Intel found to be abusing market power in Japan

[Yousuf Khan]

Have you ever asked yourself what money is? If you're honest with
yourself, you should come up with an answer that isn't much more
reassuring. Capitalism is a very successful confidence game.

The stock market is really an offshoot of capitalism, not capitalism
itself. The real capitalism is where people work for their money, goods
& services.

If you look at the original stock market idea, the plan was to own a
portion of a company, and with that ownership, you have a share of the
profits of that company. Very few companies give out dividends anymore,
and those that do, give out a pitance. The reason for that is that now
there's more money to be had in the act of trading the stock than in the
act of owning the stock. So the stocks of the companies have very little
to do with the performance of that company in their commercial marketplace.

You notice that they cite the news, and the stock price in context.
You may not believe it, but their readers do.

Very good, but that's just a legacy, a holdover from a bygone era. There
is only a loose correlation between company news and company stock
prices. A company's business and a company's stock are essentially two
separate identities for that business.

Hell, I really don't see why we don't already see companies go out of
business, but their stocks keep trading? They might as well be trading
Star Wars action figures, or Pokemon cards with the company logos on
them -- it's just as relevant.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Robert Myers]

I would say that there is another interpretation....

Intel believes it can get away with certain practices. Perhaps they are
thought to be arguably legal. Or perhaps they believe they have enough
clout to defeat the lawsuits.

This is one of those questions about how people perceive reality, I
think. My estimation of human nature is that most of the time most
people will rationalize their own behavior, so that whatever they
think they can get away with is also morally or legally justifiable,
at least in their own minds.

There is a practical reason for that kind of mental posture,
especially in a corporation. If your thinking is consonant with what
you have to say and write, then it is much less likely that you will
say or write something that could come back to haunt you in a legal
proceeding. If you admit to yourself that what you are doing is
probably illegal, there's a fair chance you'll admit it to someone
else, so why admit it to yourself?

Go look at IBM's behavior prior to the
1956 consent decree.....

You mean the one that pushed IBM out of the consulting business? ;-).

It would be interesting to try to understand how well markets
anticipated the effects of that agreement--if one had the background
and the resources, neither of which I possess.

RM

 

[George Macdonald]

Looks like Rambus might have engineers afterall, it's opening up a
facility in Bangalore:

http://news.com.com/Rambus+opens+design+center+in+Bangalore/2110-1006_3-5623263.html?tag=html.alert

Unless, this facility is where it's outsourced its lawyers too.

Yeah I saw that - they do have some real tech staff of course... needed to
do their contract work which is the (initially) honest side of the
business... until they figure out how to charge their "clients" twice for
the same IP by suing them for patent infringement.

India, AYK, is on the up 'n' up in high tech, so it's possible they want to
bring a few Indian lawyers on board for the inevitable... sorta show 'em
how it's done... lurk around in conferences to pick up on
"infringements".

 

[George Macdonald]

Perfectly honest, George, the price _stability_ of _AMD_ looks
downright odd to me, but that makes me sound like a chart-reader. The
only reason I see AMD as other than a speculative play is the reason
we've already discussed: they are a necessary evil for Intel.

Hmm, AMD is tracking Intel fairly closely, a few points lower of course,
and has been for the last year - any abrupt changes have been because some
dim-wit analyst decided to get his pom-poms out for Intel - seems that's
how Intel does damage control. In contrast, RMBS is full of square waves
and saw-tooth "patterns"... no comparison.

It would be, and that's why I don't see anything significant happening
here. It might not affect Intel's stock, but it sure should affect
AMD's.

The significant thing that is going to happen is that Intel is going to
quit breaking JP law and the mfrs are going to hook up with AMD in some
way... small or not, they just need a foot in the door.

That's a whole different layer of indirection. Spy vs. spy vs. spy vs.
...

Even so, I'll stick with my basic position, which is that people who
work on Wall Street are not stupid (even if they used their fraternity
brothers' problem sets to get through calculus), and while they may
not have much of a grasp of carrier mobility or stretched silicon,
they can probably keep straight litigation, regulatory action, and
predatory marketing practices.

Not stupid... in their domain, but they insist on trying to play the tech
expert when some of the quotes from them are so transparently ignorant.

Opteron was ballsy. I didn't expect it to succeed. It wouldn't have
without IBM. Even had I been able to predict that intervention, I
still wouldn't have predicted it to succeed. So I guess it's pretty
clear my ability to predict AMD is... yet to be established. .

IBM got well compensated for their "intervention" to rescue AMD from the
Moto-F/U. Either way, I think Opteron would have been shipped, possibly
not in as good shape as it is now.

