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Intel Giving Away Free Computers To Employees
Merlyn42 writes, "According to this article at Intel's Web site, Intel is giving Pentium III systems and lots of goodies, including free Internet access, to all its employees. Who else is going to follow this new trend started by Ford?" Don't know, but I wonder how many 'geek houses' we'll see comprised of five Intel employees living in a house with free systems. The cool thing is that the site says that they can use the systems for whatever they want.
Intel are getting really desperate aren't they? The things they'll do to keep their own employees from buying AMD based PC's... (yes, i'm being a bit sarcastic ;-))
Ford should have patented the "process" of giving away computer to employees, to protect their intellectual investment. Then they could license the process to companies like Intel who want to increase their productivity too.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
I'd be happy to test a couple of there PIII 1ghz computers, if I got the thing free in the end. Hell, I'd just need the proccesor, my motherboard supports up to a P3 1024ghz if I put a clock doubler on it
Can we say Northwest?
Can we say 'big brother inside'?
Can we say 'trojan horse'?
There's no way I'd accept a company computer in my house. If they can try to search personal, non company donated computers, imagine the rights you give up by placing a company gift computer in your abode??
Besides, I like my Athlon. It has no product serial number
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I'd like to see all the major computer companies do this. After all, the computer portion of it is cheap. It's only when the employee says "You expect me to work at home, so you must fix my problems..." that it actually has some cost to it.
I work at AMD and our cubicals are $1500/month/employee. Computers are nothing by comparison.
Josh
Plenty of projects, not enough developers...
The Republican party headquaters, Republican National Committee, has been providing all its employees with free internet access for a while now.
Complete with AMD processors?
I guess the idea is to get folks to waste time on the internet when they're at home rather than at work.
Or maybe I'm talking out my ass again...
Call me paranoid, but I can't but think that Intel would like to keep tabs on what their employees use their machines for. Since they are Pentium III's maybe they'll ensure that the chip ID number (which had everyone annoyed when it first came out) locked on. Hopefully not, but you can only trust a multinational as far as you can throw it.
Discounting philanthropic reasons, why would an employer do this?
Some suggestions:
--cjb
-- veni vidi nuclei deceri --- I came, I saw, I dumped core.
Where my wife works, they've had a rebate program for several years - the company kicked in some money (a couple of thousand at one point) towards your purchase of a new computer, as an interest free loan. Several of the smaller companies I've come into contact with have had similar programs.
Unfortunately, it appears that as companies grow, benefits like this start disappearing... We'll probably be buying a new Mac G4 under the program at my wife's company soon, as their HR department has started grumblings about doing away with the program.
This is part of what confuses me: it almost universally seems that HR ends up being the department that "champions" cutting the really interesting, set-your-company-apart-from-the-crowd type of benefits... and that only seems to happen when the company reaches some critical mass (200+ people).
Now, it looks as if at some other breakpoint - when you reach the size of GM, or Intel - something else happens internally. I would be really interested to know who lobbied for these initiatives, why they did so, and how they convinced the executives/board/whoever that it was actually in the company's best interest to actually add a benefit instead of "restructuring" one or taking one away.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
I was under the impression that intel was way behind on production of the PIII's and that was a major cause in many retailers raising prices and running out. Won't this lower the number of processors available to paying customers even more? This may increase employee loyalty, but what about all of those customers that are becoming frustrated at the high prices and out of stock responses?
By the way, this is only something I was told by egghead.com...I have nothing to back this up but I thought I'd let you know. - Apparently Intel was/is? behind 15,000 pieces in their PIII line. - Again, I have no proof to back this up, only what I was told by egghead, so please correct me if it's wrong!!
Will they come with Windoze or Linux?
And why anyways ? To encourage people to keep working there?
Maybe they should save their money for doing more testing before they release second rate processors with lots of errors.
--
My company only gives PC's away to people with pointy hair... (So far, none of them have fallen for the etch-a-sketch trick, either.)
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
Here's the employee bulliten:
- ---------------------- - ----------------------
INTEL EMPLOYEES WORLDWIDE TO RECEIVE PCs WITH INTERNET ACCESS FOR HOME USE
-----------------------------------------------
Published by Worldwide Employee Communications
March 7, 2000
-----------------------------------------------
Intel is announcing the Intel® Home PC Program, an exciting and ongoing new
benefit designed to provide every Intel employee worldwide with a high
performance PC package and Internet access for personal use at home. Home
delivery of PCs will begin in the third quarter of 2000.
