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

Worth watching all 35 minutes of this very informative video regarding Intel's underhand business practices, anti-competitive behaviour, breaking EU anti-trust laws, and how they hurt competition (AMD) in the processor market.

Intel have been raided numerous times around the globe. They spent $6b (to Dell alone) stifling competition from AMD and then paid AMD $1b in settlement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osSMJRyxG0k

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

I presume this is the historical stuff we knew about before right? In which case I'm not sure what the motivation is to drag it up again. MS were in the past too, and Google have much more recently been found to be more seriously anti-competitive. But I bet a large number (not all) are reading this on a Windows computer and still do their searching on Google.

/\ that... but with tiny little bells... and no tinsel

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Originally Posted by kalniel

But I bet a large number (not all) are reading this on a Windows computer and still do their searching on Google.

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on intel chips

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Originally Posted by Zak33

on intel chips

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only until I can afford to buy Ryzen. Car insurance didn't help with that :(

If you look on many places like Reddit a lot of younger PC owners are not really that aware of what Intel did it seems or even to what degree and this video informed them. Its very well researched and covers the periods from the late 60s to the present,including the breaking of licensing agreements by Intel had with AMD in the 80s,and how AMD won almost all of the legal action,and why AMD moved to clean room designs and eventually its own designs.

It's well researched though as there are even a few things I didn't realise Intel did. I mean they still haven't paid the EU fine yet from 2009 or that Bill Gates actually talked about Intel and their army of lawyers.MS got into more trouble for relatively tamer behaviour TBH!

Quite a few people probably even are less aware of the spat with Nvidia and how Intel literally locked them out of the chipset business.

Plus I don't see why people want this to be hidden from the younger enthusiasts,even the contra-revenue with Atom and the financial help on the ultrabook program might have been more obvious but still.

Many of us are older but in the end younger people should be made aware of what Intel did for decades.

Also people having a go at Google when Apple has used the dodgy US patent system to try and attack it's competition,which is just as bad when they did it during the 80s too,and all of their patents for desktops GUIs invalidated in the early 90s by the US government as they were abusing them.

I seem no motivation to hide these things - people need to understand a lot of the most successful tech companies have got there through rather risible behaviour.

Edit!!

It's also like when people on the interwebs bring up Trump past dodgy behaviour like a decade ago in threads like his comments about women. I mean it was covered back then,why bother bringing it up now? ;)

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Originally Posted by Zak33

/\ that... but with tiny little bells... and no tinsel

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I think you are getting confused with Mac on Worth a Buy! ;)

Go back further and you'll find IBM had a virtual monopoly on main frames until start ups like Digital came along. Microsoft had a pretty dodgy reputation for buying tech companies to kill the products, and when Wordperfect was the Word Processor (and still is as far as I'm concerned) Microsoft changed the hot keys on the fledgling windows system so that the WP ones didnt work, and the altered the APIs to give Word a perceived speed advantage.

Tech companies are no more immune to dirty tricks than any other industry. The object (and duty) is to add shareholder value.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

It's also like when people on the interwebs bring up Trump past dodgy behaviour like a decade ago in threads like his comments about women. I mean it was covered back then,why bother bringing it up now? ;)

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Well indeed why? Trump was one of only two candidates running for a hugely influential position and his opponent's past behaviour wasn't ignored either. But I don't see why Intel's historical behaviour is being singled out here when we've already seen several other tech brands have been at least as guilty of the same thing, more seriously, and more recently.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

Well indeed why? Trump was one of only two candidates running for a hugely influential position and his opponent's past behaviour wasn't ignored either. But I don't see why Intel's historical behaviour is being singled out here when we've already seen several other tech brands have been at least as guilty of the same thing, more seriously, and more recently.

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So what?? You could argue that with any politician or anybody - using your absurd logic what Trump said 10 years ago is irrelevant to what he is doing now.

But you it know isn't the case and the same goes with companies,who are technically considered legal humans FFS in the US!! ;)

Yet,Intel is a highly influence position in the tech market,as one of the biggest semiconductor companies in the world,so their actions also have an effect on the computing market. This is a tech forum,so in the end what Trump has or has not done is actually less important to this field than what Intel has done.

Trying to bury stuff since you are scared younger people will be made aware of what Intel has done is ridiculous. You don't seem actually fully grasp that there are loads of much younger enthusiasts and gamers who are not aware of what they did,ie,plenty who are now in their 20s,and this is why on places like Reddit and YT its getting traction.

YOU need to stop thinking just because YOU as an older person is aware of it loads of people are.

Yet,its even more hypocracy on your part when you bring up Google and MS,yet seem scared when someone brings up Intel. What about Apple?? People still mock Apple over the patents on curved surfaces,etc even recently here on Hexus.

Edit!!

If you have an issue with the chap who made this,he does post on the odd forum - he occasionally posts on OcUK when people had a go at him about one of his previous videos.

