Mad Mike Magee’s Musings

A FEW readers have emailed me to ask about the Intel logo in the banner picture which was above, but is now below.  Who is wearing the chino, they asked.

The answer is that the trousers belong to Doctor Craig Barrett, the chairman of the Intel Corporation. He was demonstrating “Concept PCs” at an Intel Developer Forum in Palm Springs, some years back. The good doctor is actually sitting on a Concept PC, designed as a pouffe.

So now you have your answer. And no, we’re not running that picture of Andreas Stiller sitting next to a beautiful blonde while Mike Magee gazes from behind with a jealous look in his eyes.  ♣

AT THE INQSTER we covered the antitrust trial against Intel by AMD in some depth. Now we have seen the latest deposition which is smeared with black blocks - called redaction - a sort of masking tape of the juiciest bits in the case.

Some gems remain in the acres of text covered in masking tape. On page 29 of the filing, the plaintiff’s joint preliminary case, “redacted”, we learn that AMD offered HP a million Opterons free but HP only would take 160,000.

After a mass of masking tape, we seem to find that AMD thought in some way HP was “irrational”. An unredacted bit said: “No rational computer manufacturer would leave 840,000 free, state-of-the-art microprocessors on the table unless it had been foreclosed from using them by exclusionary conduct. And that is precisely what happened.”

Was HP rational? Is HP rational? The jury isn’t out on that claim. There are pages more but we’ll have to wait until we launch the Examiner to, er examine this fascinating document further.

Moist snuff? Ah yeah, that is one of the precedents that AMD quotes. Presumably some manufacturer of moister snuff than snuff was being exclusionary to the less moist snuff manufacturer.

The case continues. And continues.

THE LEGAL BEAGLES at Intel issued a writ against Intellimage late last month, alleging it had breached its trademark.

Intellimage specialises in graphics design, but it has made the fatal mistake of starting its name with the letters i, n, t, e and l. Many firms and individuals have fallen foul of Intel’s jealousy at firms which use its name, or part of it.

The law suit started in a Californian district court on the 28th of April last. ♣

IT’S THE CLASH OF two PR  titans. No sooner had AMD invited a heap of hacks to go visit Dresden, than Intel has invited a heap of hacks to go visit Munich.

The AMD trip is on the 15th of May, while the Intel trip is, apparently on the 14th of May. I will be in Bangalore (Bengaluru) so can go on neither, even if I’d been invited to either. German hacks can probably do both, given the speed of the ICE trains in the country.

The fact the two trips collide is, of course, entirely coincidental. You’d think, in a way, that Chipzilla and Chimpzilla were collaborating. But that would, of course, fly in the face of conventional wisdom. They have to love each other, let’s face it.

The interesting thing is which hacks decide on Tweedledum dum dum, and which on TweedleAMD. Are hacks on the side of the underdog again?  ♣

DESPITE BEING a bit cash short, AMD does not stint on journos, especially  now its back is up against the wall. Some hacks of our acquaintance have been “dissed” by AMD recently.

This bog understands it will ship loads of EMEA (European, Middle East and Africa) hacks to Dresden to explain its “asset light” strategem. Hopefully, first class.

By then, we will be in Bangalore, in India, so Dresden will be a long way away. But it is time that the world+dog is given to understand what cash strapped AMD is on about. A big press freebie to Dresden is hardly an explanation of anything, is it? ♦

INTEL IS NO favourite of Jen-Hsen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, who lives cheek by jowl with Paul Otellini, Intel’s CEO in Satan Clara.

The feeling is reciprocated, we are sure.

Jen-Hsen took time out of his busy schedule (pronounced shedule in Blighty) to diss Intel. According to analyst Doug Freedman, who has been around since our Rogister daze, Jen-Hsen is “fricking mad” at Intel, and claims the stuff it’s doing is not good enough.

Doug worries that Jen-Hsen doesn’t get too obsessed by stuff. He says: “We hope that competitive drive doesn’t become an obsession distracting from technical advances and increasing target markets.”

What is Doug saying?  He is saying: “Although landscape changes are underway in graphics and heterogeneous computing, NVDA’s driving position will become more apparent in 12-18 months”.

If only Doug was talking in straightforward English. This is what we think he means. Nvidia is far from dead and is still kicking big butt. ξ