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AMD Subpoenas Skype
I_am_Rambi writes "AMD has issued a subpoena to Skype in the battle of the anti-trust case against Intel. From the article: 'AMD is now focusing on a feature in Skype 2.0 that enables the ability to make 10-person conference calls only with Intel dual-core processors. Users with AMD dual-core chips or single-core chips are restricted to hosting five-person conference calls because only Intel's chips offer the performance necessary to host the 10-way call, according to Skype. [...] Skype's software is using a function called "GetCPUID" to permit 10-way conference calls only when that function detects an Intel dual-core processor on start-up.'"
IANAL, but I would guess that that is one of the things that AMD is looking to find out with their Subpoena. I think either Intel or Skype would be hard pressed to provide a valid reason why the limit is put in place. Imagine if the publisher a game certified by nVidia decided to limit the maximum resolution possible on ATI cards.
If Skype really needs extra horsepower for a 10-way audio conference it is impressively lame.
I understand the real time encoding and decoding required for multiperson video is processor intensive but audio streams should be pretty light weight. iChat AV can support 10-way audio conferencing using the now ancient G3 processor. http://www.apple.com/ichat/
There's a big difference between Microsoft and Intel: there is no drop-in replacement for Microsoft software. While MS is clearly a monopoly with 90-95% of the OS market, the competitors (Linux, MacOS) aren't really drop-in replacements. MacOS only runs on Macs, and runs entirely different application software. Linux will run on the same hardware, but again doesn't run the same software (WINE sometimes works, but that's not very robust).
So when MS gets in a little trouble, there's still no big danger to them because there's no competitor out there selling drop-in replacements for their software with 100% compatibility.
Intel, OTOH, faces a significant threat from AMD. AMD's chips are better designed, and produce better performance while consuming less power. And with this, AMD's chips run all the same software that Intel's do, so there's nothing technical that locks you into one company over the other. The only big problem AMD has is that they don't have the fab capacity to match Intel's. Also, Intel's stock has been doing quite poorly for the past few years. While revenue has been at record levels, the stock price keeps stagnating. AMD's stock, OTOH, has been doing great.
As AMD grows and gains fab capacity, they're able to keep taking from Intel's dwindling marketshare. In the face of this threat, Intel is countering not by investing in engineering and improving their products, but by making a big new marketing campaign (notice their new logo?), and attempting more slimy, underhanded deals like this thing with Skype. All in all, it doesn't bode well for Intel.