Intel and Skype Exclude AMD

Raenex writes "CNET is reporting that Intel and Skype have signed an exclusive deal that would cap the number of conference call members on all but Intel architecture. Skype will only offer 10-way conference calls on specific Intel chips while other chips, including all AMD chips, will only offer 5-way conference calls. From the article: 'Though few would argue that a niche feature like that is going to be a deal breaker for most PC buyers, the importance of the Skype-Intel alliance goes well beyond VoIP conferencing. Indeed, it's the latest, and certainly most prominent, example of Intel's new take on marketing: Lock in software partners as well as the PC makers.'"

Comments

Low Blow

[Kickboy12]

To allow more conference calls to users who are using a specific CPU is a cheap shot at the market. It's not fair to chip makers, and definetly not fair to the consumers.

Gatta start watchin Intel's sucker punches.

Re:Low Blow

[CastrTroy]

I agree. I think they should do a speed test on your processor and if it can handle the load, then the feature should be enabled. Disabling a feature because you don't have a specific brand of processor is kind of low.

Re:Low Blow

[TripMaster Monkey]

Gatta start watchin Intel's sucker punches.

You mean you're only beginning to watch now?

This is just the latest round in Intel's ongoing anti-competetive war against AMD.

Re:Low Blow

[SatanicPuppy]

I think it's pretty clearly anticompetitive, when you're pushing someone to write software that is specifically noncompliant with a competitors hardware.

If I were Intel I would have waited until that particular competitor was no longer suing me for anti-competitive behavior before adding more weight to their argument...But that's just me.

Re:Low Blow

[Yartrebo]

That's not the case. This is like Ford passing a law mandating that 55 mph governors be installed on BMWs, and then advertising that their car can go much faster than BMWs. AMD is widely known to make better chips in this case, not Intel.

Re:Low Blow

[GoRK]

I understand your post and agree, but just for fun: the governor on BMW's.. (or at least the ones that have it) is 155 MPH and there are plenty of carmakers who advertise about how much faster their cars can go by comparison despite the fact that the BMW's speed is artifically limited. I don't think that it's hurting anybody's sales however.

Re:Low Blow

[Dashing Leech]

"anticompetitive? or competitive?"

Competition is making a better product or doing it for a cheaper price. Anti-competition is forcing people to use your product by artificially limiting another product that people want to only work with yours. This is just a bullying tactic. Now, Skype with 10-way conferencing isn't exactly a big stick, but it's still a stick we're being hit with. But the principle is even worse than some of Microsoft's monopolistic tactics. It's not just integration or bundling, it'd be more like only allowing Windows to play mp3 files above 128 kbps using Windows Media Player and artificially crippling others. (The fact that it's two companies here instead of two MS departments doesn't make much of a difference to the harm to the end user.)

I'm wondering if they factored in the anti-marketing this does for them. I'm less interested in using Intel and Skype products now.

Re:Low Blow

[Tyler Eaves]

The reason for that is the tires. Have to go to a Z-Rated tire above 155, which not only rides harsher, but is considerably more expensive.

Re:Low Blow

[SatanicPuppy]

Your analogy would seem to suggest that currently, software that runs on intel does not run equally well on amd, which is not, in fact, the case. This is more analogous to lexmark's print cartridge scam where their printers refused to use cartridges manufactured by competitiors simply because they WERE managed by competitors.

In this situation, intel is offering incentives to a software manufacturer to cripple their product on a competitors hardware. I agree that a competing product could be released that didn't have this arbitrary restriction, but I think it is clearly anti-competitive behavior that it was released in the first place.

Re:Low Blow

[Aspirator]

I was looking into a provider for VoIP, Skype was reccomended to me,
with this news Skype is out. (Even though most of my computers have
Intel processors.)

Not because of the 10 v 5 way conferencing (I don't care) but because
of the mentality it conveys.

Can anyone name some competitors to Skype that offer world wide POTS
access?

Re:Low Blow

[Fordiman]

The question you have to ask yourself is "What value does this add?"

See, the only difference between competitive behavior and anticompetitive behavior is that anticompetitive behavior isn't innovation; it's simply trying to squash the competition.

Further, you have to ask, what does Skype get out of all this?

