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Upside interviews Jerry Sanders of AMD

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stuff-to-read dept.

An Anonymous reader writes "Titled The Last Man Standing, this Upside interview offered an inside view of the bloody war between the two CPU makers from Sanders' point of view. He also talks about upcoming Hammer, flash memory, Transmeta and telecomm bubbles. Somehow I get a feeling that both companies are living under the heavy cloud of Microsoft. Pretty lengthy, but an interesting reading.""

55 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. They seem to have a good business model... by xtermz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...with building up strategic alliances and subcontracting out manufacuring, but Intel still doesnt seem to be phased by any advances AMD has made... And i dont know why.. I would like to see somebody do a good writeup comparing AMD and Intel's practices, pointing out the strenghts/and/or weaknesses in both.. so one could get a feel of what makes Intel tick...

    --


    I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
  2. Did anyone else read the name as 'Jerry Springer'? by InterruptDescriptorT · · Score: 4, Funny

    Today on Jerry: 'Caught Cheating'!

    Audience: Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!
    Jerry: OK, settle down! Welcome to the show! Today we're talking to computer users who are secretly using better processors on the side!
    Audience: Ooooh!
    Jerry: Let's meet Dan-0411. Dan says that's his work machine has a PIII in it, but there's something going on. Dan-0411?
    Dan-0411: Yeah. PIII, I've been using an Athlon in a laptop on the side, and it's over, Intel boy! She divides better than you any day!
    PIII chip: You (expletive)! (lashes out at Dan, throwing a punch)
    Audience: Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

    Dan-0411. Get it? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

    --
    Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
  3. Competition is good by larien · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ...and I think AMD has shown this. As he says, "they changed because competition made them change. So I'm proud of that. " Up until the K7 (Athlon) came out, AMD and the now dead Cyrix chips were good, budget chips but they never matched the Pentiums in raw performance, at least where it counted for gamers, in floating point. Since the Athlon came out, Intel have had a fight on their hands which they're winning in some quarters (mainly the server arena), and losing in others.

    Intel have the bucks to hand out deals to keep Dell etc sweet and market others into submission, but while AMD keep producing good value chips, they will still have a market amongst those who know better (generally the geeks of the world :) ).

    I hope AMD keep going, but I hope they never crush Intel entirely, otherwise they may fall into the trap of becoming complacent and progress will slow.

    1. Re:Competition is good by BrookHarty · · Score: 3, Informative

      I went with AMD when I saw the benchmarks from average users. The K6 had problems, and made me stay with P2/P3s. Comparing pricing and performance, AMD is better on most accounts. My AMD 1800 is faster than a P4 2ghz in all areas but the 400mhz bus.

      Just check out Mad Onion 3dmark 2001 and looks at the scores, AMD is leading the way on the top machines!

      I might have to get a dual AMD MP machine thou, the prices are coming down, and with newer chipsets for AMD, will make it even faster. 333mhz bus?

    2. Re:Competition is good by RayChuang · · Score: 2

      I am impressed that AMD had the smarts to develop what amount to a from-scratch CPU core using the original NexGen technology to address the major limitations of the Intel Pentium III CPU.

      Look at what was done:

      1. More generous CPU memory cache and more efficient access to that memory.

      2. The use of the EV6 CPU bus, which was much more efficient than any Intel did at the time.

      3. A VASTLY superior FPU core compared to the Intel CPU's.

      I am pretty impressed by the results: the AMD Athlon XP 2100+ running at 1,733 MHz CPU clock speed is roughly equal to an Intel Pentium 4 running at 2,200 MHz CPU in terms of overall performance. That indicates AMD has produced an amazingly efficient CPU core, to say the least.

      I for one can't wait for the even faster Thoroughbred Athlons that will probably take the performance to 2800+ levels as early as the end of this year.

      --
      Raymond in Mountain View, CA
  4. Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by gphat · · Score: 4, Funny

    A quote on why Intel is building multple 300mm fabs: "Because their die is so goddamned big".

    Hah! When's the last time you heard a suit say that in a public interview?!?!?

    1. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by scotch · · Score: 3, Funny
      A quote on why Intel is building multple 300mm fabs: "Because their die is so goddamned big".