Detailed information about this new benefit is available on Circuit on the
Intel intranet at >
Sponsored by Human Resources and Information Technology, the Home PC Program
will help employees, Intel retirees and their families to participate fully
in the information revolution and take advantage of the education and
e-Commerce opportunities offered by the Internet.
HR and IT project teams are working to make this program a positive
experience for employees and families around the world and will release
additional details about the program as negotiations with vendors and
suppliers proceed.
Blue-badge full-time and part-time Intel employees will be eligible if they
are on the payroll as of a particular date in Q3 that will be selected and
announced later. Intel retirees also will participate. They will receive a
performance segment personal computer with a Pentium® III processor, and
unlimited Internet access. In addition, the offer will include a printer,
Intel® Create & Share(tm) Camera Pack, keyboard, mouse, monitor, graphics
adapter, unlimited use of Internet service, software, tech support and the
choice of one Intel® Play(tm) PC-enhanced toy.
Intel will offer the PC package and Internet access to employees at no
charge to them. Because it is a new kind of benefit, the tax treatment has
not been determined. Intel believes this should not be a taxable item for
employees. In the event government agencies say otherwise, Intel will pay a
portion of taxes through a benefit available to employees who require it.
Intel is requesting proposals from potential suppliers of hardware and
software and from potential vendors of Internet access.
Intel gets to tax deduct the cost of the PCs as a business expense (probably leased?), whereas employees would have to use precious aftertax $$$. Thus it would literally cost employees twice as much to buy the same PCs. This is a nice way of getting wealth into the hands of workers without getting raped by the IRS.
Remember kids, employer-paid health insurance started as a way of getting around FDR's WWII wage and price controls. Hopefully we won't wind up with the same screwed up political consequences with employer-paid PCs, tho the "Digital Divide" propaganda is disconcerting.
Sure would be a lot easier if Big Brother didn't confiscate 4-6 months per year of our labor in the first place, then we could buy our own toys with our own money.
"The base product and service offering will be provided to employees at no charge, but is not tax protected."
You still have to pay the government for the computer, as it is considered part of your salary.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
I think that Intel should give away Linux and FreeBSD systems rather than Windows systems, but that is my personal predjudice. BeOS would be another good option and it would help BeOS get some much needed extra attention.
The big issue is what gets done with the number; for that you'll need to blame Microsoft, if for some reason you're running their operating systems instead of Linux or *BSD (yeah, I am on most of my machines
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Do the PCs belong to the employees, or to Intel? If Intel still owns the PCs, in the event of a dispute between the employee and Intel, Intel can repossess the PC and look at what the employee has been doing on it (on the grounds that the computer is Intel property).
AFIK Statoil (Norway's state oil company) gave away a free pc + internet to every employee (about 15000) 2-3 years ago hehe..
Ford may be the first in the US but there is a world outside US as well =)
Unless the employer is prohibited from accessing my data, I would be very leary of puting anything of value on the machine. It's still use it for surfing.
Fight Spammers!
Hey... I think it is great that Intel is trying to make its workforce computer-literate. Makes sense!
Hey, let's just hope that they don't end up having to confiscate their employees' PERSONAL computers (to look for incriminating whatever) in the manner of the fascists at NorthWest Airlines.
Check out the NW flight attendants website. Slashdot ran a story about this a while back as well.
http://www.nwaflightattendants.com/
This is quite common actually, I think the only big deal is that Intel have quite a few more employees then DBC. But eg. Nokia here in copenhagen do the same, although I'm not quite sure if this goes for all employees.
funny thing thing is, almost every home in .dk has a pc, yet companies in .dk have done this for a long time, even teachers are getting pc's these days. Must be a socialist thing.
/dev/eskil ---
While Travoltus brings up some of the recent (and imagined, yet possible) events, the gift of a free P3 would be useful to some of the lower-paid staff, like mailroom folks and secretaries who can't quite afford to shell out the ducats for a new system for the family. The Northwest case where the home computers were searched for information was not due to it being Northwest's system, but because a court said so. If Intel gives away the system, it's now the new employees' system, not the companys'. Of course, that can be modified with a fine-print contract-document that Intel may require, I guess that it will be interesting to find out just what has to be done to get a free system.
The P3 tracking number is just one of many. Look at the keys hidden in M$ products, like Office. If I were to use one of these systems, I would make sure the first thing installed after the op system would be a strong-encryption system, from email right down to whole disk scrambling. Luckily for us (so far), the US does not have a law like the one being rammed through the Parliament in the United Kingdom, where even if you forgot the decryption key, you'd go to jail. I wonder which imbecile in Congress will revamp the idea and try to get it passed in the US.