 

[Robert Myers]

A lot of us in here thought Opteron was exactly the technology that was
needed by the vast majority of people, and that it was destined to
succeed. The only thing holding back absolute certainty on that
prediction was whether Intel's marketing was going to prevent that.

Hindsight is marvellous.

Before you cause a joint dislocation patting yourself on the back,
consider this: at roughly the same time as AMD was retooling for its
next generation architecture, Intel was redoing Netburst. I would
have bet on Intel successully rejiggering Netburst to get better
performance before I would have bet on AMD having the resouces to
produce Opteron.

It didn't turn out that way. Intel's failure with Netburst is
probably a mixture of physics and poor execution, but, in the end,
physics won. If you want to claim that you understood those physics
well enough ahead of time to predict the failure of Netburst, you
shouldn't have any problem at all giving us a concise summary of what
it is you understood so well ahead of time. You might also want to
offer some insights into Intel's management of the design process.

Had Intel done what it expected to with Prescott and done it on
schedule, Opteron would have been in a very different position.

Your read of history is that 64-bit x86 and AMD won because of 64-bit
x86. My read of history is that IBM's process technology and AMD's
circuit designers won, and Intel's process technology and circuit
designers lost.

As
it turned out, even with a two year introduction lead for the Itanium
and its mighty marketing machine, nothing was going to make Itanium fly.
People were willing to wait for Opteron, or a solution like Opteron,
rather than go for Itanium.

It's easy to understand why AMD took the long odds with Hammer. It
didn't really have much choice. Intel wanted to close off the 64-bit
market to x86, and it might well have succeeded.

As to "People were willing to wait..." who needed either, really?
Almost no one. This is all about positioning.

RM

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

Unless, this facility is where it's outsourced
its lawyers too.

Outsourcing lawyers is one of the first and most important
things to do

Not for the reasons you might hope. In-company lawyers
don't have the same strength of attorney-client privilige,
and their work-product can be subject to discovery.
They also work for the corporation, not the CEO.

-- Robert

 

[Robert Myers]

Not stupid... in their domain, but they insist on trying to play the tech
expert when some of the quotes from them are so transparently ignorant.

Have any favorites you'd like to pass along? I don't pay any
attention at all when such folks talk technical. Or rather, I tend to
listen for the marketing buzz they're trying to generate, realizing
full well that it has nothing to do with science or engineering.

IBM got well compensated for their "intervention" to rescue AMD from the
Moto-F/U.

Just good business for IBM and AMD, I'm sure.

Either way, I think Opteron would have been shipped, possibly
not in as good shape as it is now.

It would have shipped, but to whom? AMD would have another also-ran
processor and Intel would be moving to displace as much of x86 as it
could with Itanium, rather than emphasizing that the competition for
Itanium is really Power.

RM

 

[Felger Carbon]

Robert, I've been following this thread, and have felt that you've had
the better arguments on average. But suddenly, I stumble on this
clinker:

Your read of history is that 64-bit x86 and AMD won because of 64-bit
x86. My read of history is that IBM's process technology and AMD's
circuit designers won, and Intel's process technology and circuit
designers lost.

Uh, Robert, how many x86-64 chips has AMD sold in the preceding year?
And how many Netburst chips has Intel sold in the preceding year? In
view of those numbers (_your_ numbers! how do you deduce that AMD
won and Intel lost? ;-)

Felger Carbon
who has been fighting a very strange In-win C720T case that arrived
with zero documentation

 

[keith]

Outsourcing lawyers is one of the first and most important
things to do

Not for the reasons you might hope. In-company lawyers
don't have the same strength of attorney-client privilige,
and their work-product can be subject to discovery.
They also work for the corporation, not the CEO.

I'm not sure that's true. Every document we send to our lawyers has a
"prepared for attorney" notice on it. I'm told that this is *exactly* why
it's there; attorney-client privilege.

 

[keith]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 14:02:57 -0500, George Macdonald


Opteron was ballsy.
Yes.

I didn't expect it to succeed.

I did. At one point most of my wife's IRA (our "at risk pool") was in
AMD. Still is a bunch in there, though I blew it when I had her get out of
AAPL in the mid 30s. :-(

It wouldn't have without IBM. Even had I been able to predict that
intervention, I still wouldn't have predicted it to succeed.

From the process technology side? ...or the architecture side? The
architecture was "obvious". The technology was needed to stay in the
business at all, regardless of Opteron. I did predict the intervention,
in any case. It was obvious to anyone who knows the history of the two.

So I guess it's pretty clear my
ability to predict AMD is... yet to be established. .