Re:Low Blow

[jma05]

http://www.gizmoproject.com/

In some respects, they are better than Skype.
Cheaper calls within US. Standards complaint (SIP) - which means you can plug in third party hardware to hook up your normal phone (can be cheaper than Vonage at some usage rates). Software looks better and does not force itself to startup. Probably does not abuse your bandwidth either like Skype.

On the other hand,
Overseas calls are slightly more expensive as is call-in.

Re:Low Blow

[JesseMcDonald]

Gizmo appears to have most of Skype's features (direct VoIP, inbound and outbound POTS calls, IMs, conferencing, call recording) as well as a slick UI and support for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. It may not have encrypted connections (I'm not sure), but it does have the advantage of interoperating with other SIP and Asterisk networks (it uses SIP internally), so you can call e.g. Free World Dialup subscribers from the Gizmo interface, and visa-versa. Outbound calls appear to be cheaper, as well: 1 cents/minute to the continental USA and Canada, 3-5 cents to the UK, France, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong, and a number of other countries. Somolia, Iraq, Papua New Guinea, Antarctica, and Palestine were the only countries I recognized with rates over $1.00/minute. The highest rate I saw was $2.50/minute to Diego Garcia in Asia, and that was only for landline calls; calls to mobile phones were less expensive. Disclaimer: I only found this earlier program today (I started looking when I saw the story), so I haven't had a chance to evaluate the quality of the program in operation. Perhaps someone else could comment on that point?

Re:Low Blow

[RedDirt]

I'm curious, did you even read the article that you linked to? Here's a few samples since you seemed to miss them:

"Under Battlefield 2, we're able to see a small 3% performance advantage over the Pentium M. However, compared to the Athlon 64 X2, the Core Duo does not stand a chance."

"What performance at lower resolutions does tell us is that in this type of AI/physics load, the Athlon 64 X2 is a much better performer than the Core Duo, which does have some importance for performance in future games."

And in the summary:

"In the past, power users on the go had to sacrifice mobility for CPU power, but with the Core Duo, that is no longer the case. You will still most likely have to resort to something larger if you need better GPU performance, but at least your CPU needs will be covered. The one thing that Intel's Core Duo seems to be able to do very well is to truly bridge the gap between mobile and desktop performance, at least in thin and light packages.

But what about the bigger picture? What does our most recent look at the performance of Intel's Core Duo tell us about future Intel desktop performance? We continue to see that the Core Duo can offer, clock for clock, overall performance identical to that of AMD's Athlon 64 X2 - without the use of an on-die memory controller. The only remaining exception at this point appears to be 3D games, where the Athlon 64 X2 continues to do quite well, most likely due to its on-die memory controller."

Based on that, I don't see how you can conclude that:

Itty, bitty mobile processor Yonah, at 2GHz, with no 64-bit extensions, kicks the bloody shit out of AMDs top of the line offering on almost all the benchmarks.

The Core Duo is impressive, no doubt about it. Near desktop performance with laptop-like power consumption (at least once Microsoft fixes XP so USB devices don't cause Windows to remain out of standby) but it seems you've gone a few too many laps 'round the Intel hype hampster-wheel. As a matter of fact, in direct opposition to your assertion, in all but one of the benchmarks Yonah trailed AMD's offerings. The gap wasn't generally tremendous, but it certainly was there. Yessir, that'd be kicking the bloody shit. Yup. Oh yes.

Re:Low Blow

[Dashing Leech]

"The goal of compettition is to beat the other compettitors."

While you are not strictly wrong, you are out of context. You've defined competition in the most generic, generalized sense, not in the market sense, and don't accept that it can mean something else in another context. By your definition violations of anti-trust laws can still qualify as competition. But at least you'd have at least one major supporter of your definition. (If you look, you'll even see that word "anti-competitive" used in the same context as here.)

Re:Low Blow

[nacturation]

What if the argument were turned around? Maybe Skype was planning to offer only 5 person conference calls, but Intel sponsored 10 person conference calls on Intel chips?

Re:Low Blow

[SillyNickName4me]

Not because of the 10 v 5 way conferencing (I don't care) but because
of the mentality it conveys.

They were out the day they got bought by ebay.

Good to see they are actually helping themselves die now.

Re:Low Blow

[Znork]

"I undersand your sentiment, but you're completely wrong."

Actually, he's completely right. Competition in the economic sense and as the justification of and reason for the efficiency of a capitalistic free market economy is narrow competition with quality and price, driving efficiency of resource allocation.