So I am sure,if you want him to give his reasons for posting this you can ask him? ;)

Second Edit!!

Have you even watched the video??

Or have you pre-judged it already??

IMO, having other companies do it is not a valid reason for burying the past (and let's be honest - the present too e.g. Atom bribery/stock dumping) for one particular company. AdoredTV's channel is largely about processors, therefore Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and he often gets questioned about exactly this, so it's hardly unjustified. And it's all based on fact, with evidence provided, not just rumours or speculation.

If you already know about it, great, don't bother watching it (though like CAT there were one or two new things I learned from it). If not, it's a very important piece of technology history to know about.

And I agree with what CAT said - actually watch it before passing judgement, eh? It seems like people are jumping to the conclusion that it's some sort of unsubstantiated fanboy rant, which couldn't be further from the truth.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

So what?? You could argue that with any politician or anybody - using your absurd logic what Trump said 10 years ago is irrelevant to what he is doing now.

But you it know isn't the case and the same goes with companies,who are technically considered legal humans FFS in the US!! ;)

Yet,Intel is a highly influence position in the tech market,as one of the biggest semiconductor companies in the world,so their actions also have an effect on the computing market. This is a tech forum,so in the end what Trump has or has not done is actually less important to this field than what Intel has done.

Trying to bury stuff since you are scared younger people will be made aware of what Intel has done is ridiculous. You don't seem actually fully grasp that there are loads of much younger enthusiasts and gamers who are not aware of what they did,ie,plenty who are now in their 20s,and this is why on places like Reddit and YT its getting traction.

YOU need to stop thinking just because YOU as an older person is aware of it loads of people are.

Yet,its even more hypocracy on your part when you bring up Google and MS,yet seem scared when someone brings up Intel. What about Apple?? People still mock Apple over the patents on curved surfaces,etc even recently here on Hexus.

Edit!!

If you have an issue with the chap who made this,he does post on the odd forum - he occasionally posts on OcUK when people had a go at him about one of his previous videos.

So I am sure,if you want him to give his reasons for posting this you can ask him? ;)

Second Edit!!

Have you even watched the video??

Or have you pre-judged it already??

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Cough - please keep personalities out of it. Kalniel asked a perfectly valid question - you can reply without using perjorative terms like "Your absurd logic" etc. As you know, we deprecate overly aggressive posting styles! :)

A simple "Because its one part of a complicated history of modern tech" would have done! :). Sometimes less is more!

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Originally Posted by peterb

Cough - please keep personalities out of it. Kalniel asked a perfectly valid question - you can reply without using perjorative terms like "Your absurd logic" etc. As you know, we deprecate overly aggressive posting styles! :)

A simple "Because its one part of a complicated history of modern tech" would have done! :). Sometimes less is more!

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Just because people do not like what Trump said 10 years ago regarding women it should be brought up now,since he was aiming for POTUS,now they are complaining about it??

It is silly to then say don't do the same for Intel, who has been the number 1 or 2 ranked semiconductor company for the last couple of decades on a tech forum,and has a huge amount of influence over the consumer market.

Companies are legal citizens AFAIK in the US also! :p

If past history is not important for one its the same for the other??

Plenty of companies like Apple and MS get criticised over past actions here,so I think is rather weird Intel is getting a free pass here - or are we going to set some kind of time limit on these things,ie,any discussion of dodgy behaviour past two years is not to be allowed on Hexus.

People need to watch the video,and the chap behind the video is quite easy to contact. In the first few minutes he actually says why he made the video.

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.

He was the first person to notice the reason why Ryzen was do so poorly on Rise of the Tombraider under DX12 which virtually the whole tech press had missed(and probably Crystal Dynamics and Nvidia) It was an issue with the Nvidia cards in the game,so either a driver problem or something buggy with the DX12 path for Nvidia cards,and he tested it with cards from both companies,and with later patches/drivers the performance jumped up quite a bit.

I even mailed him a few quick questions,since I saw some utter weirdness testing the same part under DX12 with a much older Intel CPU,and it was a fairly good discussion about issues with benchmarking the game in general. Even the built-in benchmark has issues under DX12.

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Originally Posted by Zak33

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

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Fair enough, I won't stop promoting any interesting articles I find from Hexus on other websites, where it permits anyway.

As for being an Intel user, if I had an AMD CPU and/or GPU at the time of writing this, then people would have come out with the AMD fanboy card.

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 :innocent:

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Originally Posted by Zak33

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

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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)

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Originally Posted by Mason.Lyons

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 :innocent:

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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 :shocked2:

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.

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.

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 :)

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Originally Posted by Adored

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 :shocked2:

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

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.

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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!

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by peterb

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

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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).

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

@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

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Originally Posted by Firejack

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.

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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. :(

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Originally Posted by kompukare

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.

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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.