      Hah! When's the last time you heard a suit say that in a public interview?!?!?

      Just the other day, when the CEO of TSR, makers of Dungeons and Dragons, was speaking about why a bigger box would be needed for the next version of the popular game.

      --
      XML causes global warming.
    2. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by Telastyn · · Score: 2

      He's a different sort of CEO from a different sort of time. Back when men were men, and people did not hide behind a veil of nicety to cover up half-truthes and outright lies! or something...

      BTW I believe Larry Ellison is the sort to say similar thinks. The old "fuck yew budday" response and comments.

    3. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by foobar104 · · Score: 2
      Back when men were men...


      "...women were real women, and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no man had split before. Thus was the Empire forged."

      -- Douglas Adams
    4. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by BasharTeg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, Sanders is the bomb. He's an old school SOB who will tell you what he thinks of Intel's "fucking Pentium 4" in an interview. Would you have the balls to say that if you were in his shoes ?

      This man has lead one of the greatest corporate fights in the history of this nation. AMD has had every reason to fail, as Cyrix, Transmedia, IDT (or whatever the WinChip guys were called), etc. Over the years the Intel blowhards have tried to put AMD in the same boat as those failed manufacturers. Most of them are still denying the fact that they called the K7 vaporware, and denied that it would rock the processor industry. Where are you naysayers now ? Would you have a 2 gHz Pentium 4 available if it weren't for AMD and the K7 ? Take the date of the Pentium III 450, add 50mhz for every 6 months since it came out, and tell me if you've reached 2.0 gHz yet, because that's what you would have had if the K7 wasn't there.

      I'm not one of these fools who just roots for whoever is the underdog in any particular fight (Microsoft vs Linux, Intel vs AMD, etc). I find such lemming behavior offensive. Not that you shouldn't like them, but there should be a reason. We owe the past 3 years of breakneck processor development to AMD, both directly through their own products, and indirectly by forcing Intel to work for their money.

      I don't even have to mention the pricing. Those of you out there who had to choose between a Pentium and a K5, you know how much Intel was overcharging.

      Am I anti-Intel ? No. If Intel came out with a better product at a reasonable price, I would buy it. The Itanium is absolutely awesome from an architecural perspective. I am a consumer, I select the best product at the best price (in theory that's how consumers work, heh). AMD currently offers a product that beats Pentium 4s at equal clock speeds, and even at far higher clock speeds the P4 doesn't stand a chance. The P4 is awesome for applications specificly optimized for SSE2, but for everything else it's just empty mhz. The Athlon is faster, cheaper, and runs at a LOWER clock speed to achieve that performance. As long as that is true, AMD will have my support.

    5. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by BasharTeg · · Score: 3, Informative

      Running equal performance at a lower clock speed shows better design and engineering. If you're actually a student of Computer Science, that means something.

      If you're the kind of guy that reads http://www.sandpile.org/ you know what I'm talking about. If you're just a consumer reading about Quake 3 framerates on Tom's Hardware, I guess it doesn't matter. (No offense)

    6. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by BasharTeg · · Score: 2
      Before anyone goes cheering about AMD's forthcoming Hammer, remember that it's brand new, and the compilers for it haven't had the same sort of burn-in that Intel's IA-64 compilers have been getting for a year and a half. AMD may get its 64-bit solution to the mass market first, but it won't be stable when the new features are used to their fullest.

      Certainly Intel's IA-64 compiler will be awesome, that's half the idea of IA-64. But what about the other compilers? What about Borland and gcc? Their support for IA-64 is not so hot. x86-64 is just 64bit extentions to x86, it's not a HUGE divergence that's going to require NEARLY as much R&D as IA-64. That's the advantage of working with what already exists.

      If you think non-Intel compilers for IA-64 are going to be more mature than x86-64 compilers, you're crazy. And because there's not much to do between the x86 and x86-64 compilers (except maybe add some optimizations using new features like RIP relative addressing), they don't need to 'mature' as much as the Intel compiler does.

    7. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by baptiste · · Score: 2
      Having an architecture that scales its performance beyond 2 GHz is also better design and engineering. Athlon cores won't get there. They're doing all they can to step them by 66 MHz, pouring R&D money into massaging the timings.

