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Interview with ATI's soon-to-be CEO Dave Orton

wolfgang writes "Tom's Hardware has published an interview with Dave Orton, who will become ATI's next CEO in June. Orton talks about the transformation of the company within the last three years, the current competition with Nvidia and what can be expected from graphic chipsets in the near future. Orton believes that ATI can grab more than 50 percent market share in the desktop market in the short term."

35 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. My money's on embedded devices by ObviousGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Powering those little cable boxes and HDD recorders is where the money lies in the near to mid-term.

    The desktop is for all intents and purposes a locked up market. Get a deal with Intel to fry your chip onto the mobos and you're home free.

    But the embedded world is still the Wild West of technology.

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
    1. Re:My money's on embedded devices by TrueBuckeye · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would disagree that the desktop is locked up. Over the past 7 years I have bought 5 video cards, only 2 of them from the same company. 2 of the makers no longer exist at least in the market (Sierra and Voodoo) and I have gone back and forth over the past few years between Nvidia and ATI depending on who has the better product at the time.

      And as mentioned in the article, the desktop market is now decided in large part by who controls the high end segment, which is a constant battle between the two (although ATI has had the advantage for the past 12-18 months).

      It is far from decided yet. Remember Voodoo went from market leader to bankrupt in about a year and a half.

      --
      Was that night on the marge of Lake LaBarge I cremated Sam McGee...
    2. Re:My money's on embedded devices by TrueBuckeye · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, sorry...3dfx. Need more coffee.

      I attribute the top-dog buying to the hardware geeks (I include myself in this category somewhat).

      What I have seen, unsupported by anything but anecdotal evidence, is that a geek goes out and gets a top-notch video card, say the ATI 9800XT a month or so ago. For every geek who knows hardware in and out, there are probably 5 normal people who rely on geeks to suggest hardware to them. Whether it is due to brand loyalty or a desire to support hardware that they are familiar with, many geeks will then recommend if not the same card they have, then often the same brand. So the geek who has a 9800XT will often recommend a 9600 or some other ATI product.

      By pleasing the geeks with good hardware, support, and drivers, the manufacturer can sell many more products due to this effect. AMD saw the same thing when they released unlocked, powerful, and cheap cpu's 4 or 5 years ago while Intel was locking theirs down tighter and tighter. The geeks started supporting AMD more and more, so non-geeks began to buy non-Intel cpu's.

      --
      Was that night on the marge of Lake LaBarge I cremated Sam McGee...
  2. Well... by Bishop,+Martin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What they really need to do is release better Linux drivers, and care more about Linux support in general.

    --
    Setec Astronomy
    1. Re:Well... by Kenja · · Score: 4, Insightful
      "What they really need to do is release better Linux drivers, and care more about Linux support in general."

      Why? What's the benefit to them? Not a troll, just playing devils advocate.

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    2. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes, because linux is the only operating system out there that matters, and it has such a gigantic share of their target markets. What in heavens name are they thinking?

    3. Re:Well... by Adriax · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Give it time, as more games come out with linux ports, they'll have to pay more attention to linux drivers if they want to compete with nvidia.

      --
      I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
    4. Re:Well... by kidlinux · · Score: 3, Interesting

      How about more sales, and a greater share of the market?

      It seems ATI has only recently begun to release Linux drivers (no they're not open source, but there's no reason everything has to be.) Whereas NVidia has been supporting Linux for much longer. Recently my ATI card toasted, and I can't get it covered under warantee so I'm looking for a fairly decent but inexpensive card - and this time I want it well supported under Linux. NVidia seems like the only choice for me, since only ATI's most recent line of products (ie: expensive products) are supported.

      Anyhow, the Linux marketshare is obviously expanding, and if ATI wants a piece of it, they'll have to do as the parent suggested - support it. It would be nice, because I prefer ATI products for their design, innovation, and the fact that they're Canadian.

