[You Tube] Intel - Anti-Competitive, Anti-Consumer, Anti-Technology

[Adored]

I've edited the Youtube channel name out from the title of this (far too spammy and promo) - I won't edit the post as it's an open forum, though I see you're an Intel user yourself, so I'd not take this film with more than a pinch of salt

Why would Intel users take this with a pinch of salt? Do you think they don't care?

This video was top of Intel Reddit for over a day and one of the most highly upvoted posts on there in years. (you can still see it on page 1, just scroll down a little)

Intel CPU, AMD GPU. I'd agree that a lot of people aren't aware of what they did, heck i only knew maybe 10% of the vid. Interesting this was released just as AMD are having product launches

Yeah there's no chance that the recent hit-piece slides they just released on Epyc, or their current action against Qualcomm for being anti-competitive could have anything to do with the timing here? It surely must be something else

What *is* telling is how many admins on this forum seem keen to wipe the whole thing under the carpet when nearly everybody else sees it for what it is - a systematic abuse of monopoly and severely anti-consumer. Good job on that, I never considered Hexus to be so biased until now.

[Corky34]

That must be the most boring video I've ever had the misfortune to watch, it's just a guy reading out text from wiki articles, not exactly an infallible source of information, and bits of other publicly available information, it's probably useful to da yoof but for an old fart like myself it just goes over old ground, dragging out court cases is as old as the hills and particularly effective when it comes to the fast moving world of technology, Intel's far from the only company who uses such tactics.

[Zak33]

Welcome Adored, are you THE Adored?

Enjoy your visit.

We aren't slanted at all... we just love Tech from everyone

if you're NOT the Adored (from Scotland I think) then sorry for the confusion but welcome none the less

[MLyons]

Why would Intel users take this with a pinch of salt? Do you think they don't care?

This video was top of Intel Reddit for over a day and one of the most highly upvoted posts on there in years. (you can still see it on page 1, just scroll down a little)



Yeah there's no chance that the recent hit-piece slides they just released on Epyc, or their current action against Qualcomm for being anti-competitive could have anything to do with the timing here? It surely must be something else

What *is* telling is how many admins on this forum seem keen to wipe the whole thing under the carpet when nearly everybody else sees it for what it is - a systematic abuse of monopoly and severely anti-consumer. Good job on that, I never considered Hexus to be so biased until now.

Nothing going on here, I fully agree that Intel have done a bunch of sketchy stuff and we've done nothing to hide it on the forums. It's interesting that the first post a user makes is about attacking Intel though.

[DanceswithUnix]

The video is well researched - I don't agree with all his views,but its well researched and its even relevant now due to things like contra-revenue and the Ultrabook fund.

It isn't bad, though I think it is actually rather kind to Intel. It doesn't mention the harm they did Intergraph, or the way they killed off the DEC Alpha cpu. The way they tried to ram the awful Itanium down our throats as their 64 bit solution was only given passing reference in that video but shows how strong Intel thought their position was, we can thank Microsoft for not letting them get away with that.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It isn't bad, though I think it is actually rather kind to Intel. It doesn't mention the harm they did Intergraph, or the way they killed off the DEC Alpha cpu. The way they tried to ram the awful Itanium down our throats as their 64 bit solution was only given passing reference in that video but shows how strong Intel thought their position was, we can thank Microsoft for not letting them get away with that.

I had forgotten about what happened to the Alpha(I even saw one in operation when I was young and the first 1GHZ desktop system was Alpha based IIRC) and I didn't even know about Intergraph - all I can say I am history noob compared to you!

[kompukare]

It isn't bad, though I think it is actually rather kind to Intel. It doesn't mention the harm they did Intergraph, or the way they killed off the DEC Alpha cpu. The way they tried to ram the awful Itanium down our throats as their 64 bit solution was only given passing reference in that video but shows how strong Intel thought their position was, we can thank Microsoft for not letting them get away with that.

Well, the Itanium part in the video is treated a bit simply as ATM it wasn't AMD they were worried about in servers but rather POWER, HP-PA, SPARC and all the other RISC server vendors.

But of course from a desktop user perspective what Intel really tried to ram down everyone's throat at great cost was RAMBUS. Unless the P4 was really an even worse architecture than I remember there never was a good technical reason for RAMBUS so far more likely someone at Intel or their board owning RAMBUS shares is the only logical explantation.

than any other industry. The object (and duty) is to add shareholder value.

AdoredTV does address that the biggest problem in all of this as being a lack of governmental, regulatory and legal action. Corporations may have to maximise shareholder money, but that absolutely depends on government and regulators strongly enforcing monopoly and anti-trust legislation because otherwise those (very powerful) corporations will do anything they can get away with.

[watercooled]

The sad thing is, the penalties they've faced for their disregard of laws is probably less than what they voluntarily pay in 'exclusivity fees' or 'contra-revenue' (or pour down the drain in bizarre acquisitions) - why should they care about fines when the reward far outshines any financial risk? The fines they've had don't come remotely close to equalling the damage they've caused to countless other companies. Even when they're ordered to take action, they drag their heels so much that the damage is already done.