      Maybe not better - its well known that the Pent 4 was DESIGNED to run at higher clockspeed because Intel knew GHz sells. The P4 was designed to do less per clock cycle than the Athlon, plain and simple. That and consider how far AMD has taken the K7, which came out to compete with the PIII, not the P4.

      AMD's next volley is the Hammer and it will scale to higher speeds, but in teh end - who cares? I want performance and could care less what speed the processor runs at.

      The thing that excites me is AMD is going to bring 64-bit computing into the desktop - somethign Intel has no plans to do. Better yet, we get really fast x86-32 processing with x86-64 processing to boot - no it won't happen immediately - of course. But as technology advances, the Hammer could become a standard design (which you can bet Intel will compete with - Yamhill lives for sure) which like a previosu poster said, is a great thing about AMD - they are driving Intel and that combination is resulting in amazing advances (and price reductions) for us consumers

      --
      Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
    8. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by blair1q · · Score: 2

      Your first paragraph is a baseless denial of what I said.

      Your second is an emotional denial of the reason processors are designed to scale.

      And your third is just wrong. IA-64 will get to the desktop. It is a significant shift in the computing paradigm that has the potential to put 64-bit extension designs to shame. Yamhill is the stopgap to hold off AMD from taking the niche that Intel purposely left open when it invested in the effort to make IA-64 an entirely different system. But in a few years, when AMD is still making Model-T's with convertible tops and chrome-plated starter cranks, Intel will be burying it in Model-A's. AMD will have nobody they can buy in order to subsume a license to the new design.

      And finally, you don't really understand pricing. Consumers have a comfort level for purchasing expensive things. What you're getting isn't lower prices, it's more MIPS for the same portion you were willing to carve out of your savings. Note that AMD actually raised its top-line price range as it began to compare favorably with Intel. Higher prices for AMD's new processors, not lower. Competition isn't as simple as you think.

      --Blair

    9. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by tshak · · Score: 2

      I don't care about pipelines, Ln caches, SIMD, Clock speed, bus speed, etc. (okay I do but not in this context).

      The bottom line is, regardless of how much each chip sells for, AMD can build faster chips for the dollar then Intel can. That's where AMD has Intel beat, and that's where it counts.

      --

      There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
    10. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by sean23007 · · Score: 2

      Take the date of the Pentium III 450, add 50mhz for every 6 months since it came out, and tell me if you've reached 2.0 gHz yet

      That's linear advancement. Seeing as you're obviously very involved in the processor arena, you must have heard of a little thing called "Moore's Law," which states that processor speed will increase by a factor of 2 every 18 months. This is certainly not "50MHz every 6 months." Intel had been able to do it for X years before AMD was around, and there was really no evidence suggesting their inability to continue that trend.

      AMD did not force processors to the speed at which they currently are, they forced the price. Competition is good, especially for the consumer. AMD has not forced Intel to improve performance at a faster rate than it would have, but it has forced Intel to improve their performance/price ratio.

      Moore's Law will be broken, but not because of any monopoly, and not because of any individual company's complacence. It will be because of the physical constraints on transistor technology, and even that obstacle will probably be overtaken.

      --

      Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
    11. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by RayChuang · · Score: 2

      Whoopee. (sigh)

      Right now, the Athlon XP 2100+ running at 1,733 MHz roughly equals the overall performance of the Pentium 4 "Northwood" running at 2,200 MHz. This feat demonstrates just how superior the CPU and FPU core of the Athlon is right now.

      And don't think AMD is standing still either; the upcoming Thoroughbred CPU core will be made on the 0.13 micron process, which means much lower operating temperatures and also allows the true CPU clock speed of the Athlon to go way past 2,000 MHz. Don't be surprised that we'll see an 2800+ version of the Athlon XP CPU by late this fall--a 3000+ variant could be available as early as the end of this year.

      --
      Raymond in Mountain View, CA
    12. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by digitalunity · · Score: 2

      Moores Law doesn't apply. It is strictly based on current manufacturing capabilities. However, Moores Law is closely related to speed. I really love the Athlon XP, but from Intels viewpoint, they shot themselves in the foot. The reasoning is simple. They've been forced by competition to overhype their products. People expect everything and the kitchen sink with an intel processor. AMD has also forced their timeline, a lot; thus the 1.13Ghz recall. That wouldn't have happened had the engineering crew been at the wheel. Instead, they let some drunk Ivy punk from marketing tell the engineers when they were going to deploy new products.

