Does INTC have a open, proprietary technology? No, that was licensed away to AMD at IBM's behest.
Not quite true since it clearly has been Intel all along defining what happens next with that architecture and AMD has had, by and large, to copy Intel's moves. Plus, since the 386, AMD has had to accomplish that compatability without the right to actually copy the way Intel had done things.
More to the point, perhaps, is that we have gotten to the point where the Pentium class chip is more and more a commodity item. Intel still has the prime mover control and won't be losing it shortly, but being LTB&H sorts of people, perhaps we should be looking at the next class of chip, the potential tornado there, and the fact that AMD will have no rights to that architecture. Instead, AMD is doing something different and it is even possible that they could come to dominate the 64bit x86 tornado (not a prediction, mind you, just noting that it is too early to declare a winner). |
