E
Ed
OK, well if Intel is found guilty then their deal makers should get some
jail time. ;p
Ed
OK, well if Intel is found guilty then their deal makers should get some
jail time. ;p
Ed
Y
YKhan
Robert said:
Well, it looks like the marketing is being targetted at congressmen and
federal civil servants and members of the high-tech communities in
Austin and Silicon Valley. Very specific communities, not exactly the
everyman, who probably wouldn't care.
Yousuf Khan
C
chrisv
Robert said:
I missed nothing. I'm just sticking to the issue of your claim that
"Companies like AMD don't do much more than to feed the enthusiasms of
Usenet groups." Note that your statement uses the word "don't", as in
present tense, not "won't", which would be future tense.
I gave an example of something that AMD does besides "feed the
enthusiasms of Usenet groups", proving your statement wrong.
Conjecture, and irrelevant to the issue at hand.
I wish them luck.
So, you are reduced to a silly semantic argument. Bottom line, they
don't want to try competing with Intel.
How does this rebute my point about IBM and Mot not wanting to compete
with Intel?
More conjecture.
What it appears to you is not necessarily the reality of the
situation.
Irrelevant.
R
Robert Myers
Computing is *not* inexpensive because of AMD. Computing is
inexpensive because absolute top-of-the-line microprocessors are a
commodity, and they are a commodity because that's the way Intel chose
to play it, and it succeeded in playing it that way.
Intel didn't play it the way it has out of the kindness of its
corporate heart. Intel saw a way to turn into a money factory, and it
has done so.
AMD probably has pushed Intel along, but we don't know whether the net
effect of that pushing has been good or bad. I tend to think the net
effect has been bad, but I'll concede that someone else could easily
think differently.
But as to microprocessors being inexpensive, thank the greedy
executives and marketeers at Intel you so dearly love to loathe for
that blessing, not AMD.
*If* Intel started price-gouging, making it economically more
attractive for competition, the competition would appear. Intel's
business model is to sell lots of chips for a relatively low price--low
enough to discourage competitors. That happens with or without AMD.
RM
C
chrisv
Robert said:
I didn't say it was. I said that the AMD presence in the market has
significantly reduced the cost of computing.
Nope. Intel is not playing it the way they would prefer, they way
they could if not for AMD. Not only would post-Athlon x86 performance
and price have been significantly worse, Intel would be moving the
market into Itanic right now, if they could. That's hardly choosing
the path of the "commodity" product, is it now?
Your point is they want to make money? That we can agree on.
Probably? Guffaw.
Mind boggling.
Please provide substantiation for your implication that I feel any
different toward Intel executives than I do toward AMD executives.
Yeah, like AMD. NOT the big computer companies like IBM and Mot.
Didn't discourage AMD. But, as I said, the big computer companies
sure don't want to challange Intel, as I've already explained.
Evidence, please.
R
Robert Myers
No, Chris. There is more than one way to make lots of money. You canchrisv said:
sell modest numbers at very high prices: the IBM business model. Or
you can sell huge numbers at much lower prices: the Intel business
model. There are vestiges of the IBM business model hanging on (the
mainframe business), but it's a threatened species.
Now, the real blame for cracking the IBM business model (and taking DEC
down in the process) might properly go to Compaq, not to Intel.
Probably does, in fact. But Intel wasted no time figuring it out and
cashing in. The microprocessor revolution is predicated on selling at
commodity prices. No commodity pricing, and we're still buying DEC's
with alpha microprocessors as the best alternative to IBM's exorbitant
pricing. Intel is limping along and AMD is out of business in that
scenario.
There's a whole series of arguments I've had, and I just don't want to
have them again. If you think the best of all worlds is a series of
incremental improvements of x86 driven by competition between Intel and
AMD, then AMD has been a good thing. If you don't think that's the
best of all worlds, and I don't, you're not particularly admiring of
AMD's contribution to civilization.
