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Intergraph Injunction Against Intel Suspended For Now 130

Posted by timothy from the talking-real-money dept.
Kilbasar writes "News.com is reporting that the Itanic has hit another iceberg, with a District Court granting an injunction stopping Intel from making the chip. However, the injunction was immediately suspended to allow for another round of appeals, and I don't really see anything coming of this other than Intel paying Intergraph anywhere from $100M to $250M to use their patents."
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Intergraph Injunction Against Intel Suspended For Now More

Intergraph Injunction Against Intel Suspended For Now

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  • The way I see it... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is just Intel's way of negiotiating how much they'll pay.

  • the price (Score:3, Informative)

    by flyingember ( 555991 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:41PM (#4574753)
    http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB103601301 9593598031,00.html I believe it's $150mill minimum

  • I can picture it now.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cyberise ( 621539 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:42PM (#4574761)
    .....the AMD execs are probably all grinning and giggling like schoolgirls.

    • Re:I can picture it now.... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, until they get hit by the iceberg.
      • Or untill they hit the iceburg. I can see it now "Mayden Voyage of the Clawhammer CPU crashes into Itanic".
      • Yes. In fact, AMD is probably quietly hoping that Intel wins, so that they (AMD) can also use this technology without paying. Observe that Intel and Intergraph have already completed negotiations over price and royalties. Intel now needs a court to uphold the patent to make their $100M ($250M?) investment in the IP worthwhile. If Intel wins, they (and AMD) save hundreds of millions of dollars, but if they lose, they get access to technology that AMD may have to bankrupt itself to emulate.
    • Don't forget their stock holders :)

      I bought some AMD at 8.50$ this summer and felt pretty bad when it fell to 3.50$... I should have waited until then to buy. It's now back at 6.14$.

      If they Intel loose this appeal AMD stocks will probably go higher, hopefully over what I paid for it.

      This is good news :)
      • Might not work like that. Stock markets are notorius for not following common sense. A more likely scenario is that if a major player in a certain sector is doing bad most likely all of the stocks in that sector are going to suffer.

        A good example would be nokia-ericson parallels. Even though nokia is consistently making a profit and even beating the market estimates its stock gets pounded by bad news coming from a mismanaged swedish mobile phone manufacturer. So when someones misfortune should be someone elses fortune it just ends up being a misery for everyone (at least stockholders).
      • Fucking Christ, fungus.

        First, the dollar sign goes BEFORE the amount. (Like this: $8.50)

        Second, it's LOSE! LOSE LOSE LOSE!

        Loose = the dog is running away!
        Lose = I did not win this trial.

        Posts like this makes me wish there was a [-1 Retard] moderation, although, I'm sure Offtopic will fit nicely, since I'm fairly certain that no one gives a damn about your investments.

  • Too bad (Score:4, Interesting)

    by madsenj37 ( 612413 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:44PM (#4574773)
    Intel is not the only chip manufacturer out there. AMD with its clawhammer is looking to be a better option anyway. Its just too bad teh general public doesnt know this. The same goes for Microsoft. Other alternatives are availible but alas Joe consumer just uses what everyone else does.
    • Other alternatives are availible but alas Joe consumer just uses what everyone else does.

      I think that Joe has been using quite a few Athlons.

      • Re:Too bad (Score:2, Informative)

        by GotSanity ( 591272 )
        Yes, but madsenj37 has a point. Many consumers buy Intel chips because of many different reasons. One of those reasons is the fact that Intel chips tend to last longer under heavy use and feature a few options like overheat protection. The average computer user doesnt upgrade their system as often as us geek/gamer/techies do. I do not necessarily mean that Intel makes a better chip, they merely make a chip that lasts longer. I, for one, use AMD chips in my system because they have a bigger punch for the buck.

    • Re:Too bad (Score:5, Funny)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @06:01PM (#4574883) Journal

      Intel is not the only chip manufacturer out there. AMD with its clawhammer is looking to be a better option anyway. Its just too bad teh general public doesnt know this.

      Yeah, if you're AMD you have to envy Intel's marketing campaign. Nothing says "massive computer power" like a bunch of bald idiots covered in blue bodypaint dancing around like jackasses.