      Alas, competition has in the end proved to be very healthy for competition. On an aside, does anyone read SEC filings? Jerry is a really $$$-Rich-$$$ guy right now. He's been making a boatload of money for quite a few years and probably will continue with a fat check.

      I'm just a little jealous. That's allowed, right?

      --
      You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
    13. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by blair1q · · Score: 2

      But AMD still can't sell those chips and make more per-chip profit than Intel can.

      --Blair

    14. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by sean23007 · · Score: 2

      When was the last time the number of transistors managed to double without a corresponding speed increase? Since the speed of the processor is directly proportional to the number of transistors on it, it is a good assumption that speed will increase with the number of transistors. Obviously. And ever since he made that statement, it has been true not only about transistors, but about speed, because they are so close to (but not exactly) the same thing.

      And another thing, ass, I didn't say that competition was bad. Just because you feel superior doesn't make it so. It only seems that everyone misquotes Moore's Law, because they make a simplification based on a truth. If they wanted to be exactly correct, they could say: "Every 18 months, the number of transistors will double; the number of transistors is proportional to the speed." Then again, not every person on the planet knows what "transistor" and "proportional" mean, but everyone knows what "speed" means, so it is thus simplified.

      --

      Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
    15. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by blair1q · · Score: 2

      Technology is all business.

  5. Tombstone? by rsborg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Never surrender; never give up." - Jerry Sanders
    "Never give up; never surrender" - Galaxy Quest

    --
    Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
  6. History for geeks by rif42 · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you want the full (hi)story about Intel, AMD and lots of other companies in the PC processor and how the PC chip market became what it is today go read the book: Inside Intel by Tim Jackson.

    You will realise how much this Intel vs. AMD has been a personal fight between Andy Grove and Jerry Sanders. Great story.

    See e.g.:
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/045227643 8/

  7. Wow. Now if MS had competition like that... by revscat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    At the close of the interview, Sanders says:

    Intel tries to shove down an [engineer's] throat a RAM bus solution that they don't want. Slot A, nobody wanted, and AMD said, "You don't need that. We'll put a flip chip in a package." That's the K6. And [Intel] had to change. They didn't change on their own; they changed because competition made them change. So I'm proud of that.

    In other words, Intel came up with some new technology they wanted to throw out there, and competition made them change their ways, in the process giving the consumer cheaper, better products. Kinda makes me wonder what would have happened if MS had a serious moneyed competitor. I can't help but believe that we'd all have HAL staring at us from the phones on our desks.

    I have come to believe the following: No matter how technologically superior your product may be, if you compete directly with Microsoft you will lose (i.e. you will make less money, and have less market share). Why this is true for OS's and not for microprocessors I'm not sure.

    1. Re:Wow. Now if MS had competition like that... by GungaDan · · Score: 3, Insightful
      "Why this is true for OS's and not for microprocessors I'm not sure."

      Because it's much harder to invent onerous licensing schemes for tangible slabs of silicone.

      --
      Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
    2. Re:Wow. Now if MS had competition like that... by mackertm · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I have come to believe the following: No matter how technologically superior your product may be, if you compete directly with Microsoft you will lose (i.e. you will make less money, and have less market share). Why this is true for OS's and not for microprocessors I'm not sure.
      This is the case because of network effects. Millions of Windows users mean there is a huge benefit to being part of the network of Windows users. Lots of programs, support, etc. All things being (at least kinda) equal, it makes more sense to go with the OS that has more users. There really isn't any kind of network benefits (to the user anyway) from having an Intel vs. an AMD processor.
    3. Re:Wow. Now if MS had competition like that... by tshak · · Score: 2

      Apple is competing very well against MS. Sure, years ago their OS was sub-par when compared to MS's offerings (IMHO, please no flames). Apple now has a very compelling OS, OSX. They also have incredibly elegant hardware (iMac G4, G4 tower, iPod, etc.) which outdoes anything from the "Big 5" x86 vendors. Personally, I love [most things about] x86, and I love Windows. However, I see Apple gaining huge marketshare and MS facing some very good competition.

