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Intel Attempts to Ban VIA Imports
aibrahim writes "CNET's News.com is reporting Intel's attempt to ban VIA chips and chipsets from U.S. import. This does not yet include, but may be extended to, VIA's Joshua processor.
The ban seems to be based on the violation of intellectual property agreements related to Intel's 'P6 bus.' " For more details on this case, read about their long-running legal battle.
For ages they've just had terrible designs of their chips. You can actually write software replacements for many of their opcodes that exactly duplicate the function of an opcode but run faster.
I remember that on the original Pentium, it was faster to implement a bit scan (first bit set from one edge) with shifts and masks than to use the BSR or BSL opcodes. Not in some clever way either, but just a standard binary search. This elementary problem could be done by a bright second year engineering student to work in one or two cycles with maybe a hundred gates.
There's just no excuse for that. It's not hard to to implement an opcode so that it just runs a sequence of other opcodes, and it wouldn't have taken much surface at all to be able to bitscan in one cycle.
Say what you like about the quality of Intel products, but their attitude is appalling. They signed a deal with VIA to deflect the monopoly investigation they were under, and then they got pissed off because VIA made a better chipset.
This basically says that Intel wants a monopoly on chipsets. If this injunction is granted, then they will have succeeded in their aims. I think that the Federal Trade Commission should be called in to reinvestigate Intel _because_ of their behaviour towards competitors.
It is fair to be competitive, but not to be monopolistic, and then cover that up by licensing their chipset to a competitor so they can say, "look, we are good boys, we allow comptetition" and then rescind the license a few months later when they aren't being investigated.
Luckily this won't affect the AMD chipsets, so expect to see even more choice in Athlon chipsets soon.
I don't like bully-boy corporations. Lack of competition means less innovation in the market. Intel has a huge share of the chipset and motherboard market as it is.
I doubt that the companies using VIA chipsets (Compaq et al) will be too happy. Expect them to react and go 100% Athlon if this attempt to ban VIA works. If they cave into Intel and switch to Intel chipsets then I have no respect for them! :-)
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You know, they used to be much more subtle in their maneuvering, basically when the competition was so inept that they couldn't find their own asses. Now that AMD finally has a winner (Athlon) and they're getting better than expected earnings (high expected was ~26 cents/share, turns out to be more like 46) Intel's starting to get desperate.
Despite the spread of the Athlon, VIA's bread and butter in the PC industry is still the P6/PPro/P2/Celeron/whatever it's called this week market. Intel is trying to strangle all the competitors out of this market - witness the copyrighted P6 bus preventing competitors from breaking into Intel's market...
InThane
Slashdot poster 'kinesis' has said he will no longer allow the import of any Intel products into his apartment and that he will sue any and all parties necessary to enforce the import ban.
In a prepared statement, kinesis said, "Those guys suck!"
An approximately 960 square foot area of Northern California is affected by the ban.