You can 'compete' in other ways, as a game of 'winning' or 'losing', but as you step out of pure economic competition you are actively damaging the economy and the wealth of your society as a whole by actively preventing the creation, and availability, of value at optimum resource cost.

In its economic implications, it's no less harmful than actually running around damaging public property, it's just less traceable and immediately obvious, as missed opportunity costs are difficult to calculate.

OS X

[CMiYC]

I haven't read the articles, so I apologize if this has been stated already. Is there news if these "enhancements" applies only to Wintel systems? Or will Dual-core Mactel systems get the added benefits too?

The Skype OS X client is already somewhat lacking compared to its Win-counterpart.

Re:OS X

[spacefight]

I haven't read the articles

Why don't you read the linked articles? No need for an apology then...

Re:OS X

[Trogre]

What about Lintel? Don't forget Lintel. :)

Skype: Tomorrow's Napster.

[XorNand]

Heh... In five years Skype is going to be as relavant as Napster is today: a historial footnote to a great idea that could have been much more. The dot-bomb hangover is finally fading and there's a resurging interest in funding Internet-based technologies. Some people have called it a "new boom". VoIP is far and away the biggest reason for this new boom. New VoIP providers are coming out the woodwork because the industry finally matured enough to standardize on SIP as the defacto VoIP-standard. Vendors are cranking out interoperable SIP hardware, which allows us (as part of a recent VoIP startup) to rapidly roll out services without having to second guess whether we're using the right tech. Open standards makes things cheaper. It makes it easier to find, hire and train knowledgable engineers. Etc, etc... Skype, however, is still locked into a propietary protocol. Compare the history of the CD to that of the Minidisc to see difference that open standards makes. Like Napster, the only value of Skype in five years will be the brand name.

Re:Skype: Tomorrow's Napster.

[XorNand]

lol... "Is freely giving away our service a sustainable business model?" Where (or better stated, when) have we heard that before?

Nah, Skype isn't even on our radar. At least not with my company since we focus exclusively on VoIP for small businesses. And we love Vonage and the handful of other major players because they are leading the charge against regulation and fighting the legal battles with telcos. Plus their marketing saturation lends creditiblity to the concept of Internet telephony.

And to the GP, I wasn't claiming that Skype will fail for the same reason as Napster. I simply said that they will have the same historical significance. Also see: CP/M, Altair 8800, Lycos, and the thousands of other technological pioneers who were later runover by more nimble players in the market. They all failed for different reasons.

Devices

[dedazo]

I'm going to make a wild guess that Intel is not thinking about ye olde PCs, but devices. VoIP is the next thing, and they want to make sure all those appliances are running Intel chipsets.

Cisco has a good start on them though - but not the software, that's Skype.

This is going to be an interesting field to watch for the next five years.

Are they crazy?

[Otter]

Whatever the merits of AMD's existing anti-trust complaints, there is no freaking way this isn't an anti-trust violation. It's completely artificial and a clear loss to consumers. Seems odd that Intel would voluntarily give out ammunition like this.

Re:Are they crazy?

[AKAImBatman]

Whatever the merits of AMD's existing anti-trust complaints, there is no freaking way this isn't an anti-trust violation.

Yes, there is one way. I had the exact same thought as you did, right up until I realized something: Intel no longer has a monopoly in the processor market.

The conclusion that then follows is: There is no more anti-trust. Just competition.

Scary.

Re:Are they crazy?

[deviantphil]

Yes, there is one way. I had the exact same thought as you did, right up until I realized something: Intel no longer has a monopoly in the processor market.

The conclusion that then follows is: There is no more anti-trust. Just competition.

Actually...this behavior is called tying...which is also illegal.

Re:Are they crazy?

[Tony Hoyle]

It's probably still illegal though.

In Europe it's product tying, which has been illegal for a while - if Skype try this there they'll be sued to oblivion by AMD under these laws.

Not sure about the US... I guess from the comments that there are no such laws there.

Re:Are they crazy?

[ArsenneLupin]

Intel no longer has a monopoly in the processor market.

You got it backwards. Intel is not leveraging a (no longer existing) monopoly in the processor market to help Skype gain a monopoly in the VOIP market. Rather, it's the other way round: they are leveraging Skype's near monopoly in VOIP to bolster Intel's dying processor monopoly.