      --

      There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
  8. I remember... by kigrwik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When the K6 (K6-II, I believe) beat the Pentium-du-jour in some benchmarks, I first couldn't believe it (who had really heard of AMD at that time ?) then I thought
    "OMG, there's gonna be blood spilled, and cheaper processors ! W00t !".

    I'm glad today that competition drives both AMD and Intel to excel, and I enjoy watching their strategic moves: Athlon vs P[34], Hammer vs Itanium, it's like a boxing match from which the customer can only profit.

    AMD vs Intel is a textbook example of healthy competition.

    --
    -- don't discount flying pigs until you have good air defense
    1. Re:I remember... by alistair · · Score: 2

      Why is it that there is genuine concern that the collapse of Anderson leaving only 4 large acounting firms eliminates competition, or the fact there are only 4 major retail banks in the UK is perceved to stifle competeition in the retail sector, or the EU recently found 7 vitamin manufactureres guily of operating a cartel, yet 2 processor manufacturers offers healthy competitio?. This can be healthy only in comparison with a single monopoly such as Micsosoft.

      With AMD and Intel, we are in a complex monopoly position, where the two players may sometimes compete agressivly and at other times pursue similar strategies to drive up profits or remove rivals, did either of them really welcome Transmata as a third force in this marketplace?.

    2. Re:I remember... by larien · · Score: 2
      It's a simple equation; 10 companies colluding provides less competition than two companies going at each other's throats. Unless AMD and Intel decide to start settling differences and cooperate (hah!) there will still be competition.

      Added to this, you have PPC, Sparc et al on the side, still producing chips which will rocket away from Intel/AMD if they rest on their laurels.

    3. Re:I remember... by kigrwik · · Score: 2

      You have an excellent point.

      My last sentence was largely inspired by Microsoft.

      However, one can see from your example that multiple companies offering similar products does not necessarily lead to competitive behaviors.

      If you look back to the glorious times of before the hegemony of the PC at the plethora of absolutely non-compatible computers, it can be argued that the standardization on PC/Mac standards has benefited to many (remember we're talking about a pre-internet, pre-java, almost pre-linux era when "cross-platform" was restricted to Mario Bros).
      The balance is difficult to strike, all the more so since companies evolve: AMD/Intel is more likely to cartelize now than when the K6 was launched and AMD was the new kid on the block.

      We, as customers, must help the emerging companies that have a strong "Go get 'em" attitude, because they force established companies into motion, if they succeed in growing beyond critical mass, that is...

      --
      -- don't discount flying pigs until you have good air defense
    4. Re:I remember... by connorbd · · Score: 2

      That's not true. The PII did have SDRAM support just fine in the 440FX IIRC, and in any case the 440LX wasn't far behind it. I think the main problem is that SDRAM was way pricey at the time and the mobo builders didn't use it. Certainly wasn't Intel's fault.

      /Brian

  9. History revised by MobyDisk · · Score: 5, Informative

    This article is pretty good if you want to see a management level rewrite of history. Mr. Sanswers leaves out a few interesting details, like how AMD's turning point at the K6 came from buying out NexGen and rebranding their NX86 chip. It is hard to make AMD look like a small company battling a giant when they were buying out smaller companies, filing thousands of patents per year, and knowingly violating IP agreements hoping Intel would settle.

    Nonetheless, it all worked. And I'm very glad it did.

    1. Re:History revised by RayChuang · · Score: 2

      But it was also the smartest move that AMD ever made, too.

      It was the NexGen technology that formed the basis for the world-beating Athlon CPU, a CPU that in many ways is vastly superior to Intel's offerings.

      I mean, AMD managed to do with 1,733 MHz clock speed in terms of performance what Intel needed 2,200 MHz clock speed to pull off--that is a sign of a very efficient CPU core design. With the arrival of the 0.13 micron process Thoroughbred CPU's later this spring, AMD again will demonstrate its amazing technological prowness in CPU design.