      --
      -kidlinux.
    5. Re:Well... by Daemonik · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For one, the consumer electronics market is wide open.

      Most CE products are made in Japan, Korea and China, all countries with a healthy distrust of Microsoft.

      They just agreed to jointly develop Linux for their markets.

    6. Re:Well... by lspd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      NVidia seems like the only choice for me, since only ATI's most recent line of products (ie: expensive products) are supported.

      DRI covers virtually all of the ATI chips up to the 9200.
      FGLRX covers everything from the Radeon 8500 to 9800.

      The only remaining problem is that some commercial developers just assume Nvidia is the standard. DRI in particular has come a long way. I've been using a Radeon 8500 with Michael Daenzer's DRI packages for Debian with few problems. Out of 30 commercial Linux games I have, 3 don't work properly: Descent 3, Savage and Heavy Gear 2. Savage's problem is trivial to fix, the others I'm not sure about.

      I'd rather see ATI release the 3D specs on the R300 chips than see further improvements in the FGLRX driver.

    7. Re:Well... by JDevers · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Only the most recent? Ati supports everything from the 8500 up (two generations back, maybe more depending on how you count them). More importantly though is everything OLDER than the 8500 is supported by true open source drivers by the community.

      An 8500 would actually be a decent card to look at, it is DX 8 class but is reasonably fast and should be VERY cheap to obtain...

    8. Re:Well... by aquabat · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I already spent a mod point on this article, but I can't leave this one alone. So here goes...

      What annoys me most about both ATi and NVidia is not poor quality in their linux XFree drivers, and it's not a lack of resources dedicated to solving Joe Average's problems getting hardware acceleration working on his new Linspire box from WalMart.

      What really annoys me about these guys and other hardware manufacturers is that they are willing to sell me a piece of programmable hardware, but they are unwilling to tell me how to program the damn thing!

      What annoys me is their shortsightedness in assuming that keeping this programming information secret gives them a competitive advantage.

      What annoys me is their arrogance in assuming that their programmers can write a better driver for their hardware than I ever could.

      There is an implicit assumption in their approach that says the user is buying not a video card, but rather an extension to XFree86.

      Well, I don't want an extension to XFree86! And I don't want an extension to the Linux framebuffer driver instead! What I want is a piece of hardware, and a GODDAMN MANUAL to go with it, so I can do whatever I GODDAMN want to with it!

      --
      A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
    9. Re:Well... by Lehk228 · · Score: 2, Informative

      FGLRX has one flaw that I have found, it always picks your monitors highest possible refresh rate no matter how many times you set your config file to use one step down (at 75 hz my monitor loses the signal periodically, at 72 it works perfectly, guess which refresh rate FGLRX uses)

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    10. Re:Well... by jejones · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Is there any way I can get both 3D acceleration and support for the TV tuner on my AIW Radeon? My Gentoo box is limping along with ati-gatos and an xfree build (xfree-4.3.0-r6) that makes Mozilla and other browsers crash at the drop of a hat.

      OTOH, wait, maybe I don't want the 3D... when I used those drivers for ATI cards, I'd randomly wake up in the morning to find my or my wife's computer crashed hard in the midst of running one of the spiffy acceleratophilic screensavers.

      Can anyone out there recommend a graphics card with decent performance and Open Source drivers?

    11. Re:Well... by TarpaKungs · · Score: 2, Interesting
      OTOH, wait, maybe I don't want the 3D... when I used those drivers for ATI cards, I'd randomly wake up in the morning to find my or my wife's computer crashed hard in the midst of running one of the spiffy acceleratophilic screensavers.

