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AMD Takes Microsoft's Side in Antitrust Case
Skjellifetti writes "CNet has an article that says that AMDs CEO is opposed to the MS antitrust remedy being persued by the states. "
There's a lot of information packed fairly tightly in that article that I won't
rehash here. Worth a read tho. Update: 04/16 18:01 GMT by M : Reuters has a story with more about Sanders' testimony today.
Not very surprising, given the recent news surrounding the Xbox 2...
Some years ago, whne I worked at AMD, a corporate level decision was made to run whatever the MS Mail solution was at the time (Exchange? Outlook?); even though there were several significantly better solutions out there.
What eventually came out was that it was a political decision. MS wanted to be able to show that large companies were successfully using their email package; and AMD NEEDED MS DOS/Windows to run on their 386/486 chips, and apparently this was one way of making sure that MS didn't have an "bugs" that would cause MS SW to crash on AMD chips.
What's that old quote about MS? "Window's ain't done till Lotus don't run?"
Same thing again, only different.
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
It's a shame that AMD, that has long battled uphill against the market dominance of Intel, has bowed under like this.
I'm positive there are intangible benefits, such as MS agreeing to port Doze aggressively onto x86-64 platforms that are motivating Sanders.
I remember reading a whitepaper from AMD's site once where they were complaining about Intel being the 800 lb gorilla, etc. and then having the grand vision that Intel was not the monopoly, that MS was the monopoly and the standard to which everything must adhere.
I guess it just goes to show that in business, if the monopoly isn't hurting you directly, that an "accommodation" can be made for the sake of furthering business interests.
Unfortunately, I doubt the court will be fully informed about the benefits that accrue to AMD as a result of Sanders testifying for MS, just as there are many subtle "sticks" used on companies that are now long dead that, too, have not been fully revealed to the court.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Really the only one that matters is item (2)...
2. Fix their pricing so that it is uniform to all OEMs (so that OEMs will not be persecuted individually for carrying a competing product, like Linux or Netscape)
I too don't see any point in breaking up microsoft. It's not like the resulting two companies won't cooperate on things like policy, price fixing, blacklisting uncooperative companies etc. In short breaking them up won't do anything buy make a lot of paperwork for some people. But if MS were not allowed to penalize stores that sell dual boot systems, that would change everything real fast.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
So linux doesn't run on AMD? Right! Does he even have a clue as to how many small businesses are using AMD processors with linux? I suppose server operating systems require Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer and taking them out would make it less effective as an email, print, or webserver! Sanders is talking out his ass!
Ok it's obvious what's happening here.
AMD and Intel are competitors.
Intel and Microsoft have fallen out a while ago, Intel uses a whole bunch of Linux boxes internally for development purposes for example. Not going to go down well with Microsoft.
And Microsoft is fighting for its life (or atleast that's how Microsoft sees it) so you can bet that Microsoft has offered some bargaining chip or other to AMD under the table (or above the table) to testify in this way; and in view of the animosity between Microsoft and Intel, they're going to be inclined to take it.
Whether this bargaining chip will be worth anything at the end of the day is probably debatable; history says anything that Microsoft gives you is usually worthless, or atleast costless to Microsoft. And going into bed with Microsoft; what kind of idiot would voluntarily do this?
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"A few points:
1. Opening up the WinAPI source would not make Lindows legal. Lindows is not illegal because of anything related to the WinAPI, it is illegal because Michael Robertson has not made the source code to Lindows available to the people who have purchased access, while still releasing the code under the GPL. Perhaps you're thinking of MS attacking Lindows based on its name?
2. Issuing free copies of Windows is not a Good Thing. Why Windows and not some of the alternative operating systems (Linux, BSD, even MacOS)? Although it would seem like a punishment, such a forced-distribution would only strengthen MS's hold on the mindshare of tomorrow's geeks. It would be like saying that the RIAA should issue free N'Sync CDs to poor kids because they broke the law with their "uncopyable" CDs - it just indirectly furthers their dominance of the market.