RM
R
Robert Myers
Why are you arguing with me? AMD's complaint alleges exactly what IYousuf said:
described.
No.
RM
R
Robert Myers
YKhan said:
Frankly, Yousuf, this is beyond me. Intel has a presence in the
marketplace that just boggles the imagination. With so much money
flowing through Intel's hands, I have a hard time imagining that AMD is
anything but naive to think that it can mount a marketing, advertising,
PR, political, or any other kind of campaign against Intel. The odds
are just stacked so heavily against it. AMD is a *nit*. So many
players are so utterly dependent on Intel. Why would anybody risk
their livelihood for a slightly less expensive x86?
That's it. That's the bottom line. I can't imagine that *anybody*
really wants to play. That's where my mind just stops dead in its
tracks. Why would anybody want to mess with a good thing, and what
could AMD possibly say to them to persuade them that it is a good
thing?
As to congressmen and what not, I don't pay attention to what Intel
does with its political contributions, but it's a safe bet that Intel
makes them. Sure, if AMD can nail Intel in court, no amount of
political influence will save Intel. But you're arguing that AMD is
waging a campaign of political influence with an expectation of
winning. Not in the industry. Not in the world of finance. Not in
the world of politics. And certainly not among consumers, because they
just don't care.
RM
D
Del Cecchi
Actually IBM saved Intel's bacon long about the time they were "figuringRobert Myers said:
it out". And Intel wants high margin business, that's why they allegedly
abused their market power. And don't forget to cogitate on why Intel
switched from x86 to Itanium (well, tried to), too many cross licenses
laying around from back in the day. If Intel could get the same revenue
with 1/3 the capital expenditure, don't you think they would? What
prevents Intel from charging double the current price list?
Clearly Intel has a dominant position and exercises its market power to
preserve it. The question is are those actions a violation of US law?
The Sherman Act?
For example " Robinson-Patman Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1936 to
supplement the Clayton Antitrust Act. The act, advanced by Congressman
Wright Patman, forbade any person or firm engaged in interstate commerce
to discriminate in price to different purchasers of the same commodity
when the effect would be to lessen competition or to create a monopoly."
del cecchi
Y
YKhan
Robert said:
Well there's not much I can do to improve *your* imagination.
But quite obviously they're not messing with a good thing, because this
is definitely not a good thing. Since when is it ever a good thing when
one of your suppliers can just reduce your allocation of a component
for your product and get away with it with absolutely no repercussions.
These guys are used to being able to play off suppliers against each
other in every other component, except one, which is processors; with
processors its the supplier that plays off the OEMs against each other.
If they keep trying to play Intel's game any longer they will all be
bankrupt, all of their profits siphoned off by Intel and given over to
Dell.
Actually, you'd be surprised how much influence these sort of tactics
have. There's a group of PR firms out there specializing in this sort
of public flogging. The last US election was an example of the success
of these sorts of campaigns.
AMD and Intel both contributed to the Republicans (and Democrats)
during the last several elections. Neither company really derives much
assistance out of congress for their particular industry (think oil and
defence industries, that's where politicians make their money). The
semiconductor industry for the most part operates on its own without
much thought from congress. In fact, recently Craig Barrett complained
loudly about education and immigration policies in the USA regarding
foreign workers, and it got heard as loudly as a mouse by congress. For
the most part, the semiconductor industry doesn't do a lot of lobbying.
Anyways, enough of politics. Here's another couple of interesting
articles about the lawsuit:
David Kirkpatrick - AMD's Suit Against Intel: The First Punch - FORTUNE
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704,1078376,00.html?promoid=email
Tom Yager
http://weblog.infoworld.com/yager/2005/06/29.html
Kirkpatrick observes that "So far, industry reaction seems moderately
pro-AMD." Though most of the OEMs are still afraid to give their names
out.
Yager observes, "So much of what AMD claims is patently obvious."