      I'm running an NVidia GeForce FX 5700 under linux 2.4.25 with the NVidia drivers (build 1.0-5336) and I have exactly the same problem. I'm not sure whether you meant that "those drivers" were ATI's binary ones, but I am finding NVidia's drivers unstable as of late. Also, they were late out with 2.6 support. Who knows if they will support 2.8?
      Now that ATI's gone down the same route with binary drivers, I'll be buying Radeon 9200's for my next two computers, being the last card with opensource support for 3D. I'm not a hardcore gamer, so that's plenty of power for my needs.
      --
      Why can't women be like Hedy Lamarr - beautiful, talented and inventors of frequency-hopping spread-spectrum techn
    12. Re:Well... by ShecoDu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Do you happend to know what's the status for the IGP adapters? (I have an IGP345, chipset R250 if I recall correctly)

      So far I can get 2D acceleration, but not 3D, I've found some links (ATI IGP 320, Linux on a Compaq Presario 900US to name a few) but DRI is disabled (I use debian sid, and the dri-trunk-sid packages by the way)

      I can't get a working radeon framebuffer, all i get is a garbled screen mode and I can't seem to fix it (I've even installed a kernel patch)

      All I'd want is a working 3D acceleration, the framebuffer is not important to me.

  3. He'd better get busy by Neil+Blender · · Score: 5, Funny

    He should start now on that graphics card that longhorn will need.

    1. Re:He'd better get busy by Ride-My-Rocket · · Score: 2, Funny

      He should start now on that graphics card that longhorn will need.

      One triple-core GPU with a billion transistors, comin' right up! Now you can view your Windows desktop in 256-bit color!

  4. NVidia by gilgongo · · Score: 4, Funny

    As somebody who has just upgraded their RivaTNT 64 drivers to the latest version (all of about 5 mins before seeing this /. post) I don't think flattening NVidia is going to be much trouble...

    --
    "And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
  5. I agree by kneecarrot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ATI does look well poised to capture the majority of the desktop graphics card business. They have had excellent competitors since the 9700 and their newest generation gives superior performance to nVidia cards with less cooling and power requirements.

    --

    I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.

  6. Right. by AugstWest · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Orton believes that ATI can grab more than 50 percent market share in the desktop market in the short term.

    That's exactly the kind of BS that CEOs are paid to spew. Does he honestly believe they'll capture more than 50% of the market, or is that the line he's feeding to the board of directors to get the CEO position, which he'll lose when the board gets sick of the BS?

    One video card company cannot gain more than 50% of today's market. It's just not possible.

    1. Re:Right. by musikit · · Score: 2, Insightful

      umm i'm no expect here but don't the Gamecubes use a ATI chip? aren't the Xbox2s gonna be using a ATI chip? no clue what chip the PS2 uses but i could have swarn all 3 systems are designing for ATI chips on the next gen consoles....

      given the fact that console gaming is much larger then PC gaming and the fact that the consoles are getting to basically be full blow PCs with special SW wouldn't ATI hold a much larger then 50% marketshare?

    2. Re:Right. by mobby_6kl · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yeah I was also surprised. Last time I checked, Intel had the largest market share at about 33%, then nVidia had 27% and ATI 24%. (VIA and SIS had both about 7-8%). I seriously can't see a way how they could get 50% there.

    3. Re:Right. by DarkMageDTM · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sorry, but when 95% of the market is two companies, it's pretty easy for 1 to get 50% or more...no one else has the money to compete. Matrox tried...and failed.

      It costs so much time and money to design modern GPUs that we aren't going to have a new major player for a long time. More is sunk into their R&D than Intel and AMD at this point.

      --
      -- Darkmage "You've got to let it all go - fear, doubt, copyright... Free...Your...Code."
  7. What's the rush? by Fearless+Freep · · Score: 3, Funny

    Longhorn itself doesn't exactly seem to be in much of a hurry to get out the door

  8. Goodwill by wawannem · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Goodwill with the tech crowd will go a long way. There are some companies that play nice with our crowd and prosper from it... Apple for one has tried to deliver what we want and now they are doing better than they did 4 years ago.

    Although, I think we're both just feeding the troll.