Evidently. ;-)

 

[keith]

Hindsight is marvellous.

No hindsight at all. Google if you don't believe. Many of us here said
_at_the_time_ that Opteron was the Itanic killer. Evolution beats
revolution, once again.

Before you cause a joint dislocation patting yourself on the back,
consider this: at roughly the same time as AMD was retooling for its
next generation architecture, Intel was redoing Netburst. I would
have bet on Intel successully rejiggering Netburst to get better
performance before I would have bet on AMD having the resouces to
produce Opteron.

I would have bet on Intel too, if they didn't have the drag of their
marketeers trying to force Itanic down the market's throat. They did, and
AMD stepped in to give customers what they really wanted; to continue with
x86 yet another decade.

It didn't turn out that way. Intel's failure with Netburst is probably
a mixture of physics and poor execution, but, in the end, physics won.
If you want to claim that you understood those physics well enough ahead
of time to predict the failure of Netburst, you shouldn't have any
problem at all giving us a concise summary of what it is you understood
so well ahead of time. You might also want to offer some insights into
Intel's management of the design process.

How do you figure that physics won?

Had Intel done what it expected to with Prescott and done it on
schedule, Opteron would have been in a very different position.

I don't believe this is so. Intel was forced to continue down the x86
path because AMD was forcing the issue. Intel wanted to dump x86 for
Itanic.

Your read of history is that 64-bit x86 and AMD won because of 64-bit
x86. My read of history is that IBM's process technology and AMD's
circuit designers won, and Intel's process technology and circuit
designers lost.

Circuit designers, my ass. Marketeers lost/users won.

It's easy to understand why AMD took the long odds with Hammer. It
didn't really have much choice. Intel wanted to close off the 64-bit
market to x86, and it might well have succeeded.

....if there was no 64bit x86, you're likely right; there wouldn't be any
64bit x86 market. hmm... ;-)

As to "People were willing to wait..." who needed either, really? Almost
no one. This is all about positioning.

"Almost no one?" Rubbish. It was absolutely required to move x86 off the
desktop, where Intel had no interest in it going.

 

[keith]

AMD Turion will have to match the integration of Centrino in one
respect: power management. With the CPU able to send signals to the
chipset to conserve power. Easy (relatively) with one manufacturer for
both CPU & chipset, a bit harder when they're made by different people.
AMD is going to certify certain chipsets with Turion, likely this
feature is going to be required for certification.

It's not all that hard to do such things across two companys, as long as
thre is a symbiotic relationship between the two. OTOH, if neither wants
it to happen...

 

[Robert Myers]

Robert, I've been following this thread, and have felt that you've had
the better arguments on average. But suddenly, I stumble on this
clinker:


Uh, Robert, how many x86-64 chips has AMD sold in the preceding year?
And how many Netburst chips has Intel sold in the preceding year? In
view of those numbers (_your_ numbers! how do you deduce that AMD
won and Intel lost? ;-)

Intel is abandoning NetBurst.
Intel had to accede to x86-64.
Windows Cluster supports x86-64 and not IA-64
HP is making workstations with Opteron not Itanium.
Tech users who might buy Itanium are buying Opteron.
Intel had both inventory and margin problems.

By the standards of the AMD/Intel fight cards, I think it's pretty
clear AMD won this one. If you judged by gross sales, there would be
little point in keeping score.

Felger Carbon
who has been fighting a very strange In-win C720T case that arrived
with zero documentation

Sorry, can't help you with that.

RM

 

[George Macdonald]

Have any favorites you'd like to pass along? I don't pay any
attention at all when such folks talk technical. Or rather, I tend to
listen for the marketing buzz they're trying to generate, realizing
full well that it has nothing to do with science or engineering.

My recent favorite gaffe would be the idiot at Credit Suisse First Boston
who downgraded AMD a couple of days before the stock jumped $5. or so. For
others, any of the guff they dish out at any IDF time fits the bill nicely.
Here's one:

"Multi-core processing will use up the growing transistor count
driven by Moore’s Law and allow Intel to maintain its ASPs as it integrates
additional capability such as communications, security and multimedia that
leverage its size advantage to reach for incremental growth above PC units,
and all at costs more competitive than what AMD can offer due to greater 65
nanometer/300mm capability," Goldman Sachs said in its report after the
first day of the conference.

Quite a mouthful! First I'd heard that Intel has "greater 65nm cpability"
- first I'd heard that anybody had greater 65nm capability. Funny but I
thought nobody had any yet... outside a pilot plant. Given that AMD had a
relatively smooth transition to 90nm and Intel didn't quite do as well,
it's hard to figure how things'll play out next time.

