NVIDIA Countersues Intel Over License Conflict 132
MojoKid writes "After Intel filed a lawsuit against NVIDIA late last month, alleging that a four-year-old chipset license agreement the companies signed did not extend to Intel's future generation CPUs with 'integrated memory controllers' (like Nehalem), NVIDIA decided to fight with fire. Today, NVIDIA filed a countersuit in the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware against Intel Corporation for breach of contract. Furthermore, the action also seeks to terminate Intel's license to NVIDIA's valuable patent portfolio, which no doubt is reverberating with some level of intensity in the halls of Intel."
Why would Intel be so greedy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why would Intel be so greedy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Intel just seems to be making enemies out of everyone these days. First AMD and now Nvidia. If they aren't careful, they could very well end up isolating themselves.
It reminds me of this quote:
"When I am the weaker, I ask you for my freedom, because that is your principle; but when I am the stronger, I take away your freedom, because that is my principle"
--Louis Veuillot
Petulent children (Score:5, Insightful)
Larabee (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why would Intel be so greedy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Intel just seems to be making enemies out of everyone these days. First AMD and now Nvidia. If they aren't careful, they could very well end up isolating themselves.
Intel doesn't need either AMD or NVIDIA. You look at most notebooks today and they will have all integrated Intel stuff without anything from either of those either companies. So I doubt they are going to be hurting much. In fact, NVIDIA needs Intel far more than the other way around. AMD isn't going to use NVIDIA chipsets or graphics cards and if Intel drops them, then NVIDIA is pretty much lost from the loop.
Intel must be really confident in its new GPU (Score:5, Insightful)
First they go after AMD threatening to revoke their x86 agreements (shooting themselves in the foot and threatening their own cross licensing) now they go after Nvidia? Someone should really remind them that their own GPU's are sub par and that for the average home user processor speeds have been "good enough" for years now leaving upgraded graphics cards and memory as practically the only visible speed boost. At this point its arguable that Intel needs AMD and Nvidia far more than they need Intel,
Re:Why would Intel be so greedy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nvidia is the market leader when it comes to graphics, physics and GPGPU hardware. Intel might not need them in the niche market of netbooks, but they do need them and their patents when it comes to the actual desktop and laptop computers out there.
Similarly, Intel needs AMD if they expect to be able to continue using x64 technology. Otherwise they are going to need a lot of luck trying to push Itanium as a replacement desktop product.
patents (Score:5, Insightful)
I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this is a good example of where litigation is getting in the way of innovation. Consumers and the economy would benefit most if these companies could compete for the best products rather than trying to shut each other down in the courts.
Re:Larabee (Score:5, Insightful)
Stockholders of the losing companies won't think so. Competition drives prices down but it also reduces profits, amd and intel got into mad price wars, and AMD hit Nvidia in the chin with the 4870 with DDR5 and a smaller die size, while nvidia is scrambling to move inventory of rather lackluster performing cards when compared against the 4870 and even the previous generations almighty 8800 series.
The 8800 series was nvidia's grand slam and neither the 4870 nor the GT200 are really that great when all games run just fine on the 8800 (or or simply the G92 core).
Intel is reacting out of fear that nvidia is closing in. With GPU's they've reduced the significance of CPU power as the main driver of performance upgrades and therefore can no longer command premium prices.
Intel has been really lazy when it comes to providing for their own platform (thinking in terms what are the killer apps for the PC), IMHO it would be good if Nvidia hits a home run developing x86 with integrated graphics, as well as their own cpu. Nvidia seems to understand the fact that applications like games are important to the platform or else it will lose relevance long term and people will move to consoles. This has one thing I've hated about Microsoft's schizophrenic policy towards the PC, they can't seem to be able to deal effectively with an "open box" like the PC in terms of software sales because of piracy, and hence the Xbox and Xbox 360 .
Larabee better be something special by the time it is released or else Intel will have wasted a lot of time and effort on a part that doesn't compete.
Lastly, I think Intel is clueless that the PC is in desperate need of a revamp in terms of how common upgrades (like video cards, hard drives, etc) are installed, to remove the geek factor. I would love it if people could just plug shit into a slot (along the lines of how we slide flash memory cards into flash slots) and have been thinking about redesigning the PC case and motherboard slots as well to make the openness and upgradability of a PC more user friendly and accessible easier, retard proof designs.
Re:Why would Intel be so greedy? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Intel started this law suit because nVidia has plans to make their own x86 chip. Combined with products like the Tegra on the hand-held side, it looks like nVidia is trying to cut Intel out of the loop entirely, which may cut into Intel's sales even more heavily than AMD has managed so far. If that's the case, Intel will try to slow them down every step of the way. Of course, Intel has been trying to cut nVidia out of the loop for years, but that's business.
Re:Why would Intel be so greedy? (Score:2, Insightful)
But Intel looses their x86_64 licence if AMD looses its x86 licence. And Intel cant just cancel AMDs licence, that was part of the licencing for what would be the PC platform.
Re:Why would Intel be so greedy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Intel doesn't need either AMD or NVIDIA. You look at most notebooks today and they will have all integrated Intel stuff without anything from either of those either companies.