So the real question should be: are there today any credible competitors to Skype?

Re:Are they crazy?

[Arandir]

And don't tell me Linux isn't preinstalled because nobody wants it.

Nobody wants it.

At least, nobody wants it enough to pay a premium for it. Because a Linux pre-install is a *separate* product from the Windows pre-install, it doesn't get made for free. It actually costs the manufacturer to provide Linux pre-isntalls. If the demand for Linux pre-installs is high enough then the cost is worth it. But if not, it's a loss, and so the manufacturer stops providing that product line.

Linux users, as a whole, are perfectly capable of installing Linux on their own. Even if you did pre-install Linux, odds are the Linux user is going to slap on another distribution anyway. You might as well be marketing OS-less systems rather than Linux systems.

In short, the absence of Linux pre-installs on desktop machines from the large OEMs is not evidence of a dastardly conspiracy.

Re:Are they crazy?

[McMuffin Man]

Tying agreements were made illegal in the US by the Clayton Act of 1914 (I believe this predates most European anti-trust law, but I'm hardly an expert here). That doesn't mean, of course, that anti-trust is enforced in a way which does what a non-laywer would expect based on the language of the statute. There's been almost a century for complicating and confusing case law to build up.

Here is a pretty good site on US anti-trust law.

Re:Are they crazy?

[Arandir]

And why not do this?

Because no one wants them. Some manufacturers have done this in the past, but it turned out that there weren't enough buyers to make it worthwhile. This is because a pre-install is a good in its own right, and sufficiently valuable that consumers are willing to pay for it.

Re:Are they crazy?

[Arandir]

...if the market were truely free to decide the point.

But the market IS FREE to decide the point. Just because they aren't deciding it the way you want it decided is beside the point. Volume discounts are legal, ethical and moral, regardless of the size of the company. A restriction on volume discounts requires government intervention into the marketplace, which makes the market unfree. These interventions typically take the form of arbitrary anti-trust decisions.

You CAN have a free market with anti-trust in your legal framework. But you cannot have one when the anti-trust is arbitrary, as it is in the US legal system. The error in the US system is to treat competitive actions as anti-competitive.

Re:Are they crazy?

[TheNetAvenger]

If nobody wants it, then why does Microsoft do the OEM
"keep others out" deal anymore?

10 years and people still don't get it...

1) Bulk/Bundle licensing has been around for a long freaking time, pre-Windows even.

2) It is the OEM's decision to buy the bulk licensing to include Windows, NOT Microsoft. Blame Dell, or whoever is making the computer, not the OS Vendor.

I was the head of a very successful company in the late 90s that competed against the Dells, Gateways, etc. WE CHOSE NOT TO DO THE BULK BUNDLING DEAL WITH MICROSOFT. It cost as 3-5 dollars a copy more for OEM Windows (That is it), and Microsoft gave us all the benefits that Dell and any other company got. The only difference is we could choose to sell a BSD or Linux based computer, the trade off, we paid about $3 more for each OEM copy of Windows.

So when you talk about Microsoft keeping the 'market' from moving to Linux or BSD or anything else, you need to yell at Gateway and Dell and others for CONTINUING the myth that is a Microsoft thing, when it is their OWN thing and their OWN greed to save the $4 bucks instead of offer more choices for their users.

Everyone is mad at Microsoft for the Windows Bundling, but EVERY freaking company does it, and has offered it. Microsoft DOES NOT require ANY company to do it, nor do they get ANYTHING but a better price.

And yet companies like Google are signing the same deals with Dell, and other companies in the past have as well, so that you can't order a freaking Dell without the Google desktop, or think back over the past 10 years and all the CRAP software that was bundled with your computer as 'feature'.

Heck even Corel's Wordperfect tried to get my company to exclusive bundle their prducts by offering a better a price.

Why do you think you see so many Wordperfect bundles on systems (especially over the past 8 years), do you think it is because the computer makers are trying to get back at Microsoft? They could give a crap, plain and simple, Wordperfect is cheap, and exclusive bundles are even cheaper.

Yet everyone thinks Microsoft is the only one doing this, or is doing it in a way that no one else is doing it.

So go yell at Dell, HP, Gateway, NEC, Toshiba, etc. They are ones that have limited your OS choices, not Microsoft...

Re:Are they crazy?

[Joseph Vigneau]

So the real question should be: are there today any credible competitors to Skype?