      GMD

    • Re:Too bad (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kallahar ( 227430 ) <kallahar@quickwired.com> on Thursday October 31, 2002 @06:41PM (#4575075) Homepage
      Actually, most people buy and use what TV tells them to. Unfortunately, that leaks into corporate practice too. Every AMD I've used has been rock solid, but management won't let us use them anywhere because they have that concept that they Must Use Intel.

      Travis

      • Re:Too bad (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Bullshit. Management thinks "Must Use Dell" or "Must Use Compaq". They don't know or care about what's inside.

        Now if AMD could get off their ass and build a product that the OEMs would buy (ie, doesn't overheat, have the heatsink fall off in transit, have a high DOA rate, or perform poorly in SMP configurations), they wouldn't have to worry about idiotic P4 commercials.
    • As true as it might be for AMD, it does not work the same way for Microsoft. My next desktop will be AMD, but who knows when I actually switch to Linux. Development is all fun and nice while there is a paid sysadmin, but as a home machine it is always a disaster for me.

      Now while I am a newbie, I am a computer science major and I know *something*, so I figure that until I can install Linux without major pain (X set up takes weeks, MBR gets overwritten for some reason, etc.) Linux will not be a widespread desktop alternative...

      AMD would be a less widespread alternative if Windows would not run on it.

      • Not trying to flame, but what distro are you trying to use where the X setup takes weeks instead of miniutes? What vid card?
        • Was having problems with both:


          Redhat + ATI Rage 128 (still don't know why I got it to work, was really by accident, in my opinion)


          Debian + GeForce4 MX440.


          Redhat was a while ago, though (2 years?)

      • X set up takes weeks, MBR gets overwritten for some reason
        I also think you are having major video issues. Check your error log. It takes me a little over 20 minutes to install RedHat 8.0 and Apache 2.0.4 on an AMD 1700XP, 64MV Video card, 256mb DDR mem, 20gig 7200 rpm hd. PM me if you need any help :D
    • AMD with its clawhammer is looking to be a better option anyway.

      Christ no. Why do we have the people bringing up this same point every time?

      x86 is old. It's nasty. It's full of kludges to work around its architectural flaws. And what does AMD want to do? Extend the lifespan another ten to fifteen years! For the sake of all that is sane in computing, don't buy this chip!

      Mac users made the switch from their old m68k's to PowerPC, why can't PC users make the switch from x86 to something decent when the time comes? Maybe the Itanic isn't the solution to the ISA woes, but x86-64 definately isn't. In the long run, AMD is doing a disservice to the computing world.

      *muttermutter* And of course, all this since a few zealots hate Intel and all it produces for some stupid reason.

  • My that's rich! (Score:3, Funny)

    by L. VeGas ( 580015 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:44PM (#4574777) Homepage Journal
    "the Itanic has hit another iceberg"

    What a wit!
    'Course I'm only half right.

  • Just curious... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:45PM (#4574780)
    ... but does anybody know if Intergraph actually uses their patents to make chips? It seems rather silly if they don't develop anything themselves... Just my anonymous opinion however
    • That is how people make money. The submit a design and get a Patent. They then wait till someone needs something and when they find out it's already been thought of they need to pay rolyalties to the orignal person. The Patent does not need to be used in a working anything, just the facts on paper man :)
    • Rambus never produced anything. They did the R&D, licensed the patents, and let other people do the grunt work. Right at the top of their web site they claim to be an "intellectual property company". Their stock price is $5.58, down 95% from it's high, but I think the idea is pretty good.

      -B

    • Re:Just curious... (Score:3, Informative)

      by rfreynol ( 169522 )
      Intergraph used to make its own chips - the CLIPPER line that they used in its workstations. They went to Intel based workstations back in the early ninties and have sold off most of their HW business. The problem with hardware is that the margin is small enough as it is, but Intergraph insisted on making it all in the US, not in Tawian like most.