Yousuf Khan
Y
YKhan
Robert said:
This is where your true colors come out -- Intel blue all the way. Only
an ignorant fool would think Intel decided to reduce prices of its
processors on its own. The fact of the matter is that AMD and Cyrix
pushed down prices so drastically in the early 1990's that we wouldn't
have ever gotten to a $500 PC without them. I remember being happy to
pay /only/ $1500 for a PC-XT compatible back in 1988.
This is the most idiotic thing I've heard from you, and I've heard a
lot of idiotic things from you. Intel saw a way to "become a money
factory"? Intel was already a money factory prior to the advent of
competition from AMD & Cyrix. It was already comfortable being a
high-price per unit medium-volume money factory, until these two came
in and forced it to change to a medium-priced high-volume money
factory.
You think AMD's pushing Intel along was a bad thing, but you're willing
to accept somebody else's different opinion? How big of you. You're the
only person that's going to have that opinion! What do you mean you'll
accept somebody else's different opinion? It's like having the opinion
that the Earth is flat, but accepting that other people believe it's
round.
ROFL. I'm going to have to start thinking of you as our local resident
insane dancing mental patient. That's the only way to rationally
explain and accept your opinions from now on.
The competition is already here, therefore Intel is price-gouging.
You've answered your own question.
Yousuf Khan
R
Robert Myers
Del said:
Itanium was an attempt to capture high margin business and to free
Intel from the entanglements of cross-license agreements. No confusion
there.
They destroy their own market. Even without competition, there is a
selling price/profitability calculation that doesn't put the highest
profitability at the highest selling price. Making computers much less
expensive vastly expanded the market for computers and made many
wealthy, despite the fact that computers were being sold for a much
lower price.
But now we're off into a completely different topic (from business
models to law), and not one that I'm very interested in arguing about.
RM
R
Robert Myers
YKhan said:
<snip>
If you expect a response to your posts, tone down your language.
RM
G
George Macdonald
C'mon that's dishonest! One paragraph, which you quoted from the complaint
and completely out of context, is no justification for your err, opinion.
No to what? You only read the bit in the complaint -- one paragraph? --
which you umm, liked?
R
Robert Myers
Robert said:
I can do just a little better than that. A case like this one is going
to hinge on technicalities. Since Intel has been doing much of this
stuff more or less in the plain light of day for a long time, I can't
believe that Intel thought it would never be challenged, especially
since AMD and Intel have been engaged in legal bickering since forever.
That means that Intel has had its high-priced lawyers decide what they
can defend and what they can't. Intel apparently thinks it can defend
its actions.
What I've seen of anti-trust actions that I've paid attention to
indicates to me that they are not very effective even when (as in the
case of Microsoft) there is what appears even to the layman to be a
pattern of predatory business practices that have had the effect of
creating a monopoly.
So how does a lawyer argue a case like this? The obvious strategy of
pricing with volume incentives so that an OEM/distributor has a strong
incentive to sell that last little bit has two interpretations: one
legal and one not.
The legal interpretation is that the best leverage is on those last few
sales. It's like the last few minutes of a basketball game. You have
to make all the rest of the points, but the game is frequently won or
lost in those last few minutes. So, too, with sales. The financial
markets put heavy emphasis on quarter over quarter performance, so you
want to make sure this quarter's sales are at least as good or better
than those of the previous year. You set the sales target so that
profitability comes from doing better than business as usual. In the
process, you discover an OEM as hungry and as aggressive as Dell.
The interpretation that makes it illegal is that the effect (intent?)
is to stifle competition. The exact same behavior does exactly what
AMD is whining about: those last sales often come at the expense of
AMD.
....But they don't have to, is what Intel would argue. If the easiest
path for OEM's to Intel discounts is to cut out AMD, that's not Intel's
fault. They should just grow their sales. I'm sure an Intel lawyer
can say that with a straight face.
