulations, two totally different functions of government. No taxes here. Enough of the civics lessons. Everything a business does is paid by the end consumer. You can say it's not a tax, if you like, but the costs come out of your pocket. Well, mine, since you don't buy Intel products. And why do you care if PCI-e stays around another few years or not? It was bound to stay anyways. Fortunately, because of its ruthless business tactics, Intel can just throw money at things, which means we will soon see photons as a bigger part of the mix, and not a moment too soon, in spite of the government (and AMD) interference. If you think Intel was going to be ready with a photonic interface as anything other than a red-herring to throw the PC market place into chaos, then you're ready to buy the Brooklyn bridge. Intel has played these standards games before and it'll play them again if it wasn't put on a leash. I don't know enough details to make a prediction, and I don't think you do, either. What's been coming out of Intel looks pretty real to me. Robert. |
#15
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Intel's agreement with the FTC
On 05/08/2010 9:22 PM, Robert Myers wrote:
On Aug 5, 7:16 pm, Yousuf wrote: On 05/08/2010 6:27 PM, Robert Myers wrote: I have yet to read that any of Intel's actions caused harm to consumers (from anyone credible). 5 anti-trust lawsuits with $2.7 billion dollars in fines and compensation later, serves adequately as a credible witness. Who asked Intel's opinion? Everyone in the business press says that consumers have not been harmed. If the FTC could have made such a charge stick, it would have done so. What do I care what happens if consumers haven't been harmed? Who asked Intel's opinion? Probably all of the judges and lawyers in those various court cases it lost, I would guess. Some of those lawyers belonged to Intel, so at the very least they should have. Everyone in the business press says that consumers have not been harmed. Ah, if only the business press were the ones judging Intel, then you would've been completely right. But since they weren't, so you're completely wrong. I mean who could be more impartial than writers whose salaries depend entirely on advertising revenue from big advertisers, like Intel? If the FTC could have made such a charge stick, it would have done so. Have you actually read the PDF? That's pretty much all that the FTC keeps saying, it's within pretty much every section start. Pretty much every section has something about "Benefit to Customer or End User", which means it's talking about "harm to consumers". Put down your pink sunglasses, the company you love so much has been found guilty of everything that it has been accused of for so many years. As to Intel playing interconnect games, so what else is new? Yes, so what else is new? Well namely it's now going to stop, that's what's new. They won't stop playing interconnect games. There's a piece of paper with an agreement with the FTC that says they will. Well, actually there's several pieces of paper, they also had an agreement with AMD a few months back on which this FTC agreement is modelled on which also says similar things. One of the ironies here is that if Intel *did* keep prices "artificially high," it would have benefited AMD, who has a hard time selling chips at a profit. The low prices you've seen up until now are nothing compared to what will happen from now on. With more marketshare AMD will now be able to afford the lower prices without going into a loss. That's what will make it different. Wish I could lay a bet with you about market share. How much do you think AMD's market share will grow? It will double? Then it will start making money? According to Intel's previous agreement with AMD, Intel will allow AMD upto 35% before it starts the games again, er, I mean before Intel deems its agreement with AMD to have been fulfilled. As to good news for me, I don't see any. A regulatory tax on Intel's business. More obstacles to innovation. Holding on to PCI-X is *not* good news. Oh boo-hoo Robert, why do you care what regulations are put on Intel? And not everything is a tax, get that straight Robert. There are taxes, and then there are regulations, two totally different functions of government. No taxes here. Enough of the civics lessons. Everything a business does is paid by the end consumer. You can say it's not a tax, if you like, but the costs come out of your pocket. Well, mine, since you don't buy Intel products. If that's your screwed up definition of a tax, then we've just been given a tax break. Fortunately, because of its ruthless business tactics, Intel can just throw money at things, which means we will soon see photons as a bigger part of the mix, and not a moment too soon, in spite of the government (and AMD) interference. If you think Intel was going to be ready with a photonic interface as anything other than a red-herring to throw the PC market place into chaos, then you're ready to buy the Brooklyn bridge. Intel has played these standards games before and it'll play them again if it wasn't put on a leash. I don't know enough details to make a prediction, and I don't think you do, either. What's been coming out of Intel looks pretty real to me. They'll be real alright, but probably in another decade or so. Intel is showing off science projects hoping people will wait for them to become real products and ignore actual current solutions. Remember the wireless laptop recharging system that Intel showed off in an IDF a couple of years back? That's otherwise known as a Tesla coil, and looks like it's something that came out of a steampunk design from the 19th century. Intel is just entertaining people, not really providing real solutions to anything. Yousuf Khan |
#16
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Intel's agreement with the FTC
Robert Myers wrote:
On Aug 5, 10:49 am, Sebastian Kaliszewski wrote: Robert Myers wrote: On Aug 4, 11:10 am, Yousuf Khan wrote: http://download.intel.com/pressroom/..._Executed_Agre... *** So far, I've read that Intel-FTC agreement requires: (1) Intel will allow competitors to use any foundry they like. (2) Intel will not sue a competitor for a year, if that competitor gets sold to a third party, until a new cross license can be negotiated. (3) VIA gets an extension to its Intel license. (4) Intel cannot price a chipset/cpu combo below the the price of the CPU alone. (5) Intel cannot offer discounts based on market share levels. (6) Intel can only offer volume discounts. (7) Intel cannot punish a customer for having a relationship with a competitor. (8) Intel can enter into an exclusivity agreement with a customer, only so long as is required to recoup capital investment for that customer (I think this may refer to Apple). It cannot enter into more than 10 such agreements at a time. (9) Intel cannot give extraordinary lump sum assistance to customers (Dell). (10) Intel cannot degrade the performance of its products in the presence of a competitor's product (GPUs). Unless it's a bug. (11) Intel has to provide an interface roadmap to its competitors. (12) Intel must clearly state that its compilers will not optimize for its competitors' products. It will not be allowed to misrepresent this anymore. (13) It has to reimburse its compiler customers who thought this compiler would work with compatible x86 processors, based on Intel's misrepresentations. (14) Intel has to reveal that the SYSmark and MobileMark benchmarks are optimized for Intel processors only. You left out the part where the federal government is dictating details of technology (PCI-X for six years). So what? Good news for fanboys. For the industry? For real consumers? What a joke. Yes of course, monopolistic practices are good for customes -- according to Robert Myers And you don't think the FTC and the European Commission are monopolies? As any other government agencies. Government has monopoly by its very nature. Really, Sebastian, what's written in your history books about the miracles of government-planned businesses and all the munificent benefits they bestow through the intrusive exercise of power? And what's written in qyour history books about miracles of many (competing) goverments over the same territory? Or if you didn't notice neither EC nor FTC run business. \SK -- "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" -- L. Lang -- http://www.tajga.org -- (some photos from my travels) |
#17
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Intel's agreement with the FTC
Robert Myers wrote:
On Aug 5, 10:13 am, Intel Guy wrote: Robert Myers full-quoted: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20012636-64.html "We cannot simply assume that the settlement equates to a victory for consumers," Would doing nothing and allowing Intel to continue to strong-arm customers have been better for consumers? I should have quoted the rest: quote Wright sees other potential problems. "This settlement has the FTC getting itself involved in Intel's business arrangements, competitive strategy, and even product design at a remarkably deep level," he said, expressing concern about government micromanagement of Intel business practices. /quote It's a very bad precedent and, yes, it would have been better to have done nothing, if the something included having bureaucrats and lawyers micromanage a business, especially a high-technology business. Oh. If you didn't notice it's a settelemnt. IOW Intel agreed to that conditions. Intel still had a choice to go to court -- if everything was all right as you portray they should fear not. Or, maybe the chance of unfavourable judgement was real, as not everything was all right? \SK -- "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" -- L. Lang -- http://www.tajga.org -- (some photos from my travels) |
#18
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Intel's agreement with the FTC
"Intel Guy" wrote in message
... Intel should be forced to support PCIe for 12 years - not 6. Windows requires a PCI bus so that alone will keep from going anywhere. |
#19
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Intel's agreement with the FTC
On Aug 6, 1:45*am, Yousuf Khan wrote:
They'll be real alright, but probably in another decade or so. Intel is showing off science projects hoping people will wait for them to become real products and ignore actual current solutions. Remember the wireless laptop recharging system that Intel showed off in an IDF a couple of years back? That's otherwise known as a Tesla coil, and looks like it's something that came out of a steampunk design from the 19th century. Intel is just entertaining people, not really providing real solutions to anything. If there are actual "solutions," they are of limited usefulness. The ability of processors to crunch data has begun to stress the ability of wires even theoretically to deliver data to them fast enough. GPU's used for computation will make the situation even worse, as will the planned addition of vector processors to x86. The world you imagine for computers is a disappearing mirage. The concentration of capital required to advance the technology means that there will be fewer players, and, aside from token competition, essentially only one player, at least for now. From my perspective, there is really only one problem left: how to get the data there fast enough. What's left of processor design is how to find ways to tolerate (hide) even more latency than processors now can. The rest of the problem is all about interconnect, and the solution isn't going to come in the form of electrons. If AMD (or IBM/AMD) has the resources to move us forward on those issues, then I'm interested. If not, then, as far as I'm concerned, it's only an internecine struggle that wastes resources to no one's benefit. I really couldn't care less about how cheaply you can buy processors for your next home-brew experiment, and I don't think the government should, either. At the somewhat less-than-cutting-edge, the story is probably quite different. Most people can't use the muscle that is available at affordable prices now, and there will be lots of players who can produce "good enough" processors that don't rely on licenses from Intel. Were I Intel, I'd be *much* more worried about ARM than about AMD. That doesn't even account for the fact that China has both the capital and the engineering expertise to do more or less whatever it wants, independent of both Intel *and* ARM. Aside from optical interconnects, this entire thread has been about yesterday's news. Robert. |
#20
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Intel's agreement with the FTC
On Aug 6, 1:52*pm, "Jim" wrote:
Windows requires a PCI bus so that alone will keep from going anywhere. But not as a x16 slot that nVidia can plug its cards into. Otherwise, why am I paying government lawyers to reserve space on every motherboard I buy for at least six years? Robert. |
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