I bumped into Hector Ruiz one day

Subject: How Dell screwed AMD

As much as I dislike Dell and would love to blame them...... I can't. I've been an AMD fanboi for a while. I have had over the years built many systems, almost exclusively AMD. MY current system........ is a Core 2 Duo.

Yup, I sold out but here is the thing. It wasn't because I no longer got a buzz from "not following the crowd". Give us geeks a little more credit. I bought AMD because it was a better product. Geeks want the fastest system. The icing on the cake was the fact that David (AMD) got to kick Goliath's (INTEL) ass. Everyone....well, me anyway.....love the underdog.

AMD dropped the ball. They got too cocky, got comfortable, fell asleep and woke up to find Intel pulled their pants down to their ankles. For their sake and mine, I hope they can pull up their pants and get back in the race.

Howard Smith

Subject: Jerry Sanders

As someone who worked under both Jerry Sanders and Hector Ruiz, I can see why AMD is in a terrible fix.

No sooner had Jerry retired and Hector began his reign, the bloody axe started to fall. The sucess of Athlon and Opteron are a testament to the people that Jerry attracted. Yeah, they better fire the latter and bring back the former...if it's not too late.

My only regret is that I was never able to meet Jerry, I was working so hard. But I did bump into Hector one day, and as I greeted him with a cheery hello, his eyes bugged out in sheer terror as he scurried away to his Palace at 1 AMD Place.

Jerry, where are you?

Robert

Subject: More shilling for InHELL

You just can't buy a clue but you sure can be bought... You'd think the sky was falling to hear all the B.S. knee-jerk, foolish, wannabe analysis on AMD. Ferchrissake BUY a clue !

AMD has survived 30 years of Intel's abuse and managed to take 20+% of their market. AMD has better products in the pipeline than Intel and AMD has an installed base that will buy these products. AMD isn't going out of Biz any time soon so the doomsdayers can state their dribble about some other company.

The only reason Intel even exists is because of violations of anti-trust laws which allowed them to obtain an illicit monopoly. AMD is slowing tearing down that monopoly despite the media tripe. Anyone with a clue knows AMD has been good for consumers and that a free, open market not a monopoly, is good for all consumers.

Time the armchair analyst (that's YOU) buy a clue because the rubbish you have spewed ain't even remotely close to reality. If I had a dollar for every canceled, recalled, defective Intel product ever reported as the holy grail, I'd have more money than Bill Gates. Please spare people the foolishness that passes for knowledge on the Inquirer. It's nothing but bought and paid opine - which ain't worth the alcohol bought to pay for it.

Bandy

Subject: Tunis sucked.

While I can't say I'd completely agree with your opinion of AMD that you expressed in the line at the airport check-in next to me, I also didn't exactly have the time of my life on the other end of Africa.

The NDA thing is a bit more than unsettling. Those of us with mere mortal status weren't presented with the NDA until after we'd already arrived in Tunis. I consider this a big no-no, as this could technically be considered coercion since they have you in a foreign country where the burden of feeding, housing, and flying you back is on them. I'm not saying they took us hostage, but I think if there's going to be an NDA presented it needs to be done before one leaves their home country.

Another big problem I have is I know that I personally have not yet received the promised copy of the NDA. This is a bit of a problem since I don't quite have a photographic memory and so don't know the exact terms should I need to look them up.

Also, that whole deal of "No photographs, but we'll give you a copy of all the slides!" has turned out to be BS (Surprise!) The presentations from third parties aren't in there, though they've been promised "real soon" on an FTP I can probably slurp 3KB/sec from at our wonderful connections we pay $10 per GB of data for around here. Oh and even the AMD slides are missing things that were up there, like a certain CPU name, and a certain set of benchmarks that I'm probably not supposed to mention, but I'm not sure about that because I don't have a copy of the NDA.

However my biggest problem was with the choice of location. Why the hell did someone decide to launch this product in what's essentially like a bad neighborhood of Los Angeles with all the signs changed to Arabic and filled with rude French people? Basically if McDonalds can't even be bothered to set up shop there, I'm a bit wary of the place. If you find the person responsible for this, please slap them for me. If AMD invites me to another press event, I hope it won't in a country where I have to worry about being immediately arrested if I bring my husband along with me.

