Intel follows the margin

"Yousuf Khan" wrote :

You could also sort of take it to a funny extreme:

So who here has bought a Toyota Camry? Why did you pay so much for a
Corolla?

I had Corolla.

So who here has bought a Toyota Corolla? Why did you pay so much for an
Echo?

well, where do the make those "Echo's" ? Korea ?
1992 Corolla I had was 'made in Japan', and that single handed make this
car worth the money.

Pozdrawiam.
--
RusH //
http://pulse.pdi.net/~rush/qv30/
Like ninjas, true hackers are shrouded in secrecy and mystery.
You may never know -- UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE.

Tony Hill wrote :

The capitalist model of society tends to demonstrate that doing the
most profitable thing often DOES result in the goods and services
that optimally fulfill the consumer wants and needs, at least in the
long run.

you are talking Wallmart here, and what about the society ? society is
definitelly _not_ only about consumer

I'll be the first to
say that capitalism, despite it's faults, has shown itself to be a
reasonably successful economic model. Much more so than the
alternatives at least!

for whom ? corporations - yes, consumer - maybe/sometimes, average
family - NO


Pozdrawiam.
--
RusH //
http://pulse.pdi.net/~rush/qv30/
Like ninjas, true hackers are shrouded in secrecy and mystery.
You may never know -- UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE.

RusH wrote:
"Yousuf Khan" wrote :

You could also sort of take it to a funny extreme:

So who here has bought a Toyota Camry? Why did you pay so much for a
Corolla?

I had Corolla.

So who here has bought a Toyota Corolla? Why did you pay so much for
an Echo?

well, where do the make those "Echo's" ? Korea ?
1992 Corolla I had was 'made in Japan', and that single handed make
this car worth the money.

I think they may call the Toyota Echos something different in your part of
the world. I think they may call it the Platz in other parts of the world.
See if these car looks familiar to you:

Echo sedan:
http://tinyurl.com/3bkm5

Echo hatchback:
http://tinyurl.com/32ynw

Yousuf Khan

"Nate Edel" wrote in message
...
In comp.sys.intel tony wrote:
I think it's socially irresponsible and greedy for giant companies to
not
offer commodity products at commodity prices.

You know, if you were talking about the necessities of life, I'd agree
with
you. But when the issue is higher-end computer equipment -- not a
necessity
to begin with, and especially not a necessity with cheaper parts available
from other brands and perfectly adequate -- I don't think it's socially
irresponsible.

Greedy, sure, but that's capitalism for you. "Greed for lack of a better
word, is good" doncha know? Well, maybe not but it's the best economic
driving force on a large scale that we've found.

standardization. It's like: "we CAN build technology for a perfectly
adequate PC for the masses that would cost less than $100, but we WON'T
cuz we can continue to milk consumers for money with this system".

But if it can be done, and Intel/ATI/whoever won't do it, Via will. Or
any
of the other Asian manufacturers, which can do it more cheaply than Intel
anyway. Proprietary games, absent government monopoly protection or
certain
cases of infrastructure, eventually fail. Even Microsoft is seeing that,
albeit slowly.

Doing the right thing vs. doing the most profitable thing does not
result
in goods and services that optimally fulfill consumer wants and needs.

Optimally fulfill consumer wants and needs is in the long run the most
profitable thing to do. OTOH, doing so perfectly would require
omniscience,
so there's a lot of guesswork involved and companies f___ up sometimes.

I find it hard to believe that all those engineers are really as dumb as the
products their companies produce, rather their companies are playing dumb in
order to milk
the cash cow. My perspective is that for-profit companies produce for profit
exclusively
("doing it for the money") RATHER THAN producing "the right thing" when they
aren't forced to.
It's like pulling teeth to get a phone company to give you just basic
service, for example, and they
try to hide the basic package and sell you another unnecessary feature-laden
package. Examples
abound: MS taking their sweet lil ol time to create an OS of appropriateness
and quality
is one, CD/DVD "standards" fiasco another. Cars probably don't have to be so
proprietary
and expensive either, greed makes them so.

I think the solution might be to create not-for-profit-like companies to
produce all the
well-known and understood technologies for masses of consumers at true
commodity
prices. How novel: commodities at commodity prices! Buy only what you want
and need
rather than what is made available by money-only-driven companies.

Tony

"Tony Hill" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 12 May 2004 19:39:00 GMT, "tony"
wrote:
I think it's socially irresponsible and greedy for giant companies to not
offer commodity
products at commodity prices. Ditto for proprietary games played in the
name
of profit
in place of standardization. It's like: "we CAN build technology for a
perfectly
adequate PC for the masses that would cost less than $100, but we WON'T
cuz we can continue to milk consumers for money with this system". Doing
the
right
thing vs. doing the most profitable thing does not result in goods and
services that
optimally fulfill consumer wants and needs.

The capitalist model of society tends to demonstrate that doing the
most profitable thing often DOES result in the goods and services that
optimally fulfill the consumer wants and needs, at least in the long
run.

That's what they'd want you to believe anyway. I see mostly evidence that
that is not true and that producing under that model is always a long and
arduous process.

