Slashdot Mirror
Intel Warns Asia Over Linux Plan
rimbaldi writes "Intel's CEO, Craig Barrett recently warned the Chinese government that their attempt to create regional standards for computers and communications, including standards using Linux-based software, may be doomed to failure, since 'such a strategy might protect local companies and markets in the short term, [but] it would make it more difficult for Asian companies to participate in world markets.' This is in reaction to earlier Slashdot-covered stories about an Asian software consortium and China disallowing foreign software."
If there was any doubt that Microsoft all but owns Intel, let it be resolved now.
Bill Gates resumed Craig Barrett's weekly allowance.
Nosce te Ipsum
I mean.. who would want to lock himself into a market consisting of 1/8 of the world population!?.. ;) .. Gimme a break.. had it been Bulgaria or Sweden okay.. but China.. GL HF Intel!
it is just really funny to see a multinational company watching out for the interests of one the largest potential new markets by stating that they won't be able to compete ten to twenty years from now. FUD.
a slut did tulsa
the Internet will never work with open standards. That's just crazy talk. Crazy!
Is Intel pushing MS Windows now?
Intel > procs and chipsets > DRM > MS Windows
It's funny how Intel is saying that China would be creating "Proprietary" standards. Umm... how can they be proprietary if they're open source and built on linux? They won't be so "proprietary" if everyone can see their standards and work on interoperability... I would see this as more beneficial than locking themselves on closed proprietary systems. (albeit they are more widely used)
---- Move SIG...For great justice!
Anyone suprised?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
My thoughts exactly.
Really going out on a limb at this point for Intel to criticize China. The Dragon chip is one thing. I think the bigger issue that we're just starting to hear bits and pieces about over at eet is immersion lithography.
Intel is the lone voice of dissent swearing it's not going to work while IBM and Infineon keep coming up with reports on how great it is and how quickly ASML, Canon and Nikon are going to be bringing tools to market.
Meanwhile Infineon is getting all cozy making deals all over the place.
Furthermore,
They just want to keep the Chinese as a cheap labour force. Prevent them from producing anything that isn't sold in a bargain bin, and you've doomed them to western dependance.
I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords.
... China's own attempts at a cpu. With Linux and a good plan, these nations will only be a recompile away from ditching Intel.
Is Intel pushing MS Windows now?
Intel > procs and chipsets > DRM > MS Windows
Propably not. They're just trying to prevent the dragon chip from becoming de facto standard for that marketplace.
Lets see, at ~$150 saved per PC without Windows, times about 2 Billion PC's... Buys one hell of alot of "lets go participate in world markets".
And if you skip the "Intel inside" you can double that savings easily.
Yet again more asian long-term thinking at work.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Anyway, that's my two cents. You can go back to running around in circles while waving your arms and shrieking about Microsoft now...;-)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
This isn't an anti-Linux stance. It's a stance against customizing everything for China. Linux just makes it easier to do. The warning is for China not to close themselves off from the rest of the world by creating a proprietary OS, apps, etc. Wow. China being insular. Who would have thunk it?
Isn't just that there are so many of them.
The great thing about standards, and having "open" systems, is that everybody is on fair ground. Why does Red Hat and Suse outsell their competition? Is it because they have some "secret extra" that locks in their customers?
Well, no (at least not for the most part). It's because of the other things they bring to support the standard, such as service, support, upgrades, developing to add to what has been done to make the "standard" easier to use.
So if China wants to base their software on Linux, more power to them - as long as they obey the GPL. If they make an improvement to make it easier to use Chinese characters on the command line, great - release it to everybody else. If they make a processor that works like Intel and they want to make it public, have a good time.
So I disagree with Mr. Barrett in principle that using regional standards is a "bad" thing - as long as those standards are published, realized by everybody, and don't have any hidden "gotchas".
What China will have to remember is the great thing about standards - there are so many of them. They (and by this I mean China's oppressive communist government) might think of some great standards, like "electrocute religious dissodents if they touch a computer". Or "file encryption systems must have a government backdoor at any time".
Because the rest of the world might not want to use that particular standard in their stuff. And if you have 75% of the world not using your standard, you either have to a) say you don't care (and make Mr. Barrett right), b) modify your standard, or c) join the rest of the world.
