Intel COO signals willingness to go with AMD64!!

"David Schwartz" wrote in message
...
I think it's one of those reading of the political tea leaves sort of
exercises. When Intel says that it's going to have processors ready to
take
advantage of 64-bit software when that software is ready, the only
software
that can be ready at that point is AMD64 software.


Umm, no. He means 64-bit windows software. That is, software that can
be
made to run on a 64-bit windows platform of any kind. He doesn't say
anything about binary compatibility and there's no reason to think that's
important.

In a literal reading yes you can make that point. However, the significance
of this statement seems to require a little bit more than a literal reading.
It requires a political reading. If Ottelini were just referring to any old
Windows 64-bit software, then he would have been referring to Itanium, but
he never mentioned Itanium. I've never seen an Intel executive miss an
opportunity to promote Itanium, IA64, or whatever when referring to 64-bit
software.

Obviously, source code compatibility hasn't resulted in a lot of
cross-platform applications coming out, for example between Itanium or
Opteron. Nor between those two and any other 64-bit platform out there.
The
only sort of compatibility worth having is binary compatibility.


That's because there's no 64-bit software market yet. That's Intel's
whole point.

If there's no 64-bit software market yet, then why did Intel make the
Itanium?

Yousuf Khan

"George Macdonald" wrote in message
...
Yes the AMD servers must be quite a shock to the people at Intel who
thought that AMD would never get more than a nibble at the high ASP
sector.
Mind you I haven't seen any firm reports that corporations are biting on
Opteron - AMD *could* do a better job on "visibility".

Nothing specific except anecdotal evidence that customers are clamoring for
Opterons. Various articles have noted as much, without being too specific
either. For example this article:

http://www.techworld.com/news/index....ews&NewsID=943

It mentions:

"HP didn't have any choice," says James Governor, principal analyst at
research firm RedMonk. "Any market-driven organisation didn't have any
choice. If HP were making its decisions based on religious arguments, then
it wouldn't go anywhere near AMD. But if it's basing it on market reality,
it's doing the right thing."

So it seems pretty much the customer bases alone are telling these companies
to go with Opteron. That was also the case for the first major OEM Opteron
server from IBM last year -- they did it because their customers asked them
to.

Yousuf Khan

Hi,

This is a very interesting thread. I guess intel miscalculated the
need for a low end 64 bit systems for home and small business users. I
wonder if the introduction of Apple's low end 64 bit systems is also
pushing intel? I'm sure the main focus now is opteron but these
PowerPC systems by Apple really look nice also. The benchmarks on the
apple site look unreal, but you never know. The benchmarks really blow
the opteron away. Whatever.

http://www.apple.com/xserve/

Later,

Alan

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 05:02:48 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

snip

As for IBM's "willingness" an initial (reported) payment of $46million in
November '02 to fix Cu?/OI for the Opteron (but not for Barton) was surely
a nice incentive.:-)

pure speculation

By the standards of a company like IBM or AMD, $46 million is cheap
for a major technology play, and one does wonder about how things are
being done at IBM these days. Possible real incentives for IBM:

Volume for its East Fishkill line.

Tactical/strategic move whose real target is Intel.

Some manager needed $46 million to hit his revenue targets.

Even the possibility that the third might be the real reason should be
enough to make you think twice about owning IBM stock, unless you
think someone with more strategic vision can mount a hostile takeover
and stop IBM from becoming an overpriced job shopper.

RM

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Spamme Now wrote:
This is a very interesting thread. I guess intel miscalculated the
need for a low end 64 bit systems for home and small business users. I
wonder if the introduction of Apple's low end 64 bit systems is also
pushing intel? I'm sure the main focus now is opteron but these
PowerPC systems by Apple really look nice also. The benchmarks on the
apple site look unreal, but you never know. The benchmarks really blow
the opteron away. Whatever.

Right, we all know how trustworthy Apple benchmarks are. Wouldn't hold
it against them to compile the Opteron/Xeon software in debug-mode,
using heavy optimization on their own codes.

--
Bjørn-Ove Heimsund
Centre for Integrated Petroleum Research
University of Bergen, Norway

Spamme Now wrote:
Hi,

This is a very interesting thread. I guess intel miscalculated the
need for a low end 64 bit systems for home and small business users.

Actually, Intel nailed the "need" part perfectly.

Where they "miscalculated" was in assuming that demand would
only be driven by need. As usual, *want* has proven to have
been the determining influence on demand.

I wonder if the introduction of Apple's low end 64 bit systems is also
pushing intel?

Intel makes widgets for the widget market.
Apple makes doodads for the doodad market.
What Apple does in the doodad market is pretty
irrelevant to the widget market.

I'm sure the main focus now is opteron but these
PowerPC systems by Apple really look nice also. The benchmarks on the
apple site look unreal, but you never know. The benchmarks really blow
the opteron away. Whatever.

http://www.apple.com/xserve/

Hardly an unbiased review. Note also that most independent
benchmarks put Opteron significantly ahead of Xeon in most
server benchmarks, but the few test that Apple choose
puts Opteron significantly behind Xeon.

Those new Apples might very well be the best dualies out there,
but I'd wait for independent testing beforing trumpeting that
fact to the world.

"Rob" == Rob Stow writes:

Rob Actually, Intel nailed the "need" part perfectly.

Rob Where they "miscalculated" was in assuming that demand would
Rob only be driven by need. As usual, *want* has proven to have
Rob been the determining influence on demand.

Very well written. Need DOES NOT EQUAL Want. It is true that most
business and home users will not need 64 bit software. I wonder if
gaming is a Need or a Want? ;-) It does get confusing at times but I
remember reading the key to an successful advertising campaign was
changing a Want to a Need.

Whatever

Concur with the rest removed Apple benchmarks are very suspect.

Later,

Alan

"Spamme Now" wrote in message
...
This is a very interesting thread. I guess intel miscalculated the
need for a low end 64 bit systems for home and small business users. I
wonder if the introduction of Apple's low end 64 bit systems is also
pushing intel? I'm sure the main focus now is opteron but these
PowerPC systems by Apple really look nice also. The benchmarks on the
apple site look unreal, but you never know. The benchmarks really blow
the opteron away. Whatever.

http://www.apple.com/xserve/

Yeah, but you're not the only one to think that they look unreal:

http://spl.haxial.net/apple-powermac-G5/

Yousuf Khan

"Rob Stow" wrote in message
...
Spamme Now wrote:
Hi,

This is a very interesting thread. I guess intel miscalculated the
need for a low end 64 bit systems for home and small business users.

Actually, Intel nailed the "need" part perfectly.

Where they "miscalculated" was in assuming that demand would
only be driven by need. As usual, *want* has proven to have
been the determining influence on demand.

They are talking about servers here, so in this case, the need might
actually be there too.

Yousuf Khan

Thanks for the link.

Apple has no shame whatsoever. Unreal to believe that someone was not
going to check this out!

Another big whatever.

Thanks,

Alan

"Yousuf" == Yousuf Khan writes:

Yousuf "Spamme Now" wrote in message
Yousuf ...
This is a very interesting thread. I guess intel miscalculated the
need for a low end 64 bit systems for home and small business users. I
wonder if the introduction of Apple's low end 64 bit systems is also
pushing intel? I'm sure the main focus now is opteron but these
PowerPC systems by Apple really look nice also. The benchmarks on the
apple site look unreal, but you never know. The benchmarks really blow
the opteron away. Whatever.

http://www.apple.com/xserve/

Yousuf Yeah, but you're not the only one to think that they look unreal:

Yousuf http://spl.haxial.net/apple-powermac-G5/

Yousuf Yousuf Khan