    • Re:Just curious... (Score:5, Informative)

      by cant_get_a_good_nick ( 172131 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @06:08PM (#4574927)
      They used to. They used to make a range of workstations, using a chip called the Clipper (no relation to the encryption chip). It got killed in the volume economics of Intel. Intergraph then started with a range of Intel workstations, and that business crashed and died, which Intergraph states was due in large part to Intel refusing engineering support in order to coerce them to hand over patent rights. Then they started suing. Intergraph has a long history of litigation with Intel. [intergraph.com] Been going on and off since 1997, this is just another round of "been there, done that".
    • "... but does anybody know if Intergraph actually uses their patents to make chips? It seems rather silly if they don't develop anything themselves... Just my anonymous opinion however"

      They used to until they chose to buy Intel clips. They were thinking of making an EPIC chip but decided the compiler would be impossible.
    • Silly? Not exactly, IMHO. They still can make money out of the patents; why spend money and effort on manufacturing while you can earn enough on patent licensing while leaning back?

      One pitfall, however: In some countries, you have to issue a mandatory license when you do not use the patented technology yourself for a reasonable amount of time (several years).
      And the judges will not have any trouble finding a reasonable fee for that license.

  • As I understand this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bobulusman ( 467474 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:45PM (#4574785)
    Intel is already out $150 million. If they win the appeal, no more lost money. If they lose, they lose another $100 million. Either way they get permission to use the patent. There's really no reason for them not to pursue this.
    • From the article: "The companies further agreed that Intel would pay Intergraph an additional $100 million if it filed and lost an appeal."

      If they're already out $150 million, according to that they would have only been out $150 if they *didn't* appeal at all, and just sought to license the patent from Intergraph. It seems rather silly to bring about more litigation to me.

  • What does this mean? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by airrage ( 514164 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:48PM (#4574798) Homepage Journal
    In some ways I'm hoping that this doesn't affect me as both a corporate IT person, and an avid computer geek, but alas, I think it is not so. The chips adhere to the law of spoilage; that if not brought to the marketplace before a certain time, they will actually be sold for a loss. I like the plantiff's position in this, in that they simply just need to wait it out while the fruit rots on the loading dock. I'm not a legal scholar, but what is all this hedging in the suit: I appeal, but lose 100 million, I win, lose the 100 million, you win, the 100 million, plus appeal money, but possibly lose ... oh I can't keep up..

  • Not Suspended.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:49PM (#4574807) Homepage
    Please note the injunction has been Suspened not Suspended. This new verb might not mean its closely sounding couterpart, so we cannot assume the injunction has been Suspended.

    Here's dictionary.com's [dictionary.com]take on this new word, and Merriam-Webster's take on it is to blurt out "The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the Dictionary search box to the right."

    As a side note, statistics say most new words are borne out of careless spelling mistakes.

  • I will never understand the court decisions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jukal ( 523582 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:49PM (#4574809) Journal
    The companies further agreed that Intel would pay Intergraph an additional $100 million if it filed and lost an appeal... If Intel wins the appeal, it won't get the $150 million back, but it won't have to pay Intergraph any more fees and won't be barred from shipping Itanium chips.

    Ok. So I get sued by someone for stealing his non-flushable-toilet idea (which is great concept), and he wins the first round in the court and I am ordered to pay him $42 million dollars. So, I make an appeal, which I win. They decide I did not do anything wrong after all. By this appeal I won't get anything back, but I won't have to pay anything more either. By suing me, the inventor got $42 million for nothing?

    • Well, I would imagine that if Intel does win this court battle (then doesn't pay this extra $100 mil) that they can counter sue for the $150 mil that they originally paid.
    • From the article:

      Under an agreement reached between Intel and Intergraph in April...

      I don't think that's how it usually works...only if you make an agreement like this outside of the courts.
    • No, this was the pre-arranged agreement between Intel and Intergraph.
      http://www.intergraph.com/press02/set tlement.asp
      • No, this was the pre-arranged agreement between Intel and Intergraph.

        Yeah, these settlements are another part that I don't understand. If the companies believe they can make wiser decisions outside the court, why do they go inside the court. Isn't the result just perverted cases like this?

        • Re:I will never understand the court decisions (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Dun Malg ( 230075 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @07:29PM (#4575368) Homepage
          If the companies believe they can make wiser decisions outside the court, why do they go inside the court?