  9. Exactly. by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why? What's the benefit to them?Yes, exactly. What I think will drive ATI to release better Linux drivers is seeing more *commercial* applications that run on Linux and require the cards that ATI makes. There is no point to ATI to invest lots of time / money in developing drivers for a non-existent market. Translation: Games, we need to see more *commercially* released GAMES for Linux.

    --
    "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
    1. Re:Exactly. by Zooks! · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Close but Linux is really poised to take off in embedded devices and if ATI is in those devices you can be sure they wil have a reason to make good drivers.

      Besides, I don't think games are going to come to the Linux market yet because Linux doesn't have enough of the desktop market.

      --

      --

      "I'm too old to use Emacs." -- Rod MacDonald

    2. Re:Exactly. by incom · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Even if that were to happen tommorow, most of the linux users would buy nvidia cards, creating an uphill battle for ATI to gain marketshare. No, I think that ATI is counting on linux not being a gaming market, cause they'd lose out if it became one. If they cared about even a potential, or future linxu market they'd be playing nice right now, it wouldn't even cost much to improve thier linux drivers.

      --
      True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
    3. Re:Exactly. by ImpTech · · Score: 2, Informative

      Everybody says "More games, need more games!" How many do you want??? We've got UT2004. We'll be getting Doom3. Return to Castle Wolfenstein? Enemy Territory? Ok, we won't get Half-Life 2, but who knows if even the Windows guys will get that one. Don't like FPS? We've still got NWN, probably some others I can't think of right now. Okay, we don't get *every* game, but we're getting a respectable selection these days, particularly of the graphically-intensive variety. At this point, ATI should want our business. If they don't, well, more power to NVidia.

  10. Market Share? by lrt512 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    To capture market share, they need to figure out how to write drivers that don't crash 50% of the systems they're installed on. I've flirted with ATI on and off since 1989, and have *never* had a stable system with one of their cards installed.

  11. Can't.....help....it....trying....to....resist by Neil+Blender · · Score: 3, Funny

    Longhorn will require a card that's at least ten times as powerful

    and 1000 times larger and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own one.

  12. Read the interview instead of the headline. by guidryp · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here is the actual quote: "We would like to reach 50 percent of the market in the short term." Since there are only really two main players for graphics cards, and they have been gaing share on NV, the goal of 50% doesn't seem unrealistic. Especially when you consider that so far ATI seems to be leading again on the high end.

  13. Why my next Card will likely be a Retail ATI card. by guidryp · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I generally shift like the wind when buying tech. The best bang for the buck in current reviews is what I look for. About 3 years ago I bought a Retail ATI 8500. Decent card but, in hindsight, my system crashed quite a bit more than it should have. People were point finger at my Antec 350W PS. Finally I started getting consistent crashes in a game I wanted to play (NWN). This lead me to an exhaustive diagnostic process that eventually proved my card was at fault. AT this point my Card was 2.5 years old. I sent it back to ATI. They replaced it with a 9700 Pro free of charge. Now that is what I call customer service. The kind of move that wins customer loyalty. That ATI warranty is worth a premium to me. I fully realize you are not often likely to get that kind of free upgrade, but a nice long warranty with fast replacement is much appreciated. I realize a lot of people here are complaining about past grief with ATI product, but they have made dramatic strides in the last 2 years. Now releasing drivers monthly. Performance, Image quality and reliability are all top notch. They lag in Open GL a bit, and moreso on Linux though. So I can see lots of folks here passing them by. One last point is I like buying my card from the company that also made the chip.

  14. 50%? Not Without Linux/FreeBSD/ETC by fire-eyes · · Score: 2

    ATI isn't going to touch Nvidia in the linux/free/bsd/etc market, the way things currently are.

    I had a radeon 9000, and i had more issues with it than any other card i've ever used. Most games couldn't be played, lots of system hangs etc. All with their offical drivers.

    Got tired of that, grabbed an nvidia 5900FX ultra, using nvidias drivers, and haven't had a single issue in two months.

    It's pretty clear who the serious company is as far as linux/fbsd/etc.

    --
    -- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.