3. Why will desktop computing lose its prevalence once central-solutions become available? Most people don't need or want to be tied into such a system; I have serious personal doubts about anything that threatens both my privacy and my ability to manage my own system, and I'm not even doing anything *really* important.
4. AMD being on MS's side makes quite a bit of sense, because MS has been pro-Intel for so long. AMD is trying to capture market share; by showing loyalty to MS, they are aiming to hedge out some room for a deal alongside Intel. Pissing MS off would result in them never seeing that market open up.
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
and then
Wow, and AMD is sure to remember Intel's integration of a RAMBUS controller into it's Pentium 4, and how embarrising that was after Intel decided to rethink their strategy.
Could someone explain to me how choosing a particular technology for your customers and saying this is all you're allowed to use fosters competition?
-Michael
-Michael
This is my favorite quote from the article:
[The proposal, he argued, could lead to the fragmentation of Windows and "would set the computer industry back almost 20 years."]
Hmm, removing IE and WMP and OE will set us back 20 years? Hell, we could step back to the days of DOS and not suffer a 20 year setback. Windows (version 1.0 that is) was released 11/10/1983. 20 years would bring us back to 1982. The original QDOS was released back in 1980. (http://www.powerload.fsnet.co.uk/timeline.htm)
I suppose we'd also have to throw out advancements like oh, the Athlon processor if Microsoft suddenly disappeared eh?
Wow, I really like AMD's products but I definitely do NOT like Mr. Sanders' testimony.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
What in the world are you talking about? Are you suggesting that AMD stop supporting M$ because a whopping 2% of their chip sales comes from geeks who buy new kit and intend to install *only linux* on their computers? It may seem like everyone and their mother runs a *nix around /. (hell, from what I've read from a lot of you guys, your mothers _do_ run linux), but in the rest of the computer sector, that kind of marketshare and mindshare is amazingly small. Plus, how many /.'ers are reading this off a Pentium Pro system *because* they're preficient in linux?
Having sold Apple Computers for the last 9 months, I can tell you what 5% of the market feels like. I'd say over 60% of our foot traffic had never even heard of an Apple computer, and practically none of them knew what it meant to say that OSX is built on UNIX. To hedge their bets like that is to give up on the consumer PC market and join the Sun/Apple/Amiga's of the world.
I buy apple hardware, I run linux as well, but the rest of the business world (AMD/M$ included) really doesn't really give a damn.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
1. (Lindows) Agree. Lindows needs to open up. You partake in the free beer, you need to pony up.
2&3. (free windows & privacy / centralization) Agree. 100%.
4. AMD has another choice - to shut the hell up. They chose the dark side. Bad AMD. No biscuit. "Yeah I won the race, but I was in collusion with the second place guy to slash the tires on all the other cars." AMD is willing to hurt the rest of the computer industry for its own gains. Can't condone this.
AMD's CEO _is_ right. If Windows becomes fragmented it very well could set the (he says "computer," but I believe he means "PC") PC scene back a good 20 years (and impact other computer areas than the PC market, such as cheap RAM and drive space for databases, etc.). It will be a chain-reaction. Right now PC users more-or-less depend on a coherent concept called "Windows."
Please read the book The Mythical Man-Month. It explains why system integrity is an important (if not the _most_ important) thing about computer software systems.
Dijkstra Considered Dead
I think the best analogy for this situation if we try to destroy Microsoft would be akin to the early electrical utility industry--every company had their own ideas on how to generate and distribute electricity, and each company will have its own idea on a wall socket. No thanks!
This is where Linux desperately needs to get all the major developers together and create a true unified standard for the entire OS from the OS kernel all the way up to the user interface. All that would do is save untold hours of costs from installation, configuration and maintainance of the entire OS.
Excuse me?
"Worse software means better cpus..."?