          Well, in order to get to the part of the process where they sit down and hammer out an agreement, they have to go through the legal system equivalent of a game of chicken.
          Intergraph says "I'm better than you" (you used our IP without paying)
          Intel says back "No you're not" (no we didn't).
          Intergraph retorts "Oh yeah? I'll prove it--I challenge you to a game of chicken" (We'll see you in court)
          Intel: "Fine!" (Fine!)
          Then, as the cars speed towards each other head on (as the court case progresses), Intel thinks that Intergraph isn't going to swerve out of the way first (has evidence to back up its claim), so they jerk the steering wheel to the side and chicken out (agree to some sort of non-judicial arbitration).
          Driving head-on at one another is an important part of the legal system. It is the most costly of all the various means of proving whose wiener is bigger, but could very well end up with both parties wrecking their cars or dying. But since it's the only means of redress Intergraph can force Intel to participate in, it was invoked as its last resort. Basically, Intel wasn't going to give Intergraph a dime voluntarily unless their other option was limited to giving it to them involuntarily.

          Personally, I think the CEO's of each company should be forced to play an actual game of chicken to decide the case. It might be a bit arbitrary, but the entertainment value would make up for that.
        • The agreements revolve around the fact that court cases are long, drawn out, and involve legal fees.

          They decide, okay we get use patent X,Y, and Z for $200M and you agree never to sue us for using them again. Intel gets to make processors using the patents, and Integraph gets money for nothin. This way nobody gets dicked by a long drawn out trial to try and explain advanced technical concepts to lay-persons. With a court case, you are guaranteed nothing.

    • The companies further agreed

      Agreed... as in mutually came to a deal.... the court didn't order this part. Intel assumedly got something in return, though I admit I havn't kept up with the case (or even read the fucking article) so I don't know what.
    • <i/By suing me, the inventor got $42 million for nothing?</i>
      <P>
      No. $42 million for the invention.
      • But if the appeals circuit courts say that you did not, in fact, infringe on patents, then there is no reason why the inventor should receive that US$42 million. Thankfully, it has already been pointed out that such is not the case here, Intel and Intergraph agreed outside of court that Intel would pay $150 million if they lost the case.

        The thing that still puzzles me is that it was settled out of court in an agreement that if Intel lost the case, they would pay $150 million to Intergraph to license their patent. Yet, if the appeal shows that Intel did nothing wrong, I don't see why they can't just renege on the contract, as they didn't really lose the case then. This whole deal to me seems like legal gambling.

  • November coming fire... Samhain grim (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SexyKellyOsbourne ( 606860 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:49PM (#4574810) Journal
    The appeal will mostly likely fall through and end in a huge out-of-court settlement for Intel as they did before with Integraph (for $300 million), as $150 million is nothing compared to the cost of Intel delaying their Itaniums when the Hammer hits the shelves.

    I've hardly ever heard of Integraph outside of a few lousy graphics cards, or their workstation Clipper chips -- and just how much of Integraph's corporate income comes from suing Intel?

    • Emergency dispatch (Score:3, Informative)

      by Goonie ( 8651 )
      Intergraph also provides equipment and services for emergency dispatch - in essence, allocating resources to 911 calls.

      They got a contract from a previous state government here in Victoria (Australia) to do this for the ambulance service. It was a massive screwup, with buggy software, inexperienced staff, people at the top of the ambulance department mysteriously going to work for Intergraph after signing the contract with them, and opposition from the ambulance drivers' union, and eventually the contract had to be cancelled amidst political scandal.

    • I've hardly ever heard of Integraph outside of a few lousy graphics cards, or their workstation Clipper chips -- and just how much of Integraph's corporate income comes from suing Intel?

      Then you obviously do jack shit with engineering workstations. Intergraph's graphics cards and workstations were for years among the best in the business. Overpriced, perhaps, but technologically sophisticated. when i worked in huntsville doing graphics, we used to get intergraph workstations on loan from the corporate office to use in our demos and at tradeshows. it was like christmas time, four or five times ayear. anyway, the whole reason this is an issue is because intergraph was doing this stuff years before intel decided to.