And if it turns out they're just taking the intellectual property of others - including Linux and yes, Intel - and not returning it to the group, they'll find that people will not be as interested in playing in their sandbox.
So have fun, China, and I hope to see some interesting new standards. I actually wish you luck if you decide you want to make your own processors and software, and if you truly want to make both open for all to use, have a good time.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Intel has been very friendly to Linux in the past, and for good reason. Linux provides a means for Intel to take market share away from the likes of Sun and HP. Why buy a non-Intel server when you can do the job just fine with an Intel-based Linux server? (True for many tasks, debatable for others.)
On the other hand, Intel has much to fear from Linux. If there were a large enough market that didn't care about Windows, then it would become practical for Linux users to question whey they should run on an expensive Intel chip instead of a cheaper non-x86 CPU from another vendor. The lock-in to the instruction set would be gone. Intel would have to compete head-to-head with MIPS and the likes in the desktop market, not something they want to do.
Or it would be, if nobody like the Chinese got uppity. Planning to go with non-TCPA software is certainly Not Part of the Plan, and could derail all of Intel's plans.
That just can't be allowed now, can it?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I just read the whole article (no, I'm not new here) and it sounds to me like Intel is just telling China not to create proprietary regional standards that will not interoperate with the rest of the world. No mention of "don't use Linux" or "use microsoft and be happy", so off with the tin foil hats.
The interesting thought exercise is what happens if China and their massive population suddenly get their act together and emerge as a technological powerhouse? Then they can tell intel to conform to their standards or risk losing a giant revenue stream.
Finkployd
China's own government is keeping the Chinese as a cheap labour force. Preventing strikes and non-government approved unions does that sort of thing.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Yes, they really should stop speaking Chinese there too. Don't they know that the rest of the world speaks English.
With a population of 2 billion people. China is a 200lb gorilla, and everyone knows it. If China, with rest of Asia went 'standard' or 'non-standard', whatever they choose- with that much weight to throw around- it will become a STANDARD. Intel and M$ knows this and are warning off.
In the short-term it may be good for Asia, in the long-term it will be good for Asia, because instead of Asian companies trying to be compatible with US/European standards, it will be the other way around.
Even with a measily 10% of population using computers in China (if in the future that should happen), it would larger then the WHOLE U.S. population.
200lb gorilla indeed.
It's interesting to notice the difference in focus between Craig Barrett's statements and the Slashdot's focus.
Barrett is an executive at Intel. His primary concern is whether the Chinese or the Indians will succeed with localizing microprocessor design. Needless to say, he is predisposed to believe that these efforts should not be undertaken.
Here on Slashdot, the primary focus is the various attempts taking place in Asia to standardize around Linux. From my own perspective, I don't think that this effort is logically equivalent to the Barrett's hardware example. I don't see the effort at promoting Linux as an attempt to fork the code base, but rather an effort to unify the development community around a single standard. With luck, this effort will result in better contributions to the core Linux code base.
And of course Intel welcomes the Chinese production of high-quality, low-cost computer chips.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
We intend to lock people into proprietary formats, preferably DRM encumbered so we may legally keep others from creating compatible programs or import filters so you can use alternative OSs.
Microsoft is working very hard to keep there from being a "critical mass" of people using alternatives, so that everyone "muat" buy Windows/Office because that's what everybody else uses. Once people start expecting compatibility with "everyone", where everyone includes Linux, the game is already half lost. Regardless of whether they actually use Linux at that time, Microsoft doesn't want to give that alternative, simply because it hurts those running Linux who can't communicate properly with Windows users far more than the other way around.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Jack Comics, You are a liar. It was Nixon, a Republican, who began trading with China. Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush have all renewed China's Most Favored Nations status.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Heh.
Heh-heh.
So, Mr. Barrett, was the last time this sort of thing has been tried in a locale of 1.2 billion people?
Basically, Intel is scared. If this takes off, Intel will suffer dearly in a market that currently generates 3.2 billion dollars of revenue for them. Roughly 12% of their total revenue comes from China alone.
You'll forgive me, Mr. Barrett, if I have trouble keeping a straight face.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Does intel think that they are going to tell china, "you are going to fail".