      --
      Raymond in Mountain View, CA
  10. Jeez. Bill is efverywhere! by jvmatthe · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Here is an interview with the CEO of AMD. Big company and an important chap -- you'd think he would get into the keywords for this document. Yet:
    <meta NAME="keywords" CONTENT="UpsideToday, Upside magazine, Internet business, ebusiness, b2b, b-to-b, stock quotes, ipo, stock market, technology, high tech, venture capital, vc, e-commerce, funding, investing, ceo, Bill Gates">
    (That's my emphasis.) Just check the page source!
    --
    Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
  11. Re:Did anyone else read the name as 'Jerry Springe by Chundra · · Score: 2

    It's the name of a bug found by some guy named "dan" in the fpu of pentium IIs and pentium pros. They named the bug using a scheme borrowed from astronomy...like: [discoverer's name]+[number]. (e.g. comet Shumaker-Levy 9, dan-0411).

  12. AMD in Xbox 2 by tbreffni · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to The Register, Microsoft is designing the new Xbox 2 around an AMD processor. It seems that Microsoft is trying it's best to help AMD against Intel, as the interview with Jerry mentions Microsoft helping AMD out with their 64bit Processor. Any thoughts on this?

    1. Re:AMD in Xbox 2 by willy_me · · Score: 2
      It seems that Microsoft is trying it's best to help AMD against Intel


      If Microsoft goes with the AMD solution it's because it's a better solution for their Xbox2. Lets face it, the Xbox2 doesn't need much CPU power - all the work is done in the GPU. AMD offers CPUs that offer plenty of power but more importandly, are smaller and cheaper to produce. If Microsoft does go with AMD, this is why.


      William

    2. Re:AMD in Xbox 2 by Nelson · · Score: 2
      This may be a touch on the conspiracy side but Microsoft is a soft monopoly and intel is a hard one. It's entirely possible that MS could get displaced in the next 10 years. It's really only been about 10 years that they've really been on top and it took them about 10 years to displace IBM and Apple. That's the nature of software, it changes fast and that's how they got on top. Maybe call it 15 years, same idea though.


      Intel on the other hand could stop everything they are doing today. They could disappear off of the face of the earth and in 10 years we'd have people building Intel chips, compiling code for them and supporting them. There might be something bigger and better but they're legacy would still be and extremely formiddable force.


      regardless of what happens to MS, they are in a much more fragile position. Intel could be a real monopoly.


      Now you have to know that the next step for MS to sure up their position is to grow in to other markets (a la xbox) and then to start clamping down a little more strictly on the hardware. As Mr Hunter from Transmeta put it once, they would need to start making hardware smaller and software bigger, doing things like softmodems, and that kind of ilk. Intel on the other hand has a vested interest in making hardware bigger and supporting more software. What leverage does MS have against Intel? AMD.


      Never mind the fact that they'll get a better or equal solution cheaper from them.

  13. Why competing with processors is easier. by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 2

    I have come to believe the following: No matter how technologically superior your product may be, if you compete directly with Microsoft you will lose (i.e. you will make less money, and have less market share). Why this is true for OS's and not for microprocessors I'm not sure.

    It's because it's a lot easier to make a fully-compatible chip clone than it is to make a fully-compatible OS clone.

    A chip's instruction set, bus interface, etc. are well-documented and relatively simple. An OS's API is far more complex, and can much more easily have a cloud of NDAs overshadow the dissemination of its documentation.

    I know which I'd try to clone.

  14. Thanks Jerry by fm6 · · Score: 2
    Everybody who uses a commodity computer owes Jerry Sanders big time -- even if they've never bought an AMD-based system. Consider what things would be like if Intel had been allowed an x86 monopoly. Processor prices would be sky-high, and the market for computers would be a fraction of what it is. That means few home computers, no explosive growth of the Internet, etc., etc., etc. Without his vision, his refusal to accept Intel's short-sightedness, the world would be a less prosperous and much less interesting place.

    It's too bad more technology entrepreneurs don't have Sanders's sense of moral center. Listen up, Scott, Bill, Larry! It's not all numbers and hype!

  15. Re:Meaningless MS rant by HamNRye · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Microsoft is playing both ends against the middle.

    I have a feeling that the future of processors is that Windows support whosoever supports windows exclusively, and If Linux runs better on your kit, the advantage goes to your competitor.