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
- Doctor Who
Free PC with built-in hardware ID number (no, that hasn't gone away just because people aren't pissed off about it any more) plus free Internet access. Wow, sounds like the perfect scenario for realworld testing of meterware (pay-per-use software) which was the whole point of the ID number anyways.
Oh, and BTW, meterware is unbeatable. It is the only method that I've ever been able to imagine that is unbreakable (unless you go to court and claim it wasn't you using the system). Picture this: You're going to run Word2k (it would surprise you that an Intel employee was using Windows? Wintel remember) and Word2k needs to call a function SlowDown(). Dynamic linking checks and finds out where SlowDown() is. Oh, it's a COM object on the microsoft.com server. Connect to microsoft.com and send the parameters or whatever and then get the result... if that SlowDown() function is system-critical, this method is foolproof barring someone stealing the DLL or whatever from microsoft.com's server, hacking the program to use it locally, etc.
So, besides getting the net access and PC, they happen to get any up-and-coming software pre-installed?
Esperandi
No, Slashdot paranoids, they ain't doing it so that they can trojan a telescreen into your house. They're doing it because they want their partners to be able to sell you stuff through their exclusive portals.
I am sure that the is a catch. Either they will wind up doing work while at home, or it is so that they are totally accessible to the company. Sure it will increase productivity, but I am betting that some of these companies get burned. Especially if they are good computers. If they are all in one systems that only have 1 expansion slot then they are fine but if they have each piece separate, what is to stop an employee from buying a new motherboard and processor (AMD) and selling the old one (Intel)? I would do it.
If you want my respect, give it first...
If you don't want my respect, expect mine before you give it.
Ten bucks says that they're giving away computer with the bugged/faulty/messed up processors... or ones in the Alpha Stage. Heh._
___________________________________________
___
I'm an exhibit on the mounted animal nature trail.
Andover needs to encourage Slashdot readership by giving away free computers and Internet access to all registered non-anonymous users ... (and give extra processor capability to those that will post compliments in response to Katz articles)
If Intel says they can be used for anything... I say beowulf them all! We can show that the Top 500 (See #44) can be beaten! Hell, I'm trying to build one myself.
Time 3:35 PM Friday afternoon.
Place Managers Office.
Manager: Mr. Johnson, I was to have done this report two weeks ago but it slipped me and now I have a priority 1 assignment to take care of in our Caribbean branch ( carnival on the beach ).
Johnson: Ohhhu.
Manager: I need for you to complete it for me.
Johnson: I'll get on it 1st thing monday morning.
Manager: That's when my boss is expecting it.
Johnson: Well I can't come in this weekend. It's our anniversary and Cindy ( his wife ) even sent the kids to grandma.
Manager: Ohh you will be able to find some time to look at it between your celebrations. Congratulations. By the way, how long has it been now?
Johnson: 7 years, but I won't be...
Manager: Good. See you on Monday.
Johnson: But the kids have the computer. They want to surf the net and stuff.
Manager: WHAT? Do you think that's why we gave it to you ? Here, I'll give you a little bonus to cover the gas so you can go get it...
/Johnson** (Breaks out in tears and collapses on the flour.)
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Comment #30 says it counts as income and the employee has to pay taxes on it, so I reckon it belongs to the employee from then on.
--
Infuriate left and right
And Intel is probably going to record the digital serial numbers of the Pentium III PCs they give to employees, and maybe keep track of their employees habits....? Don't know it could happen. Yeah I know employees can disable it, but relying on the laziness factor, most won't.
My mom has gotten a free state of the art(for the time anyway :-)) computer from her work (Nortel) 3 years ago. It was a P200 MMX with 64MB RAM and a 5 gig HD. Nortel just didn't show off like Ford and now Intel. Although I only use it as a Firewall now, it was a nice upgrade from the 386 we had before it...
Hmmm...just a thought. You ever wonder what happens to leftover chips when Intel takes them off the market? Sorta reminds me of how a store I worked for gave all the three-day old food to the homeless guys out back, and got on TV this one time for their generous "charitable" work. Food probably gave those bums the runs anyway. Sharkey
Badassmofo.com
Notice that Intel is rolling out Pentium III class machines, and that "Pentium III" is all over the press release. I'd imagine that the real reason behind this PC rollout is to up the ante for other employer PC programs to give out high performance systems to employees instead of the low-end systems they've been giving out so far. What if the employee-PC becomes a requisite perk of employment at any job? It could happen. At the current rate, the free PC you'd receive would be a budget model, most likely sporting an AMD chip, or at least a low-margin Intel chip. All of a sudden, shipments of higher end Intel chips to end users would take a huge dive... It's in Intel's best interest to set the status quo for employee PC programs at the high-end level, to ensure a continued revenue stream in the high end processor market.