Yes. Standards based, and is at least 37% less evil.

Re:Are they crazy?

[Bob9113]

In short, the absence of Linux pre-installs on desktop machines from the large OEMs is not evidence of a dastardly conspiracy.

Assuming for the sake of argument that the rest of your argument is cogent, how do you explain the lack of OS-free machines? Why can't I get the same machine with no OS for $50 less? I've got no problem installing Linux on my own, but as things stand I have to build a machine from parts to get it without paying for Windows.

Solution..

[gasjews]

Stick to open source telephony. Asterisk makes an excellent enterprise grade open-source PBX for the back end. For the end user, Free World Dialup offers a SIP compatible service with a free downloadable client that does not limit you like this.

Re:Solution..

[arivanov]

With all due respect Asterisk is not an end-luser solution. Administering it and configuring it requires some mental effort. This limits it to a fraction of the Internet population.

Skype is a an end-luser-only solution. This makes it the solution of choice for the rest of the Internet end-luser population until a better alternative comes along.

As far as the "limit conferencing to 5" this is quite an interesting twist. Conferencing is clearly a business feature. Very few consumers are interested in it. At the same time the main complaint of AMD against Intel is about practices that deliberately lock out AMD from corporate markets (not the consumer ones). So by doing a restriction on a business related service Intel is not just shooting itself in the foot. It is doing it with a bazooka while looking at the exhaust funnel.

Skype is also shooting themselves in the foot. If they claim that this is for technical reasons (which sooner or later they will) AMD can take them to court and force them to enforce this limit on all AMD driven hypernodes. While the argument is clearly far fetched, there is still a fair chance that a good AMD lawyer may manage to get Skype smacked with a "limit to 5 for anything on AMD " injunction. Now this will be seriously entertaining. Most hypernodes are consumers and students. This is AMD land. Not Intel who is usually sitting behind the firewall. So, I like the smell of collapsed P2P networks in the morning. It smells like victory.

It will be also a good idea for AMD to buy a few congresscritters to force mandatory legal interception provisions on Skype.

I see great entertainment ahead. This is worth watching and following. Time to chose a front row seat.

Re:Oh no... bloody murder!

[Soothh]

They may not have to play nice, but the rotten #@$%!@#$ are taking away choice.
Its moves like this that make me chose against the product rather than for it.

wha?

[God'sDuck]

does this mean Intel is actually actively trying to chase off all the geek customers that were just starting to consider not despising them again when the Yonah benchmarks came in? or did some middle-manager just accidentally outsource their public relations to Sony?

Downright Disgusting

[Bulldozer2003]

This is a disgusting way of getting customers, it seems like there could be some kind of possible litigation considering they are making you buy one thing in order to use another. Maybe THIS is why VOIP companies should be regulated like we do the baby bells.

Ya, well... uh... NO SOUP FOR YOU!

[jigjigga]

Haha, like that is gonna make people want to stop their migration to AMD. Although this is a scary precident, it will most likely backfire. AMD will be able to further fan the fire with this.

The one positive thing about this.....

[achesterase]

Although I cringed when I read the article summary, this does underline how AMD has pushed Intel into a corner and I for one will feel a lot less sorry for Intel when they get crushed by AMD. ;-)

I'd make a choice--but not on the hardware...

[Chuck Milam]

From TFA: "Would you avoid buying a PC with an Advanced Micro Devices chip inside because it wouldn't let you host an Internet conference call with six of your friends?"

No, I wouldn't avoid buying a PC with an AMD chip. I pretty much buy all AMD now, and I plan to continue. I would, however, be sure to not use software that tries to dictate to me what type of hardware I use. I wonder if this will backfire on Skype?

Re:I'd make a choice--but not on the hardware...

[bigpat]

I wonder if this will backfire on Skype?

Don't wonder. I recently signed up for skype, just because my family was on it and it was free. But I think it may be time to think about alternatives. Thing about a free service, it is really easy to walk away when they do stupid things like this. I can't possibly see why skype thought crippling its software would be good for business. And it really makes me think Intel is on its way out if they can't compete anymore on the merits of their products, but have to conspire with other businesses to exclude competition.

It is a sad day for those two companies.

It will just drive more people to...

[shadwwulf]

Asterisk.

It does conference calls really well and is not just free as in beer.