Of course, that's if they invite me. It's easy to be "Gentlemen" when you're the big fish, and can afford to fly around the globe on your own dollar. When you have to beg and plead to get an invite to 1 press event a year so you can see products that will be on shelves before you even get a press sample (that they will make you return), and will cost 3x the promised price due to local corruption, it's another story.

Hackette Minor

Subject: the beeb

Bang on! You missed a couple of other points though. Most of their clothes (especially the weather people) come from charity shops in an attempt not to be too upmarket and scare off the punters. They never fail to ask viewers to send in their version of the news which they then spout about as though it were true and anybody actually cared.

Of course, if there is an opportunity for the weather person to be 9 months pregnant, this is not to be missed and better still if there is a choice between somebody relatively normal looking or someone likely to frighten children an horse, the choice is obvious.

And nobody Asian or Chinese lives in England since the entire contribution to political correctness makes sure that all children's programs have at least 50% of the actors and kids as black but not asian or anything else - which of course is an accurate reflection of the population mix in the UK. Won-t be long before we have programs for the deaf given by muslim women in the full veil I suppose. The BEEB is a disgrace and embarrassment to the UK especially if you live outside. cheers

Stuart Hotchkiss

Subject: BBC Tax

Hi there,

Please could you mention somewhere the petition to the PM ?

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BBCTAX/

Ta

Panos

Subject: Support for RSX under PS3 Linux being "worked on" by Terrasoft - founder of Terrasoft

Straight from one of the founders (and CEO) of Terrasoft:

http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=49173

Near the end. It was from GDC this year. He directly claims that Terrasoft is "working hard on making full 3D acceleration available."

I believe the "Hyperchip" protection in the PS3 is a myth and there simply isn't any driver support available yet.

Garrick

Subject: Bravo

Bravo my friend. Keep them in check. I'm from the US not the UK, but I can relate to what you're saying. The commercialization of the media has brought only sensationalism and cost savings on the expense of journalism. It is in deed a very worrying trend that somehow must be confronted or in a generation's time we'll fall back 100 years or so despite general availability of information; polluted information that is.

Unfortunately I've seen this trend in The Inquirer as well, though it got better in the last two weeks. I hope it's a trend. Guys, don't drop the ball now.

Pzolja

Subject: XP SLow down?

Dear All,

I am going to start working for Microsoft in the UK in July. I will be working in the Finance division. However, even though i was always against Micro's monopoly practice, i was increadably dissapointed by Vista (as i was always a FAN of Windows). Now, that i realize that they ARE slowing DOWN XP i feel as if something must be done. Just because Apple is way ahead and Vista sales are bad does that mean they must MAKE us buy the STUPIDALY expensive VISTA???????

I think they have gone far enough. I want an online petition to start. I am sure readers in many sites (xbit, anand, hexus, hardocp etc) will sign it to complain about the situation.

We can act anymore like silly little people who get driven to buy BAD products at a PREMIUM price.

Faithfully, A.

Although our correspondent above supplied his full name we thought we'd withhold it just in case he really is about to become an honourable Vole. We thought it better that he at least take up his new position before being fired - The Letterman

Subject: Bring back Jerry Sanders, top hack suggests

The guy who wrote the EE-times article just restated essentially all our concerns over the last couple of days. Nothing original there.

IBM ... Samsung ... rescue package.

Some more fruitful reader dialogue should focus on the following ...

What percentage of AMD's business could a real win with the new ATI R600 chip support? Could ATI save AMD's butt??

Do an article on the figures ATI could raise in real revinue for AMD? Might be a good start.

Lets have a "Save the Whale" competition ... heh heh. Well ... a smallish whale now.

When do we get to see an Inq staffer spotted with a Barcelona chip in hand?

Jeez guys c'mon ... If we don't see silicon soon ... there may never be any to see.

Darren

Subject: Nothing to report then : Why the BBC is rubbish

Who the hell let you on to publish this shite you cretin? I cannot belive i actually read the whole thing - i knew it was complete shite by the end of the first paragraph. Must be a slow news day if the only thing you got to write about is the BBC being rubbish because it doesnt look or sound like it did 40years ago - i bet you stand about in the pub lamenting about Kitkats not having Rowantree embossed on them any more eh?

Dick

Anthony Jackson

Subject: X86 World Tour

Just writing to let you know I have thoroughly enjoyed your reporting of what you have labelled the ‘X86 World Tour'. The human perspective to the tech company melodramas, NDA sham-DA, PR Olympics has been far more interesting then any of the technical specifics… most of which were unearthed previously on your site.