    M$ is now helping AMD to compete, because AMD is not helping Linux.

    Besides, isn't there something very hypocritical in his disdain for Intel and the big marketing budget, and his love of Microsoft and their big marketing budget. I would have to remind him that anyone powerful enough to help you is also powerful enough to hurt you proportionately.

    This is the same reason that Microsoft keeps Intel on a short leash by playing footsie with their competitors. BG is still upset about some things said and done by Intel. (And incedentally, Intel is mad at MS for....)

    Help or hurt, Microsoft never has nobler motives in buisness. When they are helping you, you may just be getting fattened up for the kill. The fact that your entire company relies on access to and support for Windows leaves you with an Outlook attachment pointed at your head just waiting to go off.

    AMD will find MS and Intel back in bed together before long, so long as the door isn't locking them out too well.

    ~Hammy
    nothing4sale.org

  16. Re:Meaningless MS rant by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 2
    I think the idea is that Microsoft ultimately issues the marching orders. Sanders admits in the interview that it is basically in their power to decide whether a processor line succeeds or fails. It is interesting how even the cocky JerryS is not too proud to openly grovel at the feet of Microsoft.

    BTW, this is also the first place where I've heard that Windows64 will natively run in 64 bit mode on the Hammers. (Did I read that right?) This is good news indeed for AMD (and for MS users). Of course it might only be news to me, but last I heard, it was still up in the air whether MS was going to bother with 64 bit Hammer support. Maybe all the recent SuSE work on 64 bit Hammer Linux gave them a little scare! Wow, it's great to read that even in this bleak world of monopolies, competition sometimes springs from the darndest places. I just wish Transmeta were still in the game.

  17. Re:AMD in Xbox 2 -- Not so fast! by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 2
    You slashdotters should be better at recognizing "strategic" leaks. This is a part of the "big contract" dance that should now be familiar. When you're a company that basically assembles parts, it turns out it's in your interest to make sure your regular parts providers are giving you their absolute rock-bottom price. That's why you float rumors (remember what the Register is) that the contract is going the rival company. Now, MS just twiddle their thumbs and wait for Intel to call them with a deal MS can't refuse. Intel might even supply the chips at cost, to keep AMD from growing bigger and bolder.

    Remember when Dell had that very prominent survey on their website about whether we would buy Dells with Athlons inside? I'm sure almost everybody wanted this, and many people even begged. I bet you Dell got some pretty sweet prices on the next batch of Intel chips! This is just good (and evil) marketing.

  18. Re:NextGen by arkanes · · Score: 2

    Buying up the really smart engineers that your much larger competitor is arrogantly ignoring is good buisness sense :)

  19. Re:Israel in Europe? by markmoss · · Score: 2

    The straits connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean are the dividing line between Europe and Asia, and Turkey straddles those straits, with it's capital and largest city (Istanbul) on the European side. Geographically, Israel is in Asia, and Turkey is in both Europe and Asia. However, culturally and financially, Israel is definitely European, while Turkey is a mixture of a dozen nationalities, speaking a language from near Mongolia, of Islamic religion but with a culture that owes more to the Byzantine Greeks than the Arabs. And if they make it into the EU (there are some old national enmities they'll have to appease), they won't be the poorest country there.

    Note that you can walk from Cairo to Athens, and the biggest river you'll have to cross is the Nile. Until the Suez Canal was built, you could walk from Africa to Asia and not even get your shoes damp. So how did certain points get picked to divide this landmass into three "continents"? It's easy to see the point of dividing Africa from Asia, but when you map the whole thing Europe is just a peninsula sticking out of western asia.

    I think it mainly came from the world as viewed from Athens in the 5th Century BCE. Europe was their side of the Hellespont. Asia was the other side of the Hellespont, where those nasty Persians ruled, even though lots of Greeks lived in Anatolia too. (Anatolia is the big peninsula south of the Hellespont-Bosporus straits and the Black Sea.) They had legends about Jason traveling far into the Black Sea, but may not have know for sure that their _was_ a far end to it. I'm not sure if their ships could run down the Asian coast to Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, or if other naval powers in that area blocked them. But their traders could strike due south and easily reach Egypt, in Africa.