Well, goh-lee, I guess *all* software is getting "worse" since...OK, you tell me--which current hardware company today--not dependent on M$--is shipping "better software with worse cpus"...??? Come...on...let it out! I wanna' know! Whose cpus are worse today than they were a decade ago???
Like it or not, there is an x86 hardware market which began long ago. There were and are also several other computer hardware markets that began around the same period--SUN, Apple, etc. ad infinitum. They are ALL making better cpus today than they used to make. Am I supposed to think that this means they are ALL writing worse software? Man, that's got to be the weirdest attempt at a correlation I've ever heard.
Am I supposed to think I have *more freedom* under the SUN (sic) than I have running Windows? Puh-lease....no possible way on earth that's true. Same with Apple...ditto on down the line. Where's the FREEDOM in those camps? I can't see it!
SUN has been as altruistic as SCROOGE with its "open-platform" java initiatives. Did you know that one Java licensee doesn't know what the other Java licensee is paying SUN for the privilege? Oh--Paradise! Did you know that SUN arbitrarily decides which of its Java licensees are "towing the line" and which aren't--based on a fluctuating, ever-changing scale that SUN adopts as needed to suit SUN's immediate political--if not financial--goals? (Maybe behind the Iron Curtain of old this would be freedom--one candidate, one party, but you get to vote--I dunno. Sheeesh.)
The hypocrisy of people is utterly unbelievable. They'll stick with x86 hardware because they have by far the best choices in hardware available, not to mention the best prices, not to mention more software--and yet...and yet...they still manage to convince themselves that the house that M$ built is the least free of them all. That standardization sucks. You think so? Go SUN, then and learn. Go Apple and be reborn! I'm gonna' puke.
Heh-Heh....got one word for you--MAC! Yea, run out and buy a Mac and check out all the "freedom" and "choices" and so forth that you'll get on that side of the fence. Or, here's one--run out and buy a Java license from SUN--and let Freedom ring, baby!
Some of you guys haven't a clue.
And as far as "undue influence" goes...seems to me it wasn't Gates who hired Bork and Dole to go to Washington to lobby Congress--seems to me that it was McNealy and Barksdale who emptied their respective companies' coffers of millions of $$$ trying to Influence Peddle in Washington (right before Barksdale engorged Netscape's coffers with $4 billion AOL bucks--AFTER the company had been "so crippled" it could no longer "compete," or so Barksdale informed the Congress with a straight face.)
And you want to talk about "unjustified influence outside its industry"...???? Nope--Gates is definitely the runner up in that category--and that's not a defense of Gates, btw. That's what you call an impartial view of the facts as they happened.
Is AMD indebted to M$--you BETCHA'! To whom else might AMD BE indebted? Got a port done by Apple at Apple's own expense that runs OSX on Athlon platforms? Where's SUN's software compiled for x86 and AMD that's really given AMD a shot in the arm? I don't SEE 'UM.....
Some of you guys live in a pure-tee fantasy land. Some of you guys think--I mean, you REALLY THINK, that M$ is "out for itself" while "everybody else" is willing to give away the farm to support this cockeyed idea of "Open Source"--of which right now, IMHO, Linux derivatives and Netscape are the highest expression.
But I guess, in the narrow-minded little world of "Let's Kill M$" psychology, there's just no ROOM, is there, to consider the behavior of M$ as compared to its competitors SUN, IBM, APPLE, and all the rest--and how these companies treat THEIR markets????
"Turned around," indeed. What needs to be "turned around" in this whole pitiful circus is the idea that M$ is "doing things" it's competitors aren't--indeed, that M$ is even *matching* the sort of closed-shop hardware & software envrironment its competitors are running. Which only brings us full circle to the reasons WHY most people choose x86/Windows/Linux, whatever--to anything Apple or SUN ever produced. But hell, who cares about being open-minded so long as we can have the carrot of "open-source" dangled in front of us? A horse-and-carrot story this truly is.