Um...Whats the big deal here? The chemical plant I work for, after I upgrade PC's, with my boss's permission I build usable PC's and give them to the employee's at work. They all have modems and the company has several dialups that we no longer use but still pay for. The workers are free to use the dialups and they have PC's. Now they aren't the best in the world, along the lines of 486 PCI's or P133's but hey, whats the big deal with Intel or Ford doing it, I bet lots of other companies have been doing the same thing I have been doing at mine.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
This is exactly why the one-liner shitheads and he flooders are taking over: Slashdot is increasingly not worth treasuring . . . Why wasn't there a flooder problem a year ago? Think about it.
It has been said that "Those who can't do, teach".
Likewise, "Those who don't know, hire".
This truth has cursed me for 2+ years now. Grrrrr...
if you've got a network card you've got a mac, yeah, can be fiddled with, but so can the p3 id, tho the p3 id is fiddleable both ways
A lot of workers - even at "high tech" companies - are computer illiterate. Since this promotion appeals to the crowd least likely to have an up-to-date computer (and most likely to be lacking in computer skills), this is a good way to avoid a lot of internal support calls that begin with "my keyboard doesn't have an 'any' key".
Given some of the creepy intel practices as seen on Face Intel I'd be really nervous about using it for much of anything -- they're already known to break into visitor cars and hire private investigators.
Considering the types of people who work at Intel (presumably a lot of computer nerds) I'm betting that many already have pretty decent computers at home. I know three or four people who work at Intel in Oregon, all are Computer Science graduates, and all have nearly new (purchased within 12-18 months) computers. Sure some won't already have their own machines, but I'm betting a larger percentage of Intel employees already have computers than, say, Ford employees.
:)
Maybe Intel should have given all their employees cars instead.
This comment was about as insightful as white trash commenting on how hot it is.
Call me naive and overly optimistic, but to somewhat respond to all the paranoia I have seen flying around on this subject, why does anyone think Intel even WANTS to track it's employees. Yes, I know all the corporate PR on this subject (I DO work for a multinational, and yes, only trust them as far as I can throw them), but to understand big mean megacorp (TM) you must think like it's executives:
This is the Infrmation Age (Or at least thats what my marketing people tell me)
My Children have a computer (Assuming the exec has children, this is just an example)
They have internet access
They are more productive on class assignments because they have internet access (Remember, a good fast connection and cable preclude actually having to PARENT your children)
So, maybe if I give my employees computers and internet access, they will be more productive on take-home assignments and therefore make me more money so I can buy that second fleet of yachts.
I want to know why everybody seems to think that this is the opening salvo in more Big Brother tactics from Corporations? The Tactics of Northwest aside (one company among THOUSANDS), what the employees do at home is thier buisiness, and the corporations, in thier pursuit of the almighty bottom line, are not going to pour the money into survaillence of every customer without expecting a great return, and there is just no return there. Now, if it were the Government giving out these PC's, I would worry......
You say you want a revolution....
Never assume that HR's job is to help out the employees. In all large companies and many small companies, HR is your enemy. It is their job to make sure that nobody gets paid "too much." Their job to make sure that the cost of benefits programs is minimized. Their job to keep the employees from getting too large a piece of the pie of the company's revenues.
They are not there to help you resolve disputes with your boss and/or co-workers. In many large companies, HR will report the contents of any conversation you have with them right back to your manager, especially if it gives the company some kind of leverage over you.
This kind of BS doesn't fly in a startup or small company, but once they get big and faceless, it becomes HR's job to keep the employees down.
It is this simplistic kind of attitude that makes switching employers the only way to appreciably increase your salary. HR is short-sighted, no doubt about it.
My last experience with a corporate HR group was when I "volunteered" to take a position within the company doing some crap work for a lot of money, effectively $100/hr. They completely vetoed it even though the manager was desperate for someone and they still would have made a decent profit.
Well, I went independent and billed $135/hr for pretty much the same stuff and the company lost money on the deal, but they were contractually obligated to provide the service and I was the only game in town (or actually in the whole country).
HR is not your friend, but that doesn't mean you have to take it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The hard drive serial number cannot be picked up by someone on the internet. Your computer cannot automatically transmit that number to anyone.
