Microsoft, Sony Clash Over Vista Turbo Memory

Anonymous writes "Sony is claiming that the current release of Vista does not support Intel's Turbo Memory technology, but Microsoft has dismissed the allegation. If Microsoft is telling the truth then all is well. But if Sony is right, Microsoft has opened itself to being sued for deceptive marketing practices."

So, sue me

if Sony is right, Microsoft has opened itself to being sued for deceptive marketing practices."

That wouldn't be the first time Microsoft was sued. What does Sony have that the US-DOJ doesn't?

Re:So, sue me

That wouldn't be the first time Microsoft was sued. What does Sony have that the US-DOJ doesn't?

Other than positive regard by a larger number of the American people, I have no idea.

Re:So, sue me

Its pretty telling and sad when the company responsible for root-kits has a higher regard among us then the DoJ.

There's no end to this sadness

When presidential candidates are debating about evolution you really must wonder how enlightened the masses really are.

Re:So, sue me

wait, who's in positive regard?

Sony? The rootkit installing, graffiti sponsoring over priced pusher of mediocre quality products?

Microsoft? Of course not, we're on slashdot after all...

the US Department of Justice? After the media coverage of the Paris Hilton ordeal and the fact that millions of people now realize that convicted people in most cases only serve %10 of their time and even less if they're rich socialites... followed by the abrupt reversal of the status quo to put the rich socialite in jail to the fullest extent of her sentence rather than getting treated like any other common probation violator... I'd say the average American is rather unsure of where they stand with regards to the justice system in the US and I'd suspect that money would have a lot to do with it today in any case.

they're all pretty shady in their own respects if you ask me, and it all seems to come down to money.

Re:So, sue me

In all likelihood, buckets of money. Compare MS' or Sony's ADVERTISING budget to the ENTIRE budget allocated to the DOJ's antitrust division:

• MS [joystiq.com]: $945M (reportedly)
• DOJ [usdoj.gov]: (2003) $140M

My google-fu on financial info breakdowns for publicly traded companies is obviously weak, but Nintendo said they were going to spend $200M on marketing the Wii *alone*, so it's likely that Sony's advertising budget for the PS3 ALONE is on the order of the entire allocation for the DOJ's antitrust division.

Its all marketing...

Sony is dying because of the way they've been treating their customers lately.

By attacking one of the few companies more hated than them, they're trying to re-direct some of their bad karma.

Sony is not dying ..

"Sony is dying because of the way they've been treating their customers lately"

"By attacking one of the few companies more hated than them, they're trying to re-direct some of their bad karma"

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SNE&t=6m [yahoo.com]

was: Re:Its all marketing...

Re:Sony is not dying ..

Yeah, if Sony is dying, then Apple must be dying faster

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AAPL&t=6m [yahoo.com]

Re:Its all marketing...

By attacking one of the few companies more hated than them, they're trying to re-direct some of their bad karma.

Bad karma? What bad karma?

Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates proved even more appealing than cuddly babies in the eighth-annual Harris Interactive/The Wall Street Journal ranking of the world's best and worst corporate reputations.
Top-ranked Microsoft managed to beat Johnson & Johnson, whose emotionally appealing baby-products business had kept it in first place for a remarkable seven consecutive years. In the Reputation Quotient survey conducted by market-research firm Harris Interactive Inc., respondents gave Microsoft very high marks for leadership and financial results. But Mr. Gates's personal philanthropy also boosted the public's opinion of Microsoft. How Boss's Deeds Buff A Firm's Reputation [wsj.com]

Apple ranked 22nd in the Harris poll.