 

[Robert Myers]

No hindsight at all. Google if you don't believe. Many of us here said
_at_the_time_ that Opteron was the Itanic killer. Evolution beats
revolution, once again.

I remember the exchanges very well, and I remember what the local AMD
chorus was saying. AMD took a gamble on very long odds, IMHO. The
fact that they were going to 64-bits didn't shorten those odds. They
had to change the instructions set, move the controller onto the die,
develop a new memory interface, and go to a new process. Not exactly
a conservative move.

The AMD chorus here wanted: AMD win, x86 win, 64-bits. That, not any
realistic assessment of AMD actually succeeding, was what everybody
was betting on. Well done for AMD and IBM that they could make it
happen, but far from a safe bet.

I would have bet on Intel too, if they didn't have the drag of their
marketeers trying to force Itanic down the market's throat. They did, and
AMD stepped in to give customers what they really wanted; to continue with
x86 yet another decade.

I don't think Intel's plans for Itanium had much of an effect on the
success or failure of the x86 offerings of AMD and Intel. As Felger
pointed out, the money went into Prescott. For the return Intel got
on that investment, Intel might almost as well have put that money
into a big pile and burned it (yes, that's an overstatement). The
advice that Intel _should_ have followed would have been to have
canned NetBurst long before they did. Netburst, not Itanium, is the
marketing strategy that gave AMD the opening.

How do you figure that physics won?

Physics 1 Netburst 0.

Go just as fast as you can without wasting cycles, but no faster.
Netburst broke that rule. It was painful the instant the P4 came out,
it got more painful as the scale shrank, and finally it became
unacceptable.

I don't believe this is so. Intel was forced to continue down the x86
path because AMD was forcing the issue. Intel wanted to dump x86 for
Itanic.

We'll just have to disagree about this.

Circuit designers, my ass. Marketeers lost/users won.

I think it's safe to say that Intel didn't plan on spending all that
money for a redesign with such a marginal improvement in performance.
Somebody scoped out performance targets that couldn't be hit. Maybe
they hired a program manager from the DoD.

...if there was no 64bit x86, you're likely right; there wouldn't be any
64bit x86 market. hmm... ;-)


"Almost no one?" Rubbish. It was absolutely required to move x86 off the
desktop, where Intel had no interest in it going.

Intel certainly wanted to contain x86. That's something we can agree
on. Intel's major vendor, Dell, would have done just fine hustling
ia32 server hardware if the performance had been there. The
performance just wasn't there.

RM

 

[keith]

I remember the exchanges very well, and I remember what the local AMD
chorus was saying. AMD took a gamble on very long odds, IMHO. The
fact that they were going to 64-bits didn't shorten those odds. They
had to change the instructions set, move the controller onto the die,
develop a new memory interface, and go to a new process. Not exactly
a conservative move.

GMAFB, they did *not* change the instructions set. It is still x86, and
*backwards* compatable, which is the key. They did move the controller
on-die (an obvious move, IMO), but certainly did *not* develope a new
memory interface (what *are* you smoking?). They also dod not go with a
new process. The started in 130nm which was fairly well known. I don't
see any huge "risks" here at all. The only risk I saw was that INtel
would pull the rug out with their own x86-64 architecture. But no, Intel
had no such intentions since that woul suck the life our of Itanic.
Instead they let AMD do the job.

The AMD chorus here wanted: AMD win, x86 win, 64-bits. That, not any
realistic assessment of AMD actually succeeding, was what everybody was
betting on. Well done for AMD and IBM that they could make it happen,
but far from a safe bet.

Nonsense. I was betting on the outcome, and unlike you, with real
greenies. ...and don't blame IBM for pulling it off. It was all AMD.
IBM is in business of making money, nothing more.

I don't think Intel's plans for Itanium had much of an effect on the
success or failure of the x86 offerings of AMD and Intel.

Bullshit! Intel wanted Itanic to be the end-all, and to let x86 starve to
death. AMD had other plans and anyone who had any clue of the history of
the business *should* have known that AMD would win. They won because
their customers won. Intel will make loads of money off AMD64, but they
don't like it.

As Felger pointed out, the money went into Prescott.

Felger and I have been knwon to disagree. Because he agrees with you this
time, he's now the authority? I see.

You're both wrong. The money went into Itanic! Then an ice-berg
happened. Prescott was what was left of the life-rafts. ...not pretty.

