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.

Comments

Strongest proof yet of MS' monopoly position

[swillden]

... not that it was in doubt, but this is amazing.

Sanders' contention is that having a single, standardized operating system gives hardware manufacturers a single, well-defined target to aim for when developing new versions of their processors.

Actually, that makes a lot of sense, if you are so steeped in the MS-dominated worldview that you think it makes sense for hardware manufacturers to be optimizing their devices to run specific software faster.

But, isn't that backwards? Doesn't it make more sense for software makers to optimize for the available hardware? I always thought so. But, then it never until just now occurred to me that AMD is not and never has been in the business of making Intel-compatible chips; they've always been in the business of making Microsoft-compatible chips, and the distinction is not a subtle one.

Is it possible that Sanders' view does make sense from an overall efficiency standpoint? Which is more complex, a microprocessor, plus accompanying chipsets, or an operating system? Both are horrendously complex beasts these days, but I think it's pretty clear that the software running on the processor is orders of magnitude more complex, and therefore harder. And it's reasonable to suggest that the simpler component should adapt itself to the more complex component, right? Maybe even more important, which component has the longest life? They're both pretty short, but I'd say a single software release tends to span processors more than the converse.

Food for thought, indeed.

My opinion is still that the consumer is best-served if competition between hardware and software platforms (and between different components of software platforms) can proceed independently. Operating systems should try to run on a wide variety of hardware platforms and should all compete amongst themselves. Hardware platforms should try to attract OS developers by being faster, more robust, cheaper, more scalable, etc. Similarly, OSes should compete for application developers.

But this also means that a great deal of effort will be expended on many sides trying to come to agreement on common APIs, rather than just getting on with the business of innovation. More variety also leads to more confusion on the part of consumers. This is an argument Microsoft has been making for a long time, albeit in a software-only context. There is some sense to it: Fixing one part of the equation makes the surrounding parts easier to optimize.

We all know which part of the equation Microsoft wants to hold constant, of course.