Corporate stupidity isn't always a bad thing. It's just a matter of letting them shoot themselves in the foot and then reaping the benefits of their pain.

MTW

Stupid move

[artemis67]

It only opens the door for Skype's competitors to gain a foothold by not instituting such a silly restriction.

It also turns into bad PR for Skype for the tech community to find out that Skype intentionally hobbles their software.

Re:Stupid move

[dustmite]

Because Skype was one of the early VoIP services, they have network effects working in their favour (e.g. I "have to" use Skype because all my colleagues/friends and even clients already use it - it will now be quite difficult to switch in fact). I'm sure they realise this, I think it's already made them a bit lazy compared to their competitors, but I think they overestimate their position - there aren't that many Skype users yet that that a [new] competitor couldn't outgrow them. According to my Skype client there are typically between 3 and 5 million users on at any given time. That's miniscule compared to what the total number of VoIP users will be in 5 or 10 years. You're supposed to wait until you've really cornered a market before you start trying stupid stunts like this.

Re:Skype: Tomorrow's Napster. - NOT QUITE

[winkydink]

eBay owns Skype. eBay knows product marketing. Skype is not run by a 19-yr old kid with a manipulative uncle pulling the strings. The minute eBay sees they can capture more market share by "goign open", they will.

We'll keep on saying it...

[MoogMan]

... This is what you get for using a closed, proprietory technology. Use SIP (or H.323) and you're not going to get any of this "10 user max" limit crap.

Re:We'll keep on saying it...

[Blakey Rat]

Ok, where's an app running SIP or h.323 that can be installed and used easily, that copes with NAT routers transparency?

Put your money where your mouth is. You can't say "use this" if "this" doesn't exist.

Re:We'll keep on saying it...

[MacJedi]

http://gizmoproject.com

HTH.

Re:We'll keep on saying it...

[MacJedi]

...which is also closed source software AFAIK.

This is true, but the only requirements of the GP were that it use "SIP or h.323 ... be installed and used easily, [and cope] ... with NAT routers transparency (sic)"

Gizmo is not open source, but it uses open standards (you can use it with asterisk!) and it is a heck of a lot better than skype.

It's a stupid move for Skype

[Luscious868]

AMD has better and cheaper desktop chips and they keep gaining market share keeps on rising. If a user has an AMD chip and Skype will only support a 5 way conference call on AMD then I'd imagine the user would probably look to another VOIP solution instead of lookinf for a new PC with an Intel chip. It's a stupid move for Skype.

Re:Override?

[iknowrobocop]

This shouldn't be a complicated issue. I've got a lot of bundled software from old machines that is supposed to install only on HP or Dell computers and I can trick it into installing just by modifying the registry to spoof a Dell/HP/etc. It'll no doubt be harder to spoof an Intel chip than just modifying the registry, but making your hardware lie has a long history in piracy and software hacks in general. A workaround seems inevitable.

If we are to have antitrust laws, now is the time

[jmorris42]

Ok, if we are going to have anti-trust laws on the books, now would be a perfect time to use them. If this isn't anti-competitive behaviour then let he who holds that position define what is.

This is on a par with Ford and Exxon agreeing that unless you are burning Exxon gas your Ford's engine will be capped at half it's rated horsepower.

No conspiracy, there are technical reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Skype relies on float-point inaccuracies to optimize compression of the voice streams. Since AMD features accurate floating-point math, only 5-way conferencing is supported, while Intels inaccurate floating-point math can support compression of 10-way conference calls.

In a related announcement...

[kclittle]

Intel has announced a deal with 3D Realms that Duke Nukem Forever will only run on their Viiv IV platform. Said Intel CEO Paul Otellini, "2009 will be a great year for us, I can just tell!".

not so sure it'll backfire on Skype

[Marsmensch]

A lot of people are commenting that this is harmful to skype, but I'm not so certain. After all, Joe Sixpack will only know that he can conference call with all of his buddies with a intel machine, while AMD "can't handle it". The whole concept of software limitation is totally incomprehensible for the majority of the non-slashdot crowd.

AMD better start a massive PR campaign RIGHT NOW to make this backfire on Intel and Skype.

Re:Skype: Tomorrow's Napster. - NOT QUITE

[hackstraw]

eBay knows product marketing

How? eBay is a service company. The only marketing I've seen is singing about buying crap off of eBay on TV and every single noun that I search for on Google, I can buy on eBay as well.

