Re: Intel vs AMD x86-64

Timothy Miller
2004-02-24T22:11:25Z

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.)