The Intel Pentium III PSN was built in with the express purpose of being transmittable online. Any ol' website could pick it up.
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
This also brings in the cost of internet access (and speed).
What about support? Will the employee expect MIS support at home? When the kid trash the system, what happens?
Some people don't want a computer at home, others would want it.
This could be considered an educational expense, or be a reason for divorce.
Fight Spammers!
I think Intel loved Ford for giving away however many thousand PC's. Intel probably made some profit off every one of them, being that they probably had a hand in the making of the cpu, the motherboard, possibly the E-net, etc.
Having one company do this is great, but not nearly as nice to the bottom line as if ALL companies were doing this.
Most importantly, Ford came up with the idea.
Now, Intel giving away PC's is probably not very expensive for Intel, since the most expensive components in said PC are made by Intel. (Yes, I know they're outsourceing them, but I'm sure they can cut a deal.) When Ford, AND Intel are giving away PC's it makes other companies start to look bad for not doing it as well. Now everybody starts jumping on the bandwagon, and all (ok, ok, a whole bunch) companies start offering this as a basic benefit like a 401k, etc, and Intel starts seriously cashing in.
Does this make sense to anyone else?
Whoa, man. You need a life. That's not even funny.
Oh, don't get me wrong - it was hilarious months ago on Segfault (I bet you're just a newbie and don't know what the whole petrified thing is about) and such, and it was even funny for a little while here, but when the wannabes came - like the grits guy, the monkey guy, and many others - it got old.
Dumb now. No more good material.
I dunno, as an intel employee, I'm pretty excited to get a free box to crack more rc5 keys with. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but I'm certianly not turning it down on some paranoid notion that Intel will have some secret deal with whatever OEM provides the box to get my serial number. Especially since I'll just disable it's transmission in my bios (I doubt the oem will write a special bios that won't allow me to turn it off). And, yes, the employees will own their machine and intel won't have any more right to look at it's contents than the do with the machines I have now.
:). The cool thing is that in the internal faq, it says that there's a possibility that the internet access won't necessairally be dialup. They may have cable/dsl/isdn options or something... they're not sure yet. Also, you get that (kinda) neat microscope that hooks up to your (windows) box. I saw it at the store and thought, "hrmmm... that might be fun to play with".
However, I'm not one of the people that will benifit the most. Of the 70,000+ employees and reitrees Intel has, many of them work at fabs in countries where computers are much less prevalent. They say they're trying to find an internet access option for all the employees too. I think that's pretty cool.
Actually, working extra hours (at home or at work) is supposedly forbidden by intel's pollicies (yeah, that really works
The cool thing is that the site says that they can use the systems for whatever they want.
Well, fitted with the latest i820 motherboards they'll make great (if somewhat bulky) doorstops I suppose...
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Does anyone remember that Dilbert comic a few months back in which Dilbert was requesting a workstation upgrade to increase productivity and do his job? He was then asked to quantify in dollars the propsed increase in revenue for said upgrade. He said he couldn't quantify it or his chair either! =>They took his chair. My company is no different and very faceless. This is how things are most places. --
From the writing.on.the.wall.dept. here's why I bought AMD:
(snipped from HNN)
S2105 Would make it a crime to tamper with
identification codes put in place by manufacturers. Disabling or changing such codes would be a crime. So changing a MAC address or disabling the PIII ID code would now be a crime.
http://cryptome.org/s2105.txt
Yep, as an intel employee, i must admit that we have weekly big brother meetings, where we discuss evil uses for our processor key data. Particularly, we like to target hyper-paranoid freaks for our evil social experiments. Intel, like any other company, or for that matter, cross section of society, has it's fair share of mental midgets, who occasionally mistakenly sift to positions of influence, where they make all kinds of stupid decisions. Like enable a processor key that would tell a cheesy intel website that a p3 is querying it, and to send an extra stupid animated gif to appease the requesting imbicil. All in an effort to draw the business of other easily appeased imbicils. In short, you idiots that think Intel is with the New World Order are wasting bits.