What strange times. The actions of tech companies these days tend to be more interesting then the technology produced. This seams especially true when legal or PR departments are involved.

Cheers,
Dag

Subject: This is to Freddy

You have no idea do you?, AMD didn't force 1000$ CPU's on you, they where expensive compared to now yes, but so was intels, and if your competitor is making crap and your product is quite better than theire more expensive crap, why make less money? that would be to shoot yourself, the "fanboy" could atleast produce something worth reading, like the fact that AMD is making money on every Wii produced. And what do you have to say? some made up crap and enthusiast bullshit about AMD not making a X2 6000+ for socket 939. Wow Intel would never do that would they?, we can use a core 2 Duo in every LGA775 board can't we?, there most certaintly isn't any LGA 775 board that didn't support any 64Bit P4, or Celleron are there?.. Sempron 2800+ - X2 4800+ can handle anything with no problems of todays computing, so if you still do have a working socket 939 system you are not screwed and still have a capable system for years to come, you can even run vista :o.

Kim Leo

Subject: green-eyed AMD

Mike,

This is definitely the most intriguing article I have read in quite a while. I'm still trying to figure it out.

Good Job!
Dave Feustel

Subject: AMD goes down the toilet

Hi there

Thanks for this, that's exactly what I'm thinking. And many others too. Sure there are still some geeks who think that K10 will be the messias, but I don't think so. The last announcements from AMD are a despaired try to get ANY investor to keep the cookie-maker running. For me as an old AMD supporter it's really sad to see that, but it's inevitable. AMD is dead meat and will never come back (because of the investors).

Cheers,
Simon

Subject: childish behaviour....

Why do people use hardware/software manufacturers like some kind of adult(!?) equivalent to wrestling? It's really pathetic how people get so defensive over Apple, Microsoft, AMD, Intel, Nvidia or whoever. THEY ARE JUST COMPETING BRANDS! I must have been reading the Inquirer for the last 4 years and it seems every week on your letters page, you get some fool moaning how your writers are biased against this or that company. Now I've never noticed any of this bias, as far as I'm concerned you give praise where it is due, or not as the case may be.

REMEMBER (FANBOYZ!) YOU'RE NOT GETTING PAID TO WORK FOR THESE COMPANIES! LET THEM DO THE WORK!

Rant over!

Martin

Subject: The BBC

The greatest argument for keeping the BBC is to take a look at TV across the pond. The constant commercial breaks, the banal, biased and pandering news, the absolute rule of audience figures and the almost total lack of educational and informational programming on the main networks (and if you look at the programming on the Discovery and History channels you may decide that they lack educational programming too).

The cost of the BBC at around £12/month is well worth it, it's a bargain. I don't like all their programming, but then between the TV, the Radio and the Web there's enough to keep me informed and entertained.

Szlater

Subject: Chinese President calls for internet clampdown

If I'm not mistaken, being fat in China used to be a sign of wealth, and was quite respected.

Of course, I'm no expert in Chinese social history, so I could be wrong. There is one thing I'm quite sure of though, Hu can take a hike if he believes that I am going to change the content and wording of my website to better conform to "socialist values" (and I'm certainly far from being the only one).

Pascal

Subject: XP

Do you guys sit around all day and come up with conspiracy theories concerning microsoft.

Z0//9 L1|<3 //1(R050Ph7 15 1|| 7|-|15 b19 7|-|1||9 //17|-| 4LL 7|-|3 //0RLD 90/3R||//3||75 70 53(R37L'/ rUL3 4LL 0Ph 0UR L1/35!!!!

M J Bradvica

Subject: How Dell screwed AMD

I couldn't agree more with you in the sense of the AMD hosing of its core customer.

I am a registered Microsoft system builder, who used to pride himself in using the best (AMD) chip, as opposed to the more expensive and heat producing Intel chips.

However within a week of the Green Guys (AMD) signing on the dotted line with the Devil (Dell), my supply line was literally cut off. We were forced to buy crappy mid to "high-end" Sempr0ns, when all the Athlon's were either pulled for the sake of Dell, or supplies were so "limited" because they didn't want to crank the factories back up to accommodate their bread & butter.

Now however, things are different. AMD is back to being cheap as chips...

However let it be known that the ready supply of Intel chips and the rarity (at the time) of good AMD notebooks, was a major determining factor in my buying of a MacBook Pro...