For the return Intel got on
that investment, Intel might almost as well have put that money into a
big pile and burned it (yes, that's an overstatement). The advice that
Intel _should_ have followed would have been to have canned NetBurst
long before they did. Netburst, not Itanium, is the marketing strategy
that gave AMD the opening.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! You and Intel have the same dark glasses on. Itanic
was the failure. "Netburst" was the lifeboat with the empty water
containers. It was too little and *way* too late.

Physics 1 Netburst 0.

You can repeat yourself into next week, but you're still wrong.

Go just as fast as you can without wasting cycles, but no faster.
Netburst broke that rule. It was painful the instant the P4 came out,
it got more painful as the scale shrank, and finally it became
unacceptable.

You really should study microarchitecture some more. What broke the P4
was sill marketeering. It was too big to fit the die given (by marketing)
so they tossed overboard some rather important widgets. The fact that
caused them to have to bring the silly crap to the market was the
failure of Itanic caused by, TA-DA, AMD64. P4 would never have seen the
light if Itanic didn't take a few well-placed (and self-inflicted)
icebergs.

We'll just have to disagree about this.

You can disagree all you want. It's in the history books now. Physics
had *nothing* to do with this battle (AMD and Intel both are constrained
by the same physics, BTW). It was all marketeering arrogance. INtel
simply won the arrogance battle, and lost the architecture war.

I think it's safe to say that Intel didn't plan on spending all that
money for a redesign with such a marginal improvement in performance.
Somebody scoped out performance targets that couldn't be hit. Maybe
they hired a program manager from the DoD.

Intel is a marketing driven company. They are responsible for this mess.
It had *NOTHING* to do with circuits (yeesh). I'm quite sure (without
first-hand evidence) Intel's curcuits are still superrior to AMD's.
Intel's helm _was_ "frozen" though.

Intel certainly wanted to contain x86.

"Contain" it in a casket, perhaps. Intel had no interest in having x86
survive. All the patents were either expired or were cross-licensed into
oblivion. Why do you think Intel and HP formed a seperate company as a
holder of Itanic IP?

That's something we can agree
on. Intel's major vendor, Dell, would have done just fine hustling ia32
server hardware if the performance had been there. The performance just
wasn't there.

Dell is simply Intel's box marketing arm. No invention there. Who cares?

 

[keith]

Have any favorites you'd like to pass along? I don't pay any
attention at all when such folks talk technical. Or rather, I tend to
listen for the marketing buzz they're trying to generate, realizing
full well that it has nothing to do with science or engineering.

My recent favorite gaffe would be the idiot at Credit Suisse First Boston
who downgraded AMD a couple of days before the stock jumped $5. or so. For
others, any of the guff they dish out at any IDF time fits the bill nicely.
Here's one:

"Multi-core processing will use up the growing transistor count
driven by Moore’s Law and allow Intel to maintain its ASPs as it integrates
additional capability such as communications, security and multimedia that
leverage its size advantage to reach for incremental growth above PC units,
and all at costs more competitive than what AMD can offer due to greater 65
nanometer/300mm capability," Goldman Sachs said in its report after the
first day of the conference.

ROTFPIMP! Intel's announced "multi-core" processor is an MCM, for
crying out loud! What a mess. The didn't learn their lesson from the P6?

Quite a mouthful! First I'd heard that Intel has "greater 65nm
cpability" - first I'd heard that anybody had greater 65nm capability.
Funny but I thought nobody had any yet... outside a pilot plant. Given
that AMD had a relatively smooth transition to 90nm and Intel didn't
quite do as well, it's hard to figure how things'll play out next time.

I'm not convinced that AMD's transisiton to 90nm was so smooth either, but...

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

I'm not sure that's true. Every document we send to our lawyers
has a "prepared for attorney" notice on it. I'm told that this
is *exactly* why it's there; attorney-client privilege.

Exactly! Attorney-client privilege is under some attack,
particularly for corporate attorneys who might be giving
business advice (non-privileged). So the powers-that-be
fight back with boilerplate & "thou shalt" commandments.

-- Robert

 

[keith]

Exactly! Attorney-client privilege is under some attack,
particularly for corporate attorneys who might be giving
business advice (non-privileged). So the powers-that-be
fight back with boilerplate & "thou shalt" commandments.

Maybe I misunderstand you incorrectly then, but this has been the case for
the 30+ years I've been there. Nothing has changed, well in this
departlment.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

Maybe I misunderstand you incorrectly then, but this
has been the case for the 30+ years I've been there.
Nothing has changed, well in this departlment.

Perhaps the misunderstanding is mine. I'm amazed that they
were that concerned 30 years ago. But perhaps your company
was big juicy target for the DoJ.

-- Robert