which would you rather have powering the flight system on your 747? an Intel 1GHz chip, or an AMD one? :)
Intel's motives, I suspect, are not entirely altruistic. Ford's weren't either, but they were a lot closer. They wanted their workers to be more computer literate to be more efficient, and in the process allow them to acquire skills that many of them don't have the ability to practice otherwise. In that sense they are really doing their employees a favor, considering that probably 3/4 of them are working class, blue collar, high school graduates who probably wouldn't have a chance to learn basic computer skills otherwise. Intel, on the other hand, is using this as a ploy, an overpublicized signing bonus intended to steal away scarce tech workers from other firms. It's not a bad thing, but come on - how many people working at Intel don't already have a Pentium 3 or something else, and how many of those don't know how to use it? You're getting into fractions of a percent here. I'm not knocking the program, but you should try to avoid piling on the felicitations - I think Intel's motives are a lot more transparent that Ford's were.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
The first thing that's going to happen to a lot of these systems is they're going to be booted from a Linux CD and have Windows wiped :^) Unfortunatly a lot won't :^(
I've actually been thinking of this for several years, as I think it's important that every employee "know thy product". I agree that all companies should provide their employees with the product they make, so everyone can use and be familiar with it.
Whenever I manage to get my company started, officially, I plan to do the same, but do it with the autonomous, self-contained houses we plan to build. :-)
You can find info about those houses at the above URL.
Patrick Salsbury
I got this form somebody that works at Intel. At the time the program is launched, a standard configuration will consist of a performance PC with a Pentium® III processor 677 MHz, 128 MB RD RAM, 20 GB hard drive, 48X CD-ROM, floppy drive, Intel® Create & Share? camera pack, USB speakers and soundcard, graphics adapter, modem, keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer, and software. Each employee also will receive an Intel®Play? computer-enhanced toy. And each employee will receive Internet access. Guess they need to do something with all those extra i820's and RDRAM..........
LAMBERTVILLE, MICH (AP) - On early thursday morning, McDonalds, Subway and BurgerKing all announced simulateneously that they will be giving their employees a $3,000 voucher to purchase a system.
Employees there were rather pissed off. One employee, who wants to remain anonymous states, "Fscking McDonalds. We already have enough fscking computers at fscking McDonalds. You think they would _TRY_ to improve the quality of their hamburgers before wasting $3,000 on every god damned fscking employee in this joint. HELL, THEY ARE ALL TOO STUPID TO EVEN KNOW HOW TO USE A COMPUTER." Upon hearing this, the store manager at Lambertville, Michigan, sedated his employee and submitted him to the ELECTRO-SHOCK THERAPY room.
Disclaimer: No, I am not a Microsoftie.
Disclaimer2: I was stupid enough to date a few of them.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
Intel spends BIG money every year trying to increase the demand for microprocessors. Intel's motive in giving free computers to employees is to help make this a standard benefit in corperations, thereby increasing the demand for microprocessors. The fact that their employees benfit and they get a warm-n'-fuzzy press release is just icing on the cake...
The intel i820 chipset was all but abandoned due to technical issues. Intel has loads of motherboards that are gathering dust. The best way to diminish the loss with these boards was to supply them to the employees. A great tax write off and think of all the publicity.
Chipzilla has lost the megahertz race so now they have to shoot for the PR.
frizzo
Yup.
OK, I had to tell someone - basically I was ordering some capture cards from pcstop.com, and inquiring about stock and found out that Intel hasn't shipped any PIIIs to pcstop.com in a *month*. Supposedly pcstop.com has 1.5 billion in stocked merchandise, so I don't think they are a small player. Has anyone else heard similar tales?
Werd
GhettoFantastic
A witty saying proves nothing. -Voltaire
This is pretty stupid. The only reason I could see to do this is to dodge taxes, but since the employees pay tax, that doesn't work.
See, the idea is that people get paid money to do work. Free computers are nice and all, but the equivalent amount of money, which gives the employee an opportunity to buy a computer, is much nicer, since that involves choice.
Not everyone needs a new computer. Undoubtedly, many Intel employees have computers. It is safe to say that they paid money for them. If they need a Pentium III at home (and I'm not saying they don't), why can't they pay some amount of money for that instead (preferably discounted and/or tax-free)?
Is Intel going to start distributing home food rations to their employees? After all, everyone needs food, and that way employees wouldn't have to pay for food out of their own pocket.
On the other hand, "Intel Giving $750 Bonus To Employees" wouldn't make for a very interesting Slashdot story, would it?
Plplplplplplpl.
...RadioShack doesn't try this whole free computer thing. If I got a free Compaque, I'd think, "Hey. I didn't spend any money on this Compaq." Which would lead to, "I didn't wate the money for this computer." And then I'd think, "hey. I've got that 20 lb. sledge hammer in the garage that I've been itching to use." Of course, I'd probably end up keeping the monitor.
"We're delighted to offer employees and their families the ability to take advantage of the education and e-Commerce opportunities on the Internet," said Patty Murray, Intel vice president and director, human resources.