Sure, it might seem like a good idea to make a $100 PC for the masses,
but then there would be no incentive to push technology forward.

That WOULD be pushing technology forward! But for the practical uses
rather than just for the sake of technological "achievement". The quest for
technology achievement and the marketing of MHz got us Prescott (another
fiasco?).
Argh.

The $100 PC of yesterday would be no faster today.

Creating low cost and practical products doesn't mean stagnating technology.

So while we've paid
more for PCs over the years, we've gotten more as a result.

Doubtful, since the control of ideas was localized in very few companies.
Who
knows what might have been with widespread development.

If
companies had been producing nothing but $100 PCs for the past 15
years, we would have MUCH slower machines that what you could get for
$100 (used) today.

That's an unqualified and unprovable opinion. And that's not to say that we
wouldn't have some better overall. For instance, better software! Many
scenarios are possible. The current goal seems to be the prevention of
commoditization (not good, but all that can be expected from money-first
companies?).

While a lot of people in this newsgroup (*cough* Keith *ahem*) have
accused me of being some kind of pinko-commie, I'll be the first to
say that capitalism, despite it's faults, has shown itself to be a
reasonably successful economic model. Much more so than the
alternatives at least!

Without going off on that always controversial tangent, capitalism is just
like one of those products that you're force to live with for lack of the
better/right thing. It's so far off the mark it's not funny (it's the
Windoze of
economic paradigms). It succeeds because most people don't think
about it, and hence are taken advantage of by it. (IMO).

Tony

On Thu, 13 May 2004 22:55:44 -0700, (Nate Edel)
wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Tony Hill wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2004 12:54:35 -0700, (Nate Edel)
wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Yousuf Khan wrote:
You could also sort of take it to a funny extreme:
So who here has bought a Toyota Camry? Why did you pay so much for a
Corolla?

Except, of course, that there are actual differences in the underlying car's
dimensions. Unlike, notably, the older ES300 models which were pretty much
exactly structurally and mechanically the same as the Camry V6 (although the
interior trim was nicer, and IIRC, they were supposed to have more sound
insulation.)

I don't know the specifics of that situation, but it sounds like the
Honda Civic vs. Acura EL series. Same engine, same chassis, same
transmission... So why do people pay more for the Acura?

There is no Acura EL here in the states, so I don't know.

Hmm.. guess that must be one of those odd-ball Canadian-only cars.
Kinda makes sense I guess, the Civic is a VERY popular car in Canada
(most popular car for something like 10 years running), while I
understand it never quite reached the same level of popularity in the
US.

Some of the older
Acuras were pretty redundant for the same reason, but the last couple of
generations they've been a good bit more different. Much nicer engines and
transmissions, for example.

Even with the current models you can often find fairly similar setups
in the Honda line-up though, albeit often with fairly important
differences. ie the TSX being a Honda Accord (European body) with a
beefed up version of the 2.4L N.A. Accord engine.

I have an Acura RSX, which has a chassis derived from the Civic (as the
older Integra was), but a 5-speed automatic transmission rather than a 4, a

gasp An *automatic* transmission on an Acura RSX?!? What were you
thinking?!? :

2L rather than the 1.7L engine and 30 more horsepower than the EX VTEC
(can't remember what the Si makes)

The Civic Si (or SiR for Canadian readers) uses the exact same 2.0L
engine of the RSX, 160HP (though not the 200HP engine of the RSX Type
S). Of course, European parts are probably a different story
altogether.

Well, the brand name may be part of it, but when you get right down to
it, if you configure out a Civic with the same features (some of which
are only available as after-market parts) as that Acura 1.7EL you end
up with the same price point.

*nod* another similar example is different lines from the American makes --
when I was looking a couple of years ago a fully optioned out Dodge Stratus
was more expensive than a comparably-equipped Chrysler Sebring.

Yup. Cars are an area where a name brand only gets you so far. Roles
Royces and Bentley may consistently be able to get huge prices for
their name, but few others can. Even companies like BMW and Mercedes
can't go on name alone, especially with the likes of Lexus, Audi and
Infiniti eating away at their marketshare (at least in this neck of
the woods).

Similar deal goes for most computer companies. People like Asus may
be able to charge a bit more for motherboards, but not by very much
when companies like MSI and Gigabyte will undercut their prices. Same
goes for Intel vs. AMD. Intel can still command a bit of a price
advantage, but not much of one (especially not with the Opteron vs.
Xeon)... Err.. at least I think that's how this whole discussion
started... though at this point we've drifted sufficiently far away
that I can't quite remember! :

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca

On Fri, 14 May 2004 17:21:21 +0000 (UTC), RusH
wrote:
"Yousuf Khan" wrote :

You could also sort of take it to a funny extreme:

So who here has bought a Toyota Camry? Why did you pay so much for a
Corolla?

I had Corolla.

So who here has bought a Toyota Corolla? Why did you pay so much for an
Echo?

well, where do the make those "Echo's" ? Korea ?