      Aside from graphics and engineering workstations, intergraph sells a lot of gis and civil engineering solutions worldwide.
    • I used to live near the Intergraph home base (Huntsville, Alabama ... and before someone goes "Alabama, no wonder", it's got a number of technical and scientific companies).

      Intergraph's past has been like a smaller version of SGI, only with less flashy products (scientific workstations more so than graphics, although both did both). They started out as a proprietary systems company that did massive value adds to existing technology.

      However, in the mid-90's they became more and more dependent on Microsoft and Intel to do alot of their work. As such they became less specialized but still higher cost.

      In the mid-late-90's they had a number of blunders (including the now infamous Windows NT-commanded navy ship that went dead in the water due to software issues). They also fumbled on the emerging consumer PC 3D graphics card market ... they were one of the early players there and could have kicked butt but it takes a lot of work to get into the consumer market from the high-end market (again, visions of SGI).

      They still had high-end hardware ... we ran what at the time was one of the largest NNTP servers for free at the ISP I was working at because we running it on Intergraph machines and they were using us as a stress-test (by the time I left in 1999 it had nearly a terabyte of storage in 3 * 12 drive RAID chassis) ... but as part of the test it had to run Windows, which was not my favorite choice for NNTP).

      I won't bad mouth them too much, I got a free dual PPro server and external 6 drive RAID case from one of the Intergraph admins who worked with us on the NNTP server. I loved that Beast.

      Anyway ... they made good products, but from what I've seen they have spiraled down alot since their heyday. I wouldn't be surprised if the Intel lawsuits (and this is by no means the first one Intergraph has filed) are a major source of cash for them.

    • They USED to have royalties from intel, until (AFAIK) intel stopped to pay...
      Anyway, you can follow the case at theregister, they have stories of this case since 1998. In the first one you can read: "Intergraph obtained an injunction against Intel in April, following its November suit alleging that Intel had indulged in anticompetitive behaviour, patent infringement and violations of antitrust law".
      I used to follow this case, and thereg seemed to give more credit to intergraph than to intel.
      Who knows who is right, though; I'm in a mess with this david vs goliath / bigcorp vs sponger suiters thing.

    • Re:November coming fire... Samhain grim (Score:5, Informative)

      by ek_adam ( 442283 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @07:52PM (#4575471) Homepage

      Intergraph has been around since about 1970. I worked at Intergraph from 1990-1996. They used to make their own CAD workstations; hardware & software. This was back when a high end CAD workstation would cost 50-75 thousand dollars. The hardware would often include it's own furniture with dual or triple monitors built in and a D-size digitizer.

      They were never a consumer product company. They sold workstations to certain engineering and design niches. Their specialty is civil engineering and geographic infomation software. Have you ever looked at a topographic map? At one point all USCGS topographic maps were made on Intergraph workstations. They sell a lot of 911 systems, a spin-off of their other GIS stuff.

      They sold some electronic design software, mostly a spin-off of the products they used in house to design their Clipper chip (not the encryption Clipper chip. Boy do I remember the furor when the govt started talking about that!).

      They wrote their own publishing software based on a gencoding system similar to SGML. This was used for all of their in-house documentation. TV Guide used an enhanced version of this system for a few years.

      I worked in their mechanical division. They were doing object oriented programming in the early 1980's, long before it became popular. Unfortunately, being one of the first, they made a lot of mistakes in the way they chose to implement it, which led to an enormous number of bugs and workarounds in the later products that were built on the same core technology. I could model anything in I/EMS. However, for anything beyond simple models, I'd spend about 40% of my time working around bugs. I/VDS (shipbuilding software) was built on top of I/EMS. They wone a $600 million contract with the Navy back in 1990-1991.

