Re: Intel vs AMD x86-64
From: Timothy Miller
Date: Tue Feb 24 2004 - 17:13:03 EST
Linus Torvalds wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Sean Fao wrote:
Linus Torvalds wrote:
Now, I'm not above complaining about Intel (in fact, the Intel people seem
to often think I hate them because I'm apparently the only person who gets
quoted who complains about bad decisions publicly), but at least I try to
avoid complaining before-the-fact ;)
It must come with the territory ;-). Your message has already made it to
Slashdot so I'm sure this time will be no different.
Yeah, and that's unfair to Intel. They've done the right thing
technically, and I applaud them for that, but their marketing people are
pricks.
Everybody else is "Intel-compatible" when they make x86 chips. Intel is
apparently a bit too used to _not_ saying "AMD-compatible".
Oh, well. The marketing people are probably proud of their "branding", and
screw the confusion.
I've been reading some people's comments relating to this, and it
reflects a glimmer of an idea that occurred to me initially. To begin
with, I completely agree that it was unethical for Intel to imply that
this was their innovation, giving no credit to AMD. It was wrong, and
they should be ashamed.
On the other hand, I don't see how Intel's marketing department could
possibly justify to themselves doing "the right thing". In this case,
doing the right thing would be very bad for business, because giving
proper credit would be like saying, (to paraphrase one commenter on
osnews) "Well... we're behind the times, so we had to copy AMD's ideas,
so there's little point in buying from us, because we didn't really do
anything interesting, so you might as well give your business to AMD
instead. They're smarter than us."
Intel, being an organization driven by marketing and image, really
CANNOT "do the right thing" without some kind of penalty that they would
find unacceptable. Mind you, if Intel were driven by _performance_
and _superior_products_, rather than marketing, things would be a lot
different. That is to say, Intel's MUCH BIGGER sin is putting marketing
ahead of technical merit. (Hmmm, seems to me I've seen this sort of
attitude elsewhere in the wintel industry.)
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