E-commerce and education...? we all know they're going to be playing q2 and looking at porn.
These machines will be delivered from the OEM (Like Dell, IBM, or Compaq). So if Intel is gonna spy on their employees, it's gonna be a big conspiracy!
Anyways, a LARGE number of Intel people will reformat and install Linux anyway........
Which company's employees made Alessandro's book a bestseller? You get three guesses and the first two don't count.
If they were, they would be giving away automobiles, not computers.
Ever heard of Oracle Corp?
Doubleclick?
Unlike you, state legislators and Congress are taking corporate privacy invastion seriously, and are taking action. See: New York.
Yes. You are clueless. Yes. Corporations are playing fast and loose with people's privacy. Yes. Check that Trojan horse before you let it in the courtyard. YES. Read that contractual agreement before you go sign up for that company donated PC.
Give it up, dude, you aren't gonna win because you don't have the intelligence for this.
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
ISP's don't keep email that you've downloaded and deleted off the server. Especially not POP3 types. I only use POP3 type servers, and I delete anything I get on hotmail. Neither IMAP nor POP3 will keep sent email. I challenge you to show me a pop3 server that keeps email you've deleted. Not a chance.
I understand that the university I attend has bids out for a pile of notebooks. One for each student. There are about 2500-3000 currently enrolled. I have heard of other schools doing this too. What do you think are some of the Pros/cons of this?
Sig Return: 204 No Content
Wow, I enjoy /. as much as the next guy, but you guys need to get out more. As an employee of Intel, it's highly amusing to read all the "real" reasons Intel is giving away PC's. Just to clairify a few points. 1) there will be support, no it probably won't be shipping w/Linux. those of us who run Linux, or my personal preference FreeBSD, (gods' OS of choice; flame on! :) will be free to do so. 2) it will be "ours" not "loaned". I'll no doubt use mine to pour grits down my pants or whatever the trendy blather on /. at the time is. 3) it will come with some ISP, printer, video conference device, and can be customized as long as the employee pays the difference... We don't know the details yet. I doubt however that we'll be able to upgrade to a "real" processor such as the Athlon, but I'm sure we'll see 50 messages chuckling about that.. :)It will be a PIII, and sadly not a Willamette, If you want to talk about a screaming CPU look no further, unless you post on /., and then you'll no doubt dis it, cuz we're all cool here.. Now, as to some of the assumptions... - Why? uh, maybe it's a tight job market, and we want to attract and retain good employees? Maybe not everyone of the 70K who work there are high grade engineers who have millions in options to burn freely, and something like a $2500 system is really appreciated?!? Maybe we force all other high tech firms to do this, and we sell more product! Oh, how evil! Maybe Andy & Craig have installed secret SW to monitor and track what porn all the employees download, and track those who read alt.sex.hamster.love? I'm sure they and the rest of Intel "management" have nothing better to do than monitor their employees 24x7. I always wondered who trained that racoon to knock over my trash can on Tuesdays and eat the foodstuffs, thanks to /., now I know, Intel's secret police... Here's a clue. what we do outside of work is our own thing. another thing. Intel's a high tech company, like the other thousands out there. Some of the people who work there are great, some aren't. Some are great managers, some suck. Some of the benefits are super, some of the rules aren't fun. I've worked in many high tech firms, before coming to Intel 3 years ago. I'm actually having a blast. Yes we work hard, no it doesn't mean we're always working 60 or 70 hour weeks. Unlike everyone who posts at /., we sometimes get behind schedule, and have to put in some serious time at the end of the project. I've never had to do that any other place I've done SW development... yea. Someday I'm hoping we get to CMM level 5, so all our projects will be scheduled down to the day... please do keep up the posts, they really are quite fun. thanks!
http://www.thebee.com/bweb/iinfo141.htm
"Similarly, when I make a purchase on the Web, I want that merchant to know exactly who I am. And when I log on to my school's servers from home, I think my employer has the right to know that it's Professor Gogan logging on-not some hacker.
That's why I see Intel's serial number proposal as sensible. Privacy is not one-dimensional, and balancing privacy with commerce and free speech is not simple."
Even this pro-Intel guy says the Intel product serial number can be tracked on the web.
http://www.zeroknowledge.com/p3/home.asp
http://www.news.com/News/Items/0,4,33402,00.htm
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-339247.htm
"Designed to provide an extra layer of security for e-commerce transactions and aid information technology managers trying to track computers, the serial code could also be used by marketers and those with nefarious intentions to track users based on their Web behavior, privacy groups argue."