And the simple fact that Vista hardly works, and that OS X is 99.4% flawless...

Regardless, AMD screwed their true purchasers, and are now stuck with their losses. In my opinion, they deserve it.

Just my three cents.
Gardner

Subject: How Dell screwed AMD

Good point Paul!!!! Very unusual article for INQ!

During 2005-2006 AMD sells their highly overpriced Opterons thinking it will go forever this way!!! Now it's time for them to pay back!

I'm not an Intel fan, neither AMD. Just want the best for a hard earned money!

Respect!
Gleb

Subject: XP Slowdowns

I like the implied evil in M$'s conspiracy to slow down XP with nefarious patches, however, I don't understand the logic.

It is common knowledge that each new iteration of Windows is more resource hungry than the last, so why would I want to upgrade if my machine is already struggling to run XP? Or are the Hardware guys also in on this and hoping that I will chunk my current system in favor of something "Designed for Windows Vista"? HA!

Mike Reed

Subject: The call for new socket 939 CPUs

I have to agree with you about the mistake of droping the Socket 939. Added to that, why should I buy into the Socket AM2 right now when the Socket AM2+ is coming? The best thing I can do is stay where I am, wait and see what plays out on both sides (AMD/Intel).

Larry D

Subject: you are full of shintel

Your premise is that people have dumped their 939's. If they did they're stupid... there is nothing that an fx-60 processor with quality corsair or OCZ memory and an SLI setup can't beat.

My system rocks...and it has for a year now... all 939.

The 939 was pulled because there is an inherent memory bandwidth limit in the on-chip memory controller or do you not read the articles on anandtech or inquirer (for that matter). People who bought the 939...have no compatability issues moving forward including vista x64...so they should shut up and be happy and realize that technology constantly changes.

:(
P Morcos

Subject: AMD Kicks it's Fans in the Ballz!

I have been seeing this for a few months now. AMD parts (higher end) have been far and few between.

I love the idea that you stated and maybe Dell and Intel thought this up to kill off AMD and it's Fans. Good thought! (yes it's praise)

Very informative and a bit eye-opening. BTW- AMD going to Dell at this point was not good, as HP is eating Dell's lunch at this point. Dell can thank it's customer support (See: People you can understand from SE Asia)

Thanks again,
SiR-Tazman

Subject: Internet clampdown article...

Good evening,

I cannot believe that self proclaimed king "Hu" get's so much attention and so much Media coverage and soon probably support from bush and other western cowards. I am a bit outraged by the fact that "hu" wants to turn back time on us and bring us so many years backwards...instead of forward.

That is the beauty of the whole internet, the fact that we can ALL share our ideas whether we are in USA, Canada or china...we all know immediately what's going on without having "mass (liar) media" feed it to us.

I liked your style in this article...in French we say " Chapeau".

Thank you very much for your time and hopefully you will let this Hu(ligan) have it in your next articles.

Regards
Manny

Subject: How Dell screwed AMD

More like how you screwed up this story. It is called aggressive expansion, and sometimes the little guys get left out of the loop for awhile. So sorry for all the people who couldn't get an AMD processor at the corner tech-mart. It is called patience. So AMD overextended themselves with this Dell deal, but if you want to grab a much bigger chunk of the processor market, then you need to be hooked up with a major manufacturer like Dell. If you don't, you will never gain much market share.

AMD knows the fortunes of patience. Nvidia is a good example of that. AMD stands for innovation and has proved more capable of that than Intel. That's why Intel had to play catch up for so long, and all they did was copy from AMD. If Intel strickly came up with their own innovative ideas, they would still be lagging behind AMD. When AMD makes their next release, they will be back on track, with better products than Intel or Nvidia has. When push comes to shove, AMD isn't going down.

David, a "loyal" AMD fan

Subject: AMD 939

What are you people complaining about? Yes, socket 939 had a short life-time, but they did it so that they could give the AM2 board a much longer lifetime. Where AM2+ and AM3 CPUs will fit into any AM2 board, they could not do that with the 939.

The only thing they did wrong was brining it out around the time Intel leapfrogged them. Thing is, the AM2 was already in production so they couldn't withdraw it.

It's just a long-term decision made at the wrong time; classical case of "Wrong place, wrong time".

If memory serves me correctly though Intel has made much more chipset changes than AMD, so why not complain about them?