      Shortly before the Pentium came out they were realizing that PC's were approaching serious CAD workstation levels. People were not going to pay $35k for a Clipper workstation when they could get a PC maybe half the speed, but one-tenth the cost. They made a couple of deals with Intel and sold their clipper chip unit to Sun. They were one of the first companies to ship a computer with a Pentium inside, and they were the first to ship a multi-processor Pentium machine. Back when a good $2k Pentium PC would ship with 16 or 32MB of RAM. They were shipping a $10k PC with 256MB of RAM, four processors, and a graphics card optimized for major vector graphics work. Note: vector graphics, not animation. Gamers were very disappointed when this $10k machine would do worse on Doom than their $2k machine at home. Still it had major horsepower. Bill Gates used an Intergraph workstation when he introduced Windows NT. When he said "This is the coolest machine in the world!", INGR stock rose about 30% the next day. Then one day as a couple of Intergraph's engineers were working with some Intel engineers to optimize Intergraph's next CAD workstation to work with the Pentium II the Intergraph engineer said "Hey, that looks an awful lot like one of our old Clipper designs." and the patent lawsuits and corporate warfare started.

      Unfortunately, though they pioneered a lot of things, they kept getting passed by the new kid on the block. PTC's Pro/Engineer had all of the features of I/EMS with twice the speed, half the cost, and relatively no bugs. (That was back in 1995. Now Pro/E is in almost the same position relative to SolidWorks.) And in hardware, you can't keep selling $10k CAD workstations when 1GB of RAM is about $100. They've spunoff or shut down about 3/4 of their old operations and are concentrating on what they're good at. GIS and suing Intel.

  • I simply can't justify buying Intel anymore (Score:4, Informative)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:52PM (#4574836) Homepage
    ... not after they've confirmed their chips will be TCPA/DRM enabled.

    We can only hope that AMD won't sell out in the same way.

  • Ignore the "General Public" (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dareth ( 47614 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @06:01PM (#4574886)
    Let's make this a discussion about a technology issue by people who know about technology. AMD Hammer chips have the "status quo" better label because of their 32bit compatibility combined with 64bit advancement. This is seen as a bridge to true 64bit computing without losing the current investment in 32bit software. In regards to this patent lawsuit, how will it affect Intel? I don't believe the amounts are large enough to even make a dent in Intel's publicity budget, much less affect their long term outlook for this line of processors. Only time will tell. As for the "General Public", they can go check out the local trade shows where they can get some great deals on *wince* "Authentic Pentium Computers for $300".

  • Closing Prices (Score:4, Informative)

    by hopbine ( 618442 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @06:08PM (#4574925)
    INTC 17.30 +0.31 +1.82% 77.26 Mil
    AMD 6.14 -0.18 -2.85% 5.239 Mil
    INGR 18.40 -0.64 -3.36% 1.151 Mil
    So who is suffering ?
  • Integraph. That's like a name o' the past. Will $250 Mil do anything to put them back on anyone's radar screen?
  • any one for a quick game?
  • Intel should thumb their noses at both patent law, and this other company, and just scrap the project.

    Since the hammer is already better, backward campatible, and unhampered by patent problems (AMD paid their bill without whining?) they should just can the project, recall anything that they have already sold, and give a big "Screw you" to all parties involved.

    Of course from a PR standpoint, I would cry and moan about how hard it is to be me. But I wouldn't be paying out an extra 100-250M to have a loser on my hands.

    then, since AMD would be sitting on their laurels, compete with your own tech that you can't sell. Take some time to really do up the next generation good, and come back with a big punch.

    Would not having the next gen be better or worse than having the poorer of the next gen?

    (For the sake of discussion assume AMD was winning, as I think they were, but they are both vaporish)
    • >Intel should thumb their noses at both patent law, and this other company, and just scrap the project.

      If you knew the amount of time/effort/money that Intel has and is putting into Itanium, you would realize that this suggestion is preposterous.

      As far as paying for a loser, Intel has already dumped out $350M to Integraph, these lawsuits are about ADDITIONAL payments. Intel isn't stupid enough to bury themselves in a project they think will never make enough money to be worth it.

      Hammer and Itanium are not in the same market. They may compete a little bit, but neither Intel, nor AMD plans to have them competing with each other. Remember Xeon? its still around despite the lack of press. Itanium is supposed to be very high-end computation based and Hammer is a smaller server/desktop product that will compete with Xeon and Pentium brand processors.