[kompukare]

The sad thing is, the penalties they've faced for their disregard of laws is probably less than what they voluntarily pay in 'exclusivity fees' or 'contra-revenue' (or pour down the drain in bizarre acquisitions) - why should they care about fines when the reward far outshines any financial risk? The fines they've had don't come remotely close to equalling the damage they've caused to countless other companies. Even when they're ordered to take action, they drag their heels so much that the damage is already done.

This is very much true, and that whole 'contra-revenue' stuff was strange starting with the name. Dumping is dumping, although apparently (and bizarrely) dumping is not illegal in the US unless consumers are directly affected (presumably at the time - fat chance of that since the whole point of dumping is to destroy the competition and only then raise prices).

[Firejack]

That must be the most boring video I've ever had the misfortune to watch, it's just a guy reading out text from wiki articles, not exactly an infallible source of information, and bits of other publicly available information, it's probably useful to da yoof but for an old fart like myself it just goes over old ground, dragging out court cases is as old as the hills and particularly effective when it comes to the fast moving world of technology, Intel's far from the only company who uses such tactics.

Intel is beaten right now. There is no reason to buy the vast majority of their products for all but a small percentage of users who have very specific needs.

Intel can either;

• Come out fighting and start delivering for its customers. (Decent solder under the IHS and a CPU cooler in the box of expensive K-series CPUs would be a good start!)
• Or Intel can return to its old-tricks.... bribes, lies and shady deals.

The latter being why personally I believe this YouTube video to be the perfectly timed warning we all need. We either sit back and let history repeat itself. Or we all follow Intel's moves over the next few months like a Hawk. The first sign of anything anti-consumer we have to send a clear message its unacceptable and stop buying their products.

[watercooled]

@kompukare - At least it seems to have backfired on that occasion - the random tablet companies took all the free gubbins offered to them, then just moved right back to ARM when the supply dried up, and Intel more or less abandoned the entire market. Suspiciously, AMD's small cores never got a look in though, despite seeming like very capable products. I kept an eye out but never saw anything significant - it was either one of the dumped Atoms, or ARM. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7974/a...ance-preview/3

[Corky34]

Intel can either;

• Come out fighting and start delivering for its customers. (Decent solder under the IHS and a CPU cooler in the box of expensive K-series CPUs would be a good start!)
• Or Intel can return to its old-tricks.... bribes, lies and shady deals.

The latter being why personally I believe this YouTube video to be the perfectly timed warning we all need. We either sit back and let history repeat itself. Or we all follow Intel's moves over the next few months like a Hawk. The first sign of anything anti-consumer we have to send a clear message its unacceptable and stop buying their products.

I'd place my money on option two as silicon valley is littered with the dead corpses of companies that have fallen not because their product wasn't good but because of shady going on's, yes the video maybe well timed however history has taught me that majority rules and sadly us tech enthusiasts are nothing but a gnats gaseous expulsions in the wind.

[DanceswithUnix]

Well, the Itanium part in the video is treated a bit simply as ATM it wasn't AMD they were worried about in servers but rather POWER, HP-PA, SPARC and all the other RISC server vendors.

It is a bit dirtier than that.

It sounds like Intel had worked out how to do something like AMD64 years before, and it was quite obvious that the desktop was going to go 64 bit before long. But Intel shelved their original 64 bit x86 design and stated that for 64 bit they would only do Itanium which would do x86 code through emulation. As time went on die shrinks of the Itanium and sales volume of servers would make it cheap enough for the desktop in time for the 64 bit transition. The Itanium design isn't based on x86, so anyone with an x86 license is locked out at 32 bit and the only cost to us users would be using slow expensive CPU parts only available from a single vendor who could charge what they want. What's not to like

If it wasn't for that meddling Microsoft backing AMD64, they might have gotten away with it.

The Itanium project did seem to come with a non compete contract with HP who were involved in the design, so that killed off PA-RISC and by unlucky chance when HP bought out Compaq it meant as part of that deal the Alpha team got handed to Intel where it was axed, so from Intel's perspective a few billion to knock out two RISC chips they could never beat on technical terms was probably a bargain.

I have used an Itanium server. When the hard disks died in it, no-one could be bothered to fix it which shows how nice it was to use even in the P4 days.

The Rambus thing was another scary tale. Intel signed a contract with Rambus to use their interface technology for some number of years. You didn't have to buy a P3 box with Rambus though, as VIA stepped up and offered chipsets with a DDR interface which saved Intel's bacon in system prices vs the Athlon. By the time Intel's agreement with Rambus expired and they could use cheaper DDR ram like everyone else, VIA was a big name in Intel chipsets. Clearly this wasn't acceptable, Intel declared VIA's chipset licence illegal for the P4 and went after not just VIA but threatened motherboard companies that used VIA chips. If no-one dare put the chips on a motherboard, it is no surprise the business died off pretty fast.