    The Egyptians made one contribution to this geography: they knew that there was a narrow neck of land just to their east (Suez), joining land masses too big for them to explore. (Possibly they circumnavigated Africa once, but never bothered with the interior except along the Nile.) So they located the Africa/Asia boundary at that narrow neck. This was also a convenient political division. Nothing in Africa was a threat to Egypt's power. But in Asia, other great powers continually rose and fell (Babylon, Assyria, Syria, Hittites, Persia), and one "Asian" group (the Hyksos -- probably Semites, akin to Hebrews, Arabs, and Phoenicians) even conquered and held Egypt for a century. (They should have paid a bit more attention to those quarrelsome and disunited Greeks, not to mention a little village in Italy called Roma, but hindsight is golden...)

    Anyway, the 3 "continents" are based on historical accident as much as geography. By general ties of national descent, language, and customs, Israel is an outlier of Europe, and Turkey has both European and central Asian ties. The Arab lands now stretch from their original homeland (lower Mesopotamia and the adjoining deserts) all across north africa. "Middle East" is just a geographical designation for an area where arbitrarily defined arab nations continually clash with each other as well as the nearby non-arab tribes & nations (Iran, Turkey, Kurds, Armenians, Israel, Afghanistan). Egypt gets grouped in with the Middle East because, even though it's in africa and is defined by ancient natural boundaries, not by lines drawn on the map in a European capital, it often gets into Middle Eastern quarrels. (Meddling in "Asian" affairs is also an Egyptian tradition about 5,000 years old.)

  20. Re:NextGen by spiro_killglance · · Score: 2

    The K5 was AMD's only, your thinking of the K6,
    which began as NextGen's but was modified
    (but not enough) to
    fit AMDs process and bus.

  21. Re:Meaningless MS rant by supine · · Score: 2

    M$ is now helping AMD to compete, because AMD is not helping Linux.

    Ummmm... didn't AMD contract SUSE to optimise Linux for the Hammer chip.

    AMD Announces SuSE Linux Support for Next-Generation Processors

    marty

    --
    "I can't buy want I want because it's free. Can't be what they want because I'm me." -Corduroy, Pearl Jam
  22. Re:TheSkyisFalling...TheSkyisFalling by FFFish · · Score: 2

    What the fuck is a "wennie"?!

    --

    --
    Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
  23. Re:TheSkyisFalling...TheSkyisFalling by nickynicky9doors · · Score: 2

    "I don't know. I'm making this up as I go along."
    Indiana Jones

    --

    heuristic algorithm seeks stochastic relationship
  24. Claw vs Sledge, perhaps? by himi · · Score: 2

    The beta silicon is for the clawhammer - I'm not sure, but I think they may be releasing the sldgehammer later, ie, next year . . .

    Then again, it's more likely either a typo or a thinko . . .

    himi

    --

    My very own DeCSS mirror.
  25. Re:What�s written on your tombstone? by nickynicky9doors · · Score: 2
    Umi yukaba mizuku Kabane
    Yama yukaba Kusamusu Kabane
    O-kimi no he ni koso shiname
    Kaerimi wa seji.

    circa 749 A.D.

    --

    heuristic algorithm seeks stochastic relationship
  26. Re:Is Open Source the answer? by RayChuang · · Score: 2

    Actually, the Athlon CPU is a combination of NexGen, DEC Alpha and AMD's earlier K5 technologies.

    What resulted is one very amazing CPU.

    --
    Raymond in Mountain View, CA
  27. Re:What�s written on your tombstone? by nickynicky9doors · · Score: 2
    By the sea our corpses shall steep in the water
    On the hills our corpses shall rot in the grass.
    We shall die by the side of our Sovereign
    We shall never look back

    copied from an old book in the stacks at my alma mater... The similarity in the meter and spirit seem so close to that of W. Churchill's speech I've often wondered if 'Winnie' nicked it.

    --

    heuristic algorithm seeks stochastic relationship
  28. Re:Jerry Sanders is a disturbed man by blair1q · · Score: 2

    Thanks for the idiot mods, AMD jungen.

    Just proves my point:

    Some people don't want to hear the truth.