Back on topic, this is a _very_ bad move on Intel and Skype. I doubt that MS would even stoop so low.

A) Why would Skype agree to this? What is their benefit by limiting their customer base by splitting hairs on commodity CPU manufacturers?

b) Why would Intel do this when they are already being sued by AMD?

Is Sony involved in these decisions?

Re:Intel Outsiders

[Doc Ruby]

Only on Intel-compatibles. It used to work on a competing processor, the DEC Alpha (WinNT, anyway), but Compaq (then the #1 Windows reseller) killed the Alpha when it bought DEC - just as MS killed its Alpha version of Windows.

Of course the "lockin" isn't that simple. Intel doesn't lock out other OS'es, like Linux, from Intel CPUs, nor does it lock Windows or any other OS into using only Intel. Even the Skype/Intel preference isn't simple - other CPUs will still work, but not as well, by contract. But HW/SW lockin is far from new, as the creaky old term "Wintel" itself indicates.

Of course, that's not the point of the Intel PR that CNet is reprinting without critical reflection ("reporting").

Re:Other industries do this

[Sparks23]

For example, Itunes requires your portable mp3 player to be Apple Ipod.

Actually, as long as you are only using non-DRM music in your iTunes, there's actually an API to allow other mobile devices to appear in iTunes (at least under Mac, and presumably so under Windows as well). My Windows Mobile PDA has an option in its synch software to appear in iTunes; I can then synch it just like an iPod, but any Fairplay music is disallowed.

Now, you're right that the iTunes Music Store requires you to have a Fairplay-enabled device, which thus far is only the iPod (and a few iPod-compatible things like phones, where they licensed the tech from Apple). Apple /does/ license Fairplay, I gather... just evidently it's really difficult to find out the terms. :/

Intel can no longer compete on a technology basis.

[QuietLagoon]

So now they have to start to use monopolistic lock-in practices to gain and retain customers.

It's the sign of a company that is falling behind in their core markets.

Re:Processor Mask

[quantum bit]

Skype already takes extreme measures to prevent reverse engineering and to abend the application if you try to run it under a debugger.

So does World of Warcraft, but people still hack it from time to time. Up until now there hasn't been much of a reason for anyone to want to modify Skype, so it hasn't been in the crosshairs of the reverse engineering crowd.

Example: Attaching a normal windows debugger or using softice isn't the only way to trace execution. Even if the app attempts to detect a virtualized CPU (say vmware), a full emulator can be completely invisible -- just slower. qemu even supports a gdb socket connection.

Trying to prevent reverse-engineering is a never-ending arms race and I'm not sure Skype has the will to stick it out. Just witness sites like game copy world to see how effect anti-reverse-engineering technologies are.

Intel optimizations

[Kaldaien]

If you actually read the article, as part of the deal, Intel plans to optimize the code for their processor. Intel is paying money to optimize the third-party Skype code for their chips, presumably utilizing SSE3. Though, I don't know why the deal extends to Duo chips only - I could understand if Intel had to optimize the code to efficiently utilize Hyper Threading, but Duo chips have two discrete cores; perhaps they're taking the shared cache into account, but AMD's dual core chips have a shared cache too.

If the code were optimized for SSE3, it would only run on recent Intel chips to begin with. I did not read anywhere in the article that said Intel paid to exclude AMD from approaching Skype to optimize their code for "AMD64" (x86-64). That said, the number of phone calls allowable should really be licensed on a per-CPU/core basis. If Skype honestly believes that Intel Duo chips with Intel's optimizations are truly twice as efficient as AMD's dual core chips, a license for 10 calls should be available for quad core AMD products. I have never been a fan of licensing by the number of CPUs, specifically disabling features if a host machine has fewer than X processors, but it has been in use for years.

It's absurd to assume that a machine with fewer than X processors/cores or of a slightly different architecture is not/will not be powerful enough to run suchandsuch a feature within a product's lifespan. They said that the exclusive 10-way calling feature will only be exclusive for a limited time, however. It may be in recognition that AMD64 chips will eventually be able to outperform even SSE3 optimized Intel code, if they cannot already.

I would just like to say...

