10 ms·

For years now we had a choice of 1. It's moving, again. It's also a high entry bar.

RichardHeart 9y ago
Here's some ways I can think of that would allow competition without splitting the company up. Forced Ip sharing, incentivised loans to fund new competitors, ip sunsetting, fab sharing, etc, etc. Everyone dislikes government intervention in business, yet something must be done, so I'd like to see the current evil vs the calculated result of the least evil of the government interventions, and vote for one. If monopolies are illegal, and this is a monopoly...
- DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
  I don't see how it's a monopoly: AMD's x64 chips are competent, and given that Windows now fully supports ARM it means that for an OEM working on a greenfield project they're free to explore non-Intel options entirely. Intel has a monopoly in microprocessors today the same way that Microsoft Windows is an OS monopoly today: it sort-of is, but it isn't holding anyone back either.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Monopoly does not mean 100% market share. It means they control the market and 95% is generally plenty to hit that point because of economy of scale generally prevents anyone else from staying competitive.
    - DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
      But presently Intel and Microsoft are not being anti-competitive, despite their near-monopoly market share - on the contrary, competition is thriving.
      - Retric 9y ago
        The huge Intel price drop due to AMD Ryzen clearly suggests they where was not competitive. (35% on the Core i7-6700K) https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-cpu-prices-drop-ryzen-launch/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-cpu-prices-dro... Further, Intel's market share directly links to their R&D advantage and process advantage. AMD can keep them honest every few years, but they can't keep up without a lot more market share and Intel has an insane war chest which they use to maintain that market share.

Here's some ways I can think of that would allow competition without splitting the company up. Forced Ip sharing, incentivised loans to fund new competitors, ip sunsetting, fab sharing, etc, etc. Everyone dislikes government intervention in business, yet something must be done, so I'd like to see the current evil vs the calculated result of the least evil of the government interventions, and vote for one. If monopolies are illegal, and this is a monopoly...

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
I don't see how it's a monopoly: AMD's x64 chips are competent, and given that Windows now fully supports ARM it means that for an OEM working on a greenfield project they're free to explore non-Intel options entirely. Intel has a monopoly in microprocessors today the same way that Microsoft Windows is an OS monopoly today: it sort-of is, but it isn't holding anyone back either.
- Retric 9y ago
  Monopoly does not mean 100% market share. It means they control the market and 95% is generally plenty to hit that point because of economy of scale generally prevents anyone else from staying competitive.
  - DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
    But presently Intel and Microsoft are not being anti-competitive, despite their near-monopoly market share - on the contrary, competition is thriving.
    - Retric 9y ago
      The huge Intel price drop due to AMD Ryzen clearly suggests they where was not competitive. (35% on the Core i7-6700K) https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-cpu-prices-drop-ryzen-launch/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-cpu-prices-dro... Further, Intel's market share directly links to their R&D advantage and process advantage. AMD can keep them honest every few years, but they can't keep up without a lot more market share and Intel has an insane war chest which they use to maintain that market share.