Could be made damn near anywhere, depending on where you bought the
car. I think in North America (the only place to use the "Echo" name
AFAIK) they are produced in the US.

FWIW in most of Europe the "Echo" is sold as the "Yaris", though I
never saw any of the coupe or sedan versions of the Echo over there
(the only Yaris' I saw were 3-door hatchbacks).

1992 Corolla I had was 'made in Japan', and that single handed make this
car worth the money.

For much of North America the Corollas are produced in Canada
(Cambridge to be exact, I've driven past the plant on many occasions).
I think they also have a plant or two down in California that also
turns out Corollas. Not only does the place of manufacture vary
depending on where you bought the car, but the specs vary a fair bit
and even the names are sometimes different. For example, a European
Corolla comes standard with a 1.4L engine, while in North America the
only engine option available is a 1.8L i4.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca

Tony Hill ) wrote:
:
: For much of North America the Corollas are produced in Canada
: (Cambridge to be exact, I've driven past the plant on many occasions).
: I think they also have a plant or two down in California that also
: turns out Corollas.
:

http://www.nummi.com/
Welcome to NUMMI.com

NUMMI now makes the Toyota Corolla, Toyota Tacoma, and Pontiac Vibe

--Jerry Leslie
Note: is invalid for email

On Thu, 13 May 2004 22:55:44 -0700, (Nate Edel) wrote:

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Tony Hill wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2004 12:54:35 -0700, (Nate Edel)
wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Yousuf Khan wrote:
You could also sort of take it to a funny extreme:
So who here has bought a Toyota Camry? Why did you pay so much for a
Corolla?

Except, of course, that there are actual differences in the underlying car's
dimensions. Unlike, notably, the older ES300 models which were pretty much
exactly structurally and mechanically the same as the Camry V6 (although the
interior trim was nicer, and IIRC, they were supposed to have more sound
insulation.)

I don't know the specifics of that situation, but it sounds like the
Honda Civic vs. Acura EL series. Same engine, same chassis, same
transmission... So why do people pay more for the Acura?

There is no Acura EL here in the states, so I don't know. Some of the older
Acuras were pretty redundant for the same reason, but the last couple of
generations they've been a good bit more different. Much nicer engines and
transmissions, for example.

I have an Acura RSX, which has a chassis derived from the Civic (as the
older Integra was), but a 5-speed automatic transmission rather than a 4, a
2L rather than the 1.7L engine and 30 more horsepower than the EX VTEC
(can't remember what the Si makes)

The current Civic Si(Si-R in Canada) has basically the same engine as your
RSX - the new K-Series i-VTEC engine with chain driven camshafts. I expect
Honda to gradually phase out the Civic SOHC engine in various markets as
they feel the need and replace with the K-Series eventually. In some Asian
markets there is a Thailand built Civic Coupe EX with the K-Series, IIRC.
With Honda currently in deep sales caca, it may make sense to do the
changeover sooner rather than later... the "need" is here.:-)

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

On Fri, 14 May 2004 21:29:30 GMT, "tony"
wrote:


"Tony Hill" wrote in message
.. .

The capitalist model of society tends to demonstrate that doing the
most profitable thing often DOES result in the goods and services that
optimally fulfill the consumer wants and needs, at least in the long
run.

That's what they'd want you to believe anyway. I see mostly evidence that
that is not true and that producing under that model is always a long and
arduous process.

As far as turning innovation into useful product in a timely manner
efficiently, no country in the world has come close to the U.S. capitalist
model... if that's what you mean by "producing".

Sure, it might seem like a good idea to make a $100 PC for the masses,
but then there would be no incentive to push technology forward.

That WOULD be pushing technology forward! But for the practical uses
rather than just for the sake of technological "achievement". The quest for
technology achievement and the marketing of MHz got us Prescott (another
fiasco?).
Argh.

The $100 PC of yesterday would be no faster today.

Creating low cost and practical products doesn't mean stagnating technology.

Examples??

So while we've paid
more for PCs over the years, we've gotten more as a result.

Doubtful, since the control of ideas was localized in very few companies.
Who
knows what might have been with widespread development.

You cannot produce the technology required unless you have the
infrastructure and capital depth necessary for the implementation and
marketing. The garage days were over the minute Jobs and Wozniak moved
into a "building". Since then, umpteen large companies have tried to
challenge to be the commodity microprocessor-based system supplier - most
have failed.shrug

While a lot of people in this newsgroup (*cough* Keith *ahem*) have
accused me of being some kind of pinko-commie, I'll be the first to
say that capitalism, despite it's faults, has shown itself to be a
reasonably successful economic model. Much more so than the
alternatives at least!

Without going off on that always controversial tangent, capitalism is just
like one of those products that you're force to live with for lack of the
better/right thing. It's so far off the mark it's not funny (it's the
Windoze of
economic paradigms). It succeeds because most people don't think
about it, and hence are taken advantage of by it. (IMO).

Again, different "systems" have been tried - they don't work. If you
expect an apparatchik in some govt. owned or sponsored institution to not
behave like a capitalist, you are not paying attention.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??