[Bryansix]

I hate Intel. This just adds to the ever growing list of why. Some reasons include:
1) Higher priced chips that perform worse
2) Manufacturers who are locked into using thier crappy chips
3) Hints that Intel wants to offer non-standard hardware and screw the competition
4) Stupidest commercials in the industry including but not limited to some dumbasses walking around in pink isolation suits.

Work around

[snakecoder]

How hard would it be to create a dll that overrides getCPUId() and put that in front of skype's library path.

This really seems like a foolish way to conduct business.

"We don't offer you more, but we beat our competitors down with a stick so they offer you less"

Re:Skype: Tomorrow's Napster. - NOT QUITE

[hackstraw]

I didn't know Bill gates was for sale...

The top ad off of this search, http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en& q=bill+gates&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 yields the text ad that says, "Bill Gate, Looking for Bill Gate?" with the following ad URL: http://www.google.com/url?sa=l&ai=B-L2WiAvxQ7iWKqT iqQK0wf3XAqmhmRLdltOJAvvIjLUIwJoMEAEYASC5VCgHSJI5U J3b-KIDmAG9jgaqAQJlbsgBAZUCHXFKCg&num=1&q=http://a dfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/711-33994-2056-0%3Ftype% 3Dsearch%26mpre%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fsearch.ebay.c om%252Fsearch%252Fsearch.dll%253Fquery%253DBill%25 20Gate%2526krd%253D1%2526newu%253D1%2526xpufu%253D x%26keyword%3DBill%2520Gate

Close enough for me, Mr. AC.

Anti-Trust?

[Temsi]

IANAL but isn't this a clear case of two corporations conspiring to push out a competitor?

I mean... I guess the more appropriate question would be: "is this legal?" which of course begs the next question "can they get away with this even if it is?"
Or would this be considered "unethical but technically not illegal"?

Whatever it is, it smells really bad, and is IMHO a terrible PR move.

So contact Skype and voice your opinion

[pat_trick]

Leave feedback on their product at their feedback page. Tell them that you're not going to support it due to their business decisions to lock features to a certain part of the market.

Just stupid; games on certain video cards

[PhYrE2k2]

This is a stupid partnership, as there is just no reason at all to do it.

This is like some cars going faster on certain roads (ignoring speed limits here of course, I'm talking capability). Maybe one 'supported' platform for tech support, but why would anyone possibly want to tie an application to a specific processor? Who knows what the road may bring.

Next: Games that run on ATI-only video cards versus NVidia

-M

Another sink-the-company idea from Intel.

[Futurepower(R)]

Consider how this may have happened:

An Intel marketing person thought this was a good idea. He is one of those who knows nothing about technical things; he's just a marketing drone. What could he possibly do to advance the strength of his company? Nothing. So, to pretend that he was contributing he turned to evil. He made a deal that looks good to other know-nothings like himself, and is really, really offensive to the people who matter.

This is a violation of the anti-trust laws, I think.

New Intel mottos:

Intel: When you can't compete, be adversarial.

Intel: We're on the way down.

Intel: A technical company controlled by people with no technical knowledge.

Intel's present adversarial behavior is part of a gradual decay of the company that is more than 10 years old, in my experience. Perhaps 10 years ago, Intel arranged a pay cut for employees just before they began to do record business. During that time, Intel has done some really, really disgusting things, like trash their consumer products division by not paying enough attention to it.

Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

No, If you read the review again you will see that the AMD in green color wins more benchmarks than the Intel Yonah. How come all Intel fanboys are liars?

Evil

[hobbes75]

They turned evil when they were bought by eBay. Before, I was quite confident their encryption was sound, now after they sold their souls and released skype 2 I have to assume NSA can tap in.

Re:IT'S TRUE!!!

[patio11]

I searched for "beef" the other day, and eBay offered to sell me beef. The thought of buying beef from eBay frankly scares me (only 1 week left on the auction for this hamburger patty! Ooh, sign me up!).

Uninstalling Skype in Windows

[Akaihiryuu]

If you uninstall Skype from a Windows machine, it directs you to a survey page that asks you why you are uninstalling and invites you to provide comments. 1 of my machines is Windows, so I filled out the survey and explained that I was uninstalling it because of their policy to only enable certain features on Intel processors. Under Gentoo it's as simple as emerge -C skype, they don't ever even find out about that. Anyone using Windows should immediately uninstall the program and fill out the survey. Maybe if they lose 10,000 customers on the day of the announcement they will think twice about future actions like this.