If china wants to develop for a different platform. Its their choice. If they also want to develop on a different processor then what intel offers then that is their choice. Personally I like it. If china/asain succeed's not only will they have a nice platform (hopefully) They will have a cpu that isn't pulled down by all hacks to make it modern.. I Say 'Hey china go ahead'.
Why should china put money into other country's when it can put it into their own.
Really I think intel just wants money. But their solution is just a hack for backword compatibilty.
Theres really a point where backword compatbility stifles things.
(the itanium is nice tho, since its not x86 based.)
I will shutup before I get too offtopic.
...when a big American corporation feels that they can go ahead and issue warnings to the freakin' government of China, that might just inadvertently send the signal that the government is doing the right thing in attempting to prevent becoming beholden to "standards" that are largely controlled by big American corporations...
Except for writing my new book (my publisher supplied me with Word macros that I must use), I find this $199 PC with SuSE Linux to provide a super productive environment! When I get time to get back to work on my own products next December, my cheap Chineese PC meets all my needs (in my case, this is running Java JDK, ant, IntelliJ, Tomcat, Joram JMS, JBoss, etc.) I have to love low overhead and a $199 computer is a sweet price point that an Intel based machine would have a difficult time meeting.
Off course I expect noise like this from Intel!
Intel likes globalization when it favors them :-)
-Mark
But the world puts up with it because of the shitty, Dollar store trinkets that they produce. They start producing other things that can put a dent in the economy, then you can bet that there would be heavy pressure on their government to stop.
Also, at what point would the people stop being walked all over? Once China has a huge economy, capitalist, communist or otherwise, if the wealth is not spread a bit more than now (which has gotten better than ten years ago), the people just might wise up.
But, even if China does create new silicon and computing hardware, the input data and output information can still conform to international standards (ASCII, HTML, etc.) Just because the information was created without profitting Intel or AMD hardware sales does not make the information bad.
I understand he wants to protect potential profits from selling $billions of Intel hardware to China, but this FUD about incompatible standards doesn't cut it. Even if China were to make their own silicon, I'm sure a few patches to gcc would make their C++ code compile just fine for their new hardware. If China finds a way to make it (faster, cheaper, better; choose two) than what is available from current vendors, then they should make it.
One of the reasons that Open-Hardware is not generally available is the large cost of generating the silicon, and the logistics of distributing the hardware worldwide at a reasonable price. But if China is funding the fab factories, a key barrier is removed; and that should scare the beancounters at CPU manufacturers.
It worked nicely for Intel and Microsoft. This is exactly why these companies dominate their markets. They have forced standards. They are doing the same thing now by forcing DRM on consumers (and YES, DRM will be forced..just watch).
So instead, Barrett expects Asia to allow Intel and Microsoft to create standards for them? Zzzzzt.
It is absolutely clear why Barrett is taking this position: "By 2010, Intel said, China would be the single largest market for its PC and communications chips." If Asia goes off, builds their own OS to their own standards, Intel and Microsoft will be threatened.
Build away Asia! This will force change and flexibility on the industry. Stagnation only benefits those that are intrenched.
From the FT artice:
Mr Barrett's comments come two weeks after officials from China, Japan and South Korea agreed to co-operate on the development of software applications based on the free Linux computer operating system
Barrett's point wasn't about Linux. The FT just threw that angle in to get the suckers riled up, and it worked.
The FT could have said that Barrett warned against "proprietary" standards based on binary arithmatic. Note it's not the technical details of the implementation he's concerned about, its their proprietary nature.
Andy Grove delivered a very simmilar speech to European bigwigs about a decade ago and he was right.
You are a liar.
I am not a crook!
At long last, sir, have you no decency!?
- Jack Comics
Oh Gee...
You better not let prevent us from taking over your markets of 3 Billion people, or we won't allow you access to our 400 Million....
Errr...yeah riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggghhht.
Fact is, like it or not, China could build its own products, and all of its own technology, and completely shut the West out and make one hell of a killing.
They do not need us.
If you ask any Chinese technology business over there, they do not like the fact American companies think they can't do anything worth while in computing, space, science...etc unless western companies invade their markets.