I'll be looking forward to your retraction, thank you.
The very INTENT of Intel's use of the product serial number, by their own admission, was that it would facilitate e-commerce. This means they intended for it to be trackable on the web. Here are some more-credible-than-you points of view on this: Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography, wrote: The software that queries the processor is not trusted. If a remote Web site queries a processor ID, it has no way of knowing whether the number it gets back is a real ID or a forged ID. Likewise, if a piece of software queries its processor's ID, it has no way of knowing whether the number it gets back is the real ID or whether a patch in the operating system trapped the call and responded with a fake ID. Because Intel didn't bother creating a secure way to query the ID, it will be easy to break the security. From Austin Hill, President, Zero-Knowledge Systems: I hear claims that it will wipe out computer theft. But if someone turns that identifier off because they want privacy, are all of our customers going to be assumed to be criminals? By the way, Thomas Pabst of Tom's Hardware also said the same thing: The idea behind this identification number, which will only be implemented into Pentium III and later Intel CPUs, is to ensure the "trusted connected computer". The identification number, coded with the random number, is supposed to improve Internet security, which is of highest importance for any kind of e-commerce. With this new number, your CPU and thus your system can be clearly identified, which may be an easy way of fighting fraud over the Internet. The negative thing about this number is the fact that it endangers your privacy on the Internet, with the system identification you can possibly be tracked, whatever you do on the Internet. This is why the transfer of the CPU serial number can be turned off by you, and since security reasons kept Intel from implementing a command that can turn it back on again, you need to reboot your system to access e-commerce websites that require your identification number. BTW: netscape and MSIE, in windows, can be tricked into reporting the PSN. Especially MSIE. Now that you have all these facts arrayed against you, I'll be expecting your acknowledgement that you're wrong. I could deluge you in more proof, if you wish to argue your ignorant point.
With the problems they've been having meeting demand and with yields on high frequency chips, maybe they could substitute Athlon 800's for the PIII's.
;-)
At least they'd be sure to have enough free PC's to go around
hhmmm I bet they will not have a problem with shipping :/ unlike the rest of us.
If you were building The Matrix: NT or Unix? (I thought so :)
Winner of my own personal ".sig of the week" competition :) Nice one...
Regards,
Denny
# Using Linux in the UK? Check out Linux UK
Police State UK - news and
If one of their employees used this system to hack a site, would Intel be liable for damages? Hmmm... (insert slow goatee massage)
Hmm, computer manufacturers give out free PCs. What if it spreads? I'd hate to be working at a nuclear power plant or sewage farm.
Here, take this Strontium 90 home for the kids.
Heh heh.
an Athalon?
I can just see a bunch of intel execs mulling around their offices saying "Sweet Jesus, they all traded in their free systems for AMDs. What the hell are we going to do now?"
Poor guys.
An intel employee opens up his shiney new box to find:
"My god! It's full of duct tape!"
Scooby just announced support for AMD. Any future AMD purchace is Scooby sanctioned now. All hail Scooby! OK, now. Back to negociations with Apple about making a Scooby flavored iMac...
Trolling for Scooby doo!
Personally it appears to me that this could be a huge issue when it comes to possible intellectual property rights. Say you've spent several months developing a utility or game and all the sudden you're the next ICQ. In swoops Intel, Ford, etc.. claiming that you've developed this on their equipment and the resultant product is there.
A far more likely situation is Intel is sued by an employee or outside agency. They determine that the personal e-mail of a particular employee would be usefull. They then waltz in, claim you wrote the e-mail on their computer, and take whatever they like.
Anyone have a copy of the agreement Intel or Ford has their employees sign before getting these computers? If there is no agreement then the recipients are leaving themselves very open to interpretation of some implied agreement in court.
-E.J. Wilburn
This sig is worse than my last.
We are a software branch of a large conglomerate.
No strings attached, but hope that employees
would work more in their spare time from home,
try new technologies, and do personal computing
at home rather than in the office.
We get a new upgrade every 2-3 years.
This year 600 MhZ, 256 MB, DVD-multmedia.
No, that wasn't what happened at all.
Northwest was suing individuals believed to have coordinated an illegal work action (sick-in). They obtained a warrant to check for material of their opponents in the suit.
Furthermore, Northwest was not allowed to look at the computers. An independent accounting firm was brought in to find the material covered, and turn over nothing else.
That makes an excellent poll question:
:)!!
What would you do with a free computer from Intel?
Definately the doorstop