But is that an adequate defense? That's the point at which I begin to
lose interest. I suspect that courts give broad latitude to businesses
in making prices and that there is a fairly heavy burden of proof to
establish that a pricing strategy is illegal, but these discussions
tend to slither into what look to me like arbitrary distinctions based
on endless and confusing precedent. I'm sure we're not going to sort
it out here.
RM
R
Robert Myers
I'll take that as a compliment.YKhan said:Well there's not much I can do to improve *your* imagination.
They may all be bankrupt, anyway. As Detroit discovered, selling the
same thing year after year with slightly different trim doesn't do much
to motivate buyers.
As to messing with a good thing, yes, it's a mean business, but, if you
want to stay in the business, you have to do business with Intel (with
the exception of those in HPC who have decided to build their
architecture around AMD's architecture).
If you _have_ to do business with Intel, how positive a development is
it to have AMD trumpeting things you told AMD about your relationship
with Intel? Much of that would be denied outright if there were no
paper trail, and much of it is going to be denied, anyway. That anyone
would be _pleased_ at having been put into such a position beggars the
imagination.
How do you know what would surprise me? Manipulation of public opinion
to influence the outcome of elections is the basic subject matter of
electoral politics. But what does what Carl Rove knows how to do have
to do with what AMD can succeed at?
<quote>
"None of the industry executives whom I talked to for this article
would speak for attribution; they were concerned that it would hurt
their business relationship with Intel."
<snip>
"At this point, it's hard to know what will happen with this case. AMD
says it has already asked about 40 PC-makers worldwide to take steps to
preserve e-mail and other records. It apparently plans to issue
subpoenas in order to obtain documents and testimony. AMD also said in
its press conference that it is willing to discuss an out-of-court
settlement. Though AMD is seeking monetary damages, what its executives
say they most want is more transparency and fairness in the way that
Intel does business."
If nothing else, the suit will serve as free publicity for AMD as
people write articles like this one, pointing to the strength of its
products and enumerating Intel's alleged hardball tactics. One thing
is sure: AMD is not going to back down.
</snip>
So, while the industry slides into a state of dismal boredom, AMD,
which has fewer resources, will attempt a war of attrition against
Intel. In the end, there will be an out-of-court settlement.
Oh, how Tom Yager loves AMD. Classic Geek.
You, nor I, nor Tom Yager has to speculate. Now that Intel must "undo
all the blockades it set up to shut AMD out of the Japanese market," we
can see how much difference it makes.
RM
C
chrisv
Note: No response.
Intel wants high volumes AND high margins.
The "best of all worlds"? Nice straw man.
Intel wants high volumes AND high margins.
The "best of all worlds"? Nice straw man.
C
chrisv
Robert said:
In other words, to get out of the "commodity" pricing that AMD forced
them into with x86.
Wrong. They could easily, today, be charging twice the price per unit
performance, and people would be paying it, if not for AMD.
Yeah, monopoly pricing, which is always higher than pricing in a
competitive market.
R
Robert Myers
AMD did not bring commodity pricing. AMD may well at times havechrisv said:
affected the pace of development and the rate at which prices have come
down, but commodity pricing was inevitable, as were disappearing
margins. See my constant references to the automobile industry.
Barring new technology, all industries go that way, sooner or later.
The only difference between AMD in the game and out of the game is
details. Nor, for that matter, is Intel's contribution in any way
unique.
What would actually happen with AMD out of the market is all
speculation. I suspect that you could take respectable modelling tools
and get just about any answer you wanted.
I'll assume that you are being deliberately obtuse.
RM
C
chrisv
Robert said:
No one in the automobile industry is in Intel's position, with it's
proprietary advantages. BTW, how far off-topic are you willing to go,
here?
I continue to be amazed at your objection to my rather simple point.
The presence of AMD in the market has significantly reduced the cost
of computing. I believe this to be a fact beyond dispute, so I can't
understand your issue, here.
Even if true, best to delay it, right?
Not that I'm aware of. Do you believe what I wrote to be incorrect?