Personally as soon as ATI (AMD, DAAMIT, whatever) releases their cards I'm going to upgrade with an AM2 board and the best mainstream graphics card (nVidia included). This so that in two years time I will be able to just plug in a new AM3 chip.

Garson

Subject: AMDDell

Paul

There have been market forces far beyond what Mercury reported that have affected what is happening. I retired from Sandia National Labs last year as a GS-16 (super GS executive grade) in procurement. Mercury did not note that Intel's shipments of processors to HPC users in the US government agencies fell to 0 in the first quarter and the reason Dell is scarfing up AMD production is that the new GSA PC purchasing regulations make the 20 watts of the Intel Northbridge 20 watts too many on the power consumption scale. Dell traditionally sells 80%+ to governments and corporate business users. The corporate buyers also have major electric bills and GSA estimates that each watt of power usage on a PC costs $1 per year(based on 11 cents perKWh) [http://www.supercomputingonline.com/article.php?sid=11894] and that is going up. (IBM wasn't blowing smoke last year when they said that power costs will soon outstrip purchase costs)

The following press release from Sandia Labs put the energy consumption issue from the government's point of view in black and white. "Red Storm is Sandia's largest high-performance computer, but is thrifty in its use of power. It uses 2.2 megawatts, roughly half of other supercomputers of its class. This means that comparatively less of Red Storm's energy is converted to useless heat." http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2006/red-storm.html

You may find the rest of the story interesting about some conclusions about the relative technology merits between AMD and Intel. The Intel powered Thunderbird is next door so side by side comparisons are easy. So at $20 per machine per year if everything else is the same x500,000 pc's a year that is not chump change. Most government computers do distributed computing work when no one is at the console. Over the 5 year expected life of the PC's and the $100 per PC lower cost buying AMD, that figures to be $100,000,000 savings on that one years pc purchase. That is definitely not chump change.

The Mercury numbers do not include direct US government shipments. Also since Dell and AMD both use cash basis accounting, they do not include shipments to the government in their quarterly reports until they get paid. 1Q shipments to the US government get paid in 2Q. So you will always have a quarter lag until all shipments get paid for. That distorts Intel's 1Q numbers upward because the US government no longer buys significant volumes of Intel chips but Intel gets paid in 1Q for the 4Q 2006. AMD and Dell, to a lesser extent, are paying the price in their financials.

The problem with the Gartner and Mercury numbers is that they omit government purchases. Ask the Mercury rep if they included the deliveries of 386 chips for use in the electronics of the F15 and F16C fighters or the Pentium Pros for upgrades in the AWACS and Wild Weasel aircraft in the last quarter (yes IBM still makes both of them for the government's use) or the deliveries to Cray for both classified and unclassified projects. Also ask him if they include US Government purchases of desktops.

The 939 isn't going away soon because it has certain design characteristics that make it the basis of the next generation of military electronics as in the new F/AE-18 Wild Weasel. It may be IBM making it rather than AMD under the second source regulations. I find it interesting that I just got a 939 4000 that is coded 0712 and is LCB9E rather than the CXXXX that indicates the Dresden plant. AS Bruce Gudmundsson put it in a TV interview recently the race between Stealth technology and Radar is a race between materials science and computer technology. With the comparative rates of improvement and decreasing costs of electronics, he will bet on electronics.

AS to the Intel rep, ask him for his druggist's name. Then ask him how many DARPA HPC awards for computer technology Intel received at SuperComputing '06 last November in Tampa despite having 30 core 2 Duo and 1 Quad core entries. The answer is 0. Then ask him how many AMD got and for which chip. The answer is 4 for the 939/940. IBM got the other 8. Ask him where Intel finished in DARPA's Petascale contract competition. Answer is last IBM split honors with AMD/Cray and IBM has agreed to make the P7 interchangable with the AM3+. Sun's Rock was 3rd. Intel's wonderful technology has shut them out of the HPC market through the end of 2010.

Dell made the move they had to to protect their sales to US government agencies and AMD has had to face some dislocations to meet the demands of the new market. The trickle down effect is probably as significant because state and local agencies and school districts that use federal grant money to buy new computers have to follow the GSA guidelines. The size of these markets in one year are about as much as 4-5 years worth of the enthusiast market. Not hard to figure who wins and who loses. Also there is a lot more than meets the eye going on.

Ed Hinders