      • It's not preposterous if he legitimately believes that Intel's throwing good money after bad. For example if one holds the belief that the Itanium won't recoup its investment cost, cancelling it now's a good idea, no matter how much money has been spent.

        C//
      • You missed that little announcement from Cray, didn't you? AMD's hammer got tapped to be at the core of a honkin' big Cray server - its probably less work to build big NUMA boxes with hammers. Sounds like that's exactly where intel wants to be, but isn't at the moment.

        -Peter
        • You know why this got so much press? It was exactly because it was a screw up on Intel Marketing. For some reason Intel didn't have a representative in the right place, and AMD got one deal it shouldn't have. Lets compare all the large servers planning to be built with Itanium with those planning to be built with Hammer and a different picture will emerge.
    • If Hammer was already better, then why does the Itanic2 sit in the top spot in SPEC CPU rankings while AMD steadfastly refuses to release performance information?

      Riiiiiiight.... Move along, nothing to see here.

    • Intel have spent 4 billion developing Itanium, they aren't about to throw that away. Intel's push into the 64-bit high end market was enough for Compaq to run with their tail between their legs, abandoning development of the best chip on the market. I think Itanium should be taken very seriously. Just because Itanium isn't ruling the market from it's early stages doesn't mean that this chip will not be dominant in 5 years time. I bet IBM and Sun are wetting themselves. Whether AMD can make an impact in the enterprise market is yet to be seen, I doubt IBM or Sun are too worried about AMD at this stage.

      IBM and Sun don't just make chips, they make money by selling IT solutions. I think that in this decade you will see the commoditisation of the industry leads to players like IBM and Sun being pushed out of the chip market and the specialists will take over. And I don't see why AMD will be any more successful at competing with Intel in the enterprise market than they are in the PC market. I don't buy the concept of backwards compatibility with regards to the hammer, it just seems like a half arsed effort to push their way into the enterprise market. The big money is not in X86 anyway.

  • My thoughts (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sheddd ( 592499 ) <jmeadlock@perdid ... minus physicist> on Thursday October 31, 2002 @07:52PM (#4575475)
    Intergraph is doing wrong; this patent basically covers a crossbar to route instructions to their proper place. Not a super novel idea IMO...

    BUT the means are justified. Intel's an immoral Juggernaut. Intergraph was their golden child for a couple years; Intel used INGR boxes to show off their new stuff...

    Then INGR (perhaps wrongly) started to go after mobo mfg,'s over a patent they had on L2 cache (which is a stronger patent then the one above). Mobo mfg's shout 'help, Intel' and Intel proceeded to destroy INGR's Hardware division. At that time they were the only reasonable CPU to use for high end graphics (except SUN's stuff but there's no way SUN would sell to a compeditor).

    So INGR stopps getting any engineering info and this puts them a year behind in their mobo design (a year is deadly).

    This suit's been going on forever. Earlier this year INGR had the ability to stop Itanic production but caved for a piddly amount of money (the INGR CEO, Jim Taylor, basically got intimidated by The Intel CEO, Craig Barrett, into giving them patent rights for nothing). I would've loved to have INGR's say in that room. I would've shut them down out of despite the damn money.

    Predatory corporations like Intel need to be taught a lesson occasionally.

    Hammer, Hammer, Hammer!

  • This would be more fun... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...if it read Intel-Intergraph Injunction Inhibited Indefinitely.

  • hmm (Score:2)

    by forgoil ( 104808 )
    One would think that it was about time that iNTEL started to see where all these patents are going, and how it affects large corporations (which I see as a large bunch of people getting paid so they can live their lives). The computer industry is not being helped by patents right now, and that was their purpuse after all. The be fair to the inventor that is.
  • Scientists were preparing an experiment to ask the ultimate question.
    They had worked for months gathering one each of every computer that was
    built. Finally the big day was at hand. All the computers were linked
    together. They asked the question, "Is there a God?". Lights started
    blinking, flashing and blinking some more. Suddenly, there was a loud
    crash, and a bolt of lightning came down from the sky, struck the
    computers, and welded all the connections permanently together. "There
    is now", came the reply.

    - this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...

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