In its legal response to the FTC's anti-trust charges, and specifically in response to the charge that it stifles innovation, Intel lists a number of Intel innovations.
Intel's Innovations.
Interesting to see that, in its legal response to the FTC's anti-trust charges, and specifically in response to the charge that it stifles innovation, Intel lists a number of Intel innovations.
It developed multi-core microprocessors
It reduced microprocessor power consumption
It introduced Centrino
It introduced remote diagnostics
It incorporated cache memory into microprocessors
It led in transitioning to new process technologies
It led in manufacturing innovations like high-k metal gate.
And that's it. Not a very long list. Nor is it very impressive.
Multi-core processors long pre-dated Intel's introduction of them.
High-k materials were developed by many companies and institutions, not just Intel.
Reducing microprocessor power consumption was achieved earlier and more effectively by ARM than by Intel.
Centrino, the WiFi chip-set, was pre-dated by WiFi chips from several other companies including Atheros.
Expanding cache memory in microprocessors has been a 20 year, industry-wide, trend.
Finally, can the shrinking of transistors really be called innovation? After all the industry has been shrinking feature sizes for 50 years. Many other companies and institutions, besides Intel, contribute to this process.
For most of the golden period of wifi chips (while wifi chips were still very profitable) Intel Centrino chip was actually a Symbol Tech design that was fabbed by TI.
It took Intel FOREVER to get their internal wifi chipset functioning, I'm nor sure that it ever shipped in volume because wifi chipset prices fell so quickly that once functional Intel internal chips GMP was too low.
It all goes to show, anon, that in that list of 'innovations' Intel put to the FTC in its defence, Intel was the laggard, not the innovator.
Interesting...
from the wording of the document, it looks like they are trying to pass-off "improvements we've made to our own products" under the guise of "groundbreaking firsts for the industry" though use of the monicker "innovation". Cheap parisology, methinks!
If this is a "legal response", then will Intel get their chorus-and-verse kicked if one or more the claims are thrown out as bullshit (which will probably hinge on exactly what they mean by "innovation" and what the FTC expects as "innovation", see above)?
I couldn't agree more, The Baron, Intel's responses to the anti-trust authorities seem both childish and churlish. They belligerently accuse the authorities (in EU and US) of not understanding the IC business, then make these naive claims for innovation which anyone can see are BS.
P.S. Thanks for parisology - another great word on a level with sesquipedalian
"They belligerently accuse the authorities (in EU and US) of not understanding the IC business"
OMG - I agree with Intel on something !!!!!!
To be a little fair to them they are usually first with any process step and have led the use of hi-K gates which TSMC's rumoured yield figures show is not at easy thing to do.
However I think HP might want a word with them over who was first on several of these other claims.
Yes I agree, Anonymous, Intel are usually first and, with $32 billion of revenues they should be able to negotiate early access to new tools but, to give TSMC their due, they are usually only a quarter or two behind Intel. Where I take issue is with the suggestion these are Intel innovations - as if ASML, Canon, Nikon, IBM, IMEC, Applied Materials etc had nothing to do with shrinking process geometries.
Odd thing is that Intel has been genuinely inventive. Why didn't they mention the microprocessor or EPROM? Maybe they are too far back.
Absolutely Anothermous, you only have to mention the 1103, the 4004, the 1702 and the 28F256 to know how innovative Intel was - 30 years ago. The reason why these innovations aren't included in Intel's reply to the FTC Complaint lies in the final paragaph of page one of Intel's reply. The second sentence starts: 'But the period covered by the Complaint has been characterised by rapid innovation . . . . . . ' This period is comparatively recent.
David, I can't hide my déjà vu. Why lay the allegation of being a bad technical innovator at the doors of a great market leader?
The market leader is clearly the innovator in the market space. He understands what the market wants, how to make it happen, how to ensure that the market remains with him and how to keep milking it to feed a virtuous cycle of market innovation.
Technology innovation is something else. It is about inventing things that the market did not ask for, but would love to have. It is about taking technology risks even when there is no clear business case. It is about being crazy and going against the rules of the game..or refusing to play the old game and inventing a new one.
Every big company is born out of a technology innovation, but has soon moved on to the game of market innovation, and most likely stays there for as long as possible. These companies begin to take themselves too seriously, or believe that technology innovation can be bought. And they are not always wrong. Also, lets not forget that they serve the market like few can.
One can hate the intels and microsofts of the world, but not many of us can live without them.
Cheese, this was a list of technical innovations drawn up by Intel to answer the FTC's charge that Intel 'stifles innovation'. I don't think market innovations are relevant in this context except insofar as those innovations are all very well in a market of 20 players but, where one company dominates a market, American law lays down certain constraints on the way in which a dominant company does business. And its these legal constraints, in the particular context of a market dominated by one company, which Intel's market innovations are alleged to have infringed.
Fully agree. All I wanted to mention is that Intel's focus on technology innovation is well below their potential, because they have established businesses (current milking cows) that get all the focus - There will be little or no focus for breakthrough innovation because the breakthroughs have the potential to dismantle the current businesses.
Holding off the threats of breakthrough, coming either from ones own backyard, or from outside ..might be evil, but it certainly is not easy. Seen purely from a narrow, bottom-line only perspective, this is market innovation too. Yes, governmental agencies will oppose such tactics, but sheer size / momentum of such businesses can help them keep going..and going..
So to summarize, Intel offers well below-par technology innovation while continuing to be the market leader heads and shoulders above the rest. This is not because Intel cannot innovate in the technological space, but because many of these technological innovations might not necessarily help their current businesses.
Ah yes, I'm in complete agreement with you, Cheese.
I suspect Intel was a victim of their early success with the 8086 CPU, which was a second-rate ISA when it was introduced. If IBM had picked the Motorala 68000 for their PC instead of Intel's 8086 back in 1981, the whole chip-making landscape would be entirely different today.
Instead, the X86 architecture prevailed, Microsoft solidified it with their (also second-rate) offerings, corporate America bought the combination en masse, this duopoly prevailed, and the really innovative products were reduced to also-rans. Intel's success has probably delayed progress in the industry by 15 years, by my estimate.
Intel eventually (after many years) became a leader in process technology. Imagine what they could have accomplished with a half-decent computer architecture offering (MIPS, StrongARM, PowerPC)!
Absolutely, dbs, I agree, and I think this is the mainstream view around the world. The US has taken longer than any other regional jurisdiction to start anti-trust action against Intel but I assume the US authorities felt they couldn't forever protect a US company without looking grossly protectionist. I think the Intel people themselves know they've got away with murder for the last 20 years which is why they side-track the discussion with the argument that Intel has been innovative because it followed Moore's Law, when the whole of the semiconductor industry followed Moore's Law. The real point is that if there had been 20 suppliers of PC processors these last 20 years, there would have been a lot more innovation and a lot more cost reduction in the PC industry.
I wonder what Intel's response would be to being invited to reply to the statement that, during the timeframe when the damage was done they had to play catchup to AMD64. Remember that right to the bitter end, Intel denied the existence of Yamhill, until it was clear that Microsoft was taking up the AMD64 platform. Uhh, innovation?