Emphasis mine. I believe *that* is the point attempted to be made. Today they use Intel parts, but what about tomorrow? We all used to run Creative sound cards (well, most of us) and now most people just use onboard sound. We used to have floppy drives, now it's nearly impossible to find one even outside of a computer.
If Intel doesn't have any friends left when there's a shift in the marketplace they're going to get screwed hard. With the speed that the technology marketplace moves there's no telling what may be the next "big thing" that's going to put a previous monolithic giant through some very serious hurt (Vista anyone?).
Re:Why would Intel be so greedy? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the real plan is:
1)Prevent AMD from making x86 chips
2)AMD goes bankrupt
3)Buy all IP related to x86_64 at firesale prices
4)Profit!
And depending on how long it takes AMD to go under, Intel might have enough cash leftover to also pick up some ATI technology.
Re:Larabee (Score:3, Insightful)
agreed, right now the competition is hot, and the consumers are doing quite well. Good bickering is good, and profits are also quite good, as long as it doesn't prevent any of these big guys from doing business.
Lastly, I think Intel is clueless that the PC is in desperate need of a revamp in terms of how common upgrades (like video cards, hard drives, etc) are installed, to remove the geek factor. I would love it if people could just plug shit into a slot (along the lines of how we slide flash memory cards into flash slots) and have been thinking about redesigning the PC case and motherboard slots as well to make the openness and upgradability of a PC more user friendly and accessible easier, retard proof designs.
While there is a possibility ntel could sink its own ship, (see above post) this thing is actually in quite good shape. Bus speeds do change, so things cant always be backwards compatible AND faster; but in general differnt stuff is very compatible. AMD is making a stride that 3 generations of CPUs will fit in previous generation motherboards, albeit with slower memory pipelines. Also, with SATA and usb it really is just plug it in computing, and with no restart. It costs more, but servers have hot swap RAM, and also many motherboards have hot swap PCI-E cards.
For the most part, this criticism of upgradeability is without merit: simply because development is moving really really fast and therefore a 3-year-old computer cant use anything but PCI cards, and USB devices (also IDE HDs work fine) of and old one doesnt mean there is a lack of interoperability, this is largely just cause everything is getting so much better, cheaper, and faster. The parts that are no longer inter-operable are so obsolete and slow that there is no point is continuing to using them in a new machine.
My guess (Score:5, Insightful)
He did it on purpose.
INTC is not the same as Intel.
INTC a greedy bunch of shareholders.
Intel is a company with great products.
Re:Why would Intel be so greedy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Intel would just go back to work and develop things that wouldn't violate NVIDIA's patent and then NVIDIA would be left in the cold cause the biggest licensor of their technology dropped their asses.
Dude, do you realise how expensive is to do what you suggest? Why do you think Intel licensed nvidia's technology in the first place?
Re:Intel must be really confident in its new GPU (Score:3, Insightful)
solid state hard drives....I don't get why they don't spend all that legal money on innovation there
They are spending plenty of money there, and they are smoking the competition in the process. The X25-M/E drives are easily at the head of the pack. There are very few SSDs that can keep up, and the few that manage to just barely surpass it in one benchmark tend to fail miserably in some other benchmark.
It's just that Intel has the resources to be able to focus on more than one thing at a time.
Re:Larabee (Score:3, Insightful)
Nvidia also has stable driver releases and doesn't rush products to market that aren't finished (unlike the 4870 which had/still has driver issues)
Emphasis Mine:
Unlike Nvidia's so called stable drivers, ATI has released a single Unified driver that works on XP/Vista/Win7-Beta (nvidia's are still borked on Win7) and that will be easily ported to Linux and OS-X (ATI wants some of that Apple Pie) using kernel shims just as Nvidia Does. Plus their driver will be 90+ open source now that they've finished isolating the closed source code from their driver.
To me, this places ATI in a much better position then Nvidia because unlike Nvidia, ATI has (since AMD Purchased them) emphasized stable drivers over fast and buggy), though the catalyst control panel crashes frequently, which I refuse to install for that reason and no I don't hate Nvidia since I'm currently using an Asus Silencer - fanless - 7300GT in Gentoo64 multi-lib mode with the open source driver (bought card in 1qtr 2008)
Re:The real source of this post is here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, this is not to say we don't value any submissions. We recognize that a certain amount of the driving force behind sharing a story is to get your own vanity link as recognition (although we do slap a big fat "nofollow" on there so no google-juice farming for you) so your name is linked to whatever you put in the "your site" field. In this case Mojo chose to link the top level domain of his site "http://hothardware.com/" which is linked to off his name. The "scoop", however, is what is most important to our readers and as an editor I feel the obligation to provide the absolute best possible content when available. In this case kdawson felt that article Mojo linked to was not as good as the Reuters piece. It happens a lot, get used to it. If a link or the summary text is not up to snuff we often rewrite/replace it for the good of the site.
Bottom line is you are submitting this story as a participatory member of a community, a community that is heavily in favor of ideals like open source and the freedom/sharing of information. While we value your contribution, I will always choose the site with better information and fewer ads when possible so that our readers have less drek to wade through to get to the meat. I mean honestly, few readers actually read the article before spouting off at the mouth as it is, I don't want to force that behavior with sub-optimal articles.
Sorry you feel you got burned, but a sense of entitlement in a community based on collaboration is something I just can't support. Hope to see you around in the future.