I think during the next 10 years we are going to have one hell of a surprise in store for ourselves as China tells us where to stick our computers and our software.
-gc
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
reasonable point of view about this issue. I believe that Barret is honestly and forthrightly expressing good advice, unburdened with personal aspirations or concerns. I believe that aliens have been stealing spaceships full of Gouda cheese as weapons against the Ant People of Sector Omega. I hope that people can give Mr. Barret the benefit of the doubt that he is trying to use his experience to help the governments of Asia on this important issue.
I'm all for free trade myself, but sometimes a government, for the good of its people, not just the businessmen, has to take a hand to prevent a disaster -- in this case, a US monopoly dictating computing standards to the entire nation of China.
The government is doing what governments are supposed to do. Serve the interest of all, not just the interested few. By doing this, they will obviously boost their own IT sector, and free it from ruthless exploitation by a runaway US monopoly.
Remember, Microsoft no longer operates in a free market. It is a monopoly, which means it owns and controls the market, no matter how you wiggle around the term "owns".
China, it can be argued, is just leveling the field. Too bad for Bill.
The US has always used government fiat to boost its own businesses. We ignored copyright laws of other countries until the 20th century. The guv built a highway system to crush the railroad companies, build the auto giants, and create massive susburban growth to the detriment of the cities and public education therein.
It chooses winners and losers by awarding defense contracts. It controls interstate commerce. Regulates imports to benefit American interests. It now chooses who can and cannot run foreign countries. In Iraq, the administration has now served notice that the nation MUST permit foreign interests to control their public and private companies.
In comparison, China telling MS to take a hike ain't so bad.
It's not an "alliance" by choice. Intel knows that Windows is on 95% of the desktops. All they have to do is write a few new subroutines to detect Intel chips and to degrade the system performance if they wanted to hurt Intel. Look at their recent adoption of AMD's 64 bit ISA. It's their way of telling Intel "You better do what we say, because we can always decide to help out your competition instead of you". There was a big lawsuit about this a while back where Bill directly threatened Barret if they didn't do what MS wanted. Hence why Barret is saying this. It's also part of the reason why one half of Intel is pushing Linux and another what's to hide the first half. They don't want to piss MS off.
Space for rent, inquire within
Many solutions compete over how perfectly they blend into foreign environments, save and load most common commercial file formats.
The masses that use Linux aren't locked out of MS file formats anymore since years, and Microsoft file format users aren't tied to their lock-in files as much anymore either.
The open sourced alternative ways of loading and saving foreign format files bypass problems of the past with elegancy that is unmatched in the commercial world (where is dead project won't rise from the ashes without money involved).
The "scratch your own itch" way works out neatly. Whoever feels the desire to do so canl pick whatever _they_ think is best for them. Craig's warning is unnecessary and feels a little out of place.
Leopard cub
Despite a long-standing and profitable relationship which constrains public friction, Intel and Microsoft have often had battles of varing seriousness on a bunch of topics...
.Net)
Intel has been / is mad at Microsoft about:
- Constant attempts over the years to generalize their OSes to other processor archectures (NT on Alpha/MIPs, Pocket PC on all sorts of non-Intel (non X-scale) cpus and, of course, x86-64 and the eventual cpu independent version of
- Blocking Intel on hardware standards and initiatives
- Microsoft dragging it's feet about supporting new hardware features in the OS (eg USB on NT (never really), Hyperthreading (2 years) and Itanium Architecture (Linux had IA64 up and running 3 years before Ms)
-Microsoft's attempt to position Intel cpus as just another processor they support.
Microsoft has been / is mad at Intel about:
- Intel's general support of Linux in general including founding and funding the Open Source Development Lab (where Linus and Andrew are employed now)
- Intel's support of HP in running HP-UX on Itanium and Intel's historic support for Novell Netware, Solaris, Unixware and other Unices
-Support for OS-independent management and other hardware APIs that let other OSes get parity or better with Windows
-Occasionally making end-users aware of the prickly truth that the cost advantage of "Wintel" vs big RISC UNIX is all Intel hardware economics which makes the solution cheaper in spite of the greater cost of the Ms software
-Intel's attempt to position Windows as just another OS they support.