albert, i think that all this "my chip vs your chip" stuff is way overblown. technological one-upmanship doesn't sell chips; marketing and inertia sell chips.
question 1: how is amd going to convince the average mom-and-pop consumer to buy their chip? what will the 17-yr-old barely computer-literate comp-usa employee tell them when they ask whether "the amd machine is as good as the intel machine"?
question 2: remember the old mis saying, "no one ever got fired for buying ibm" ? tell me how amd is going to penetrate the impenetrably conservative mis market. remember, most of these people are still running win 3.1 on their corporate machines, because, well, it works.
ps-- things will become interesting as the trademark lawsuit unfolds. imho, jerry sanders durak -- if i were amd, i would've implemented mmx on my chips, and called it something else (maybe "mmx 2!"), and made it widely known that the two were compatible. i believe intel made a point, in its white papers etc, of distinguishing the generic mme (mmedia extensions) from mmx (trademark in which the letters don't stand for anything). i think amd doesn't stand too much of a chance in the lawsuit. time is critical -- if they lose this one, i don't know when they'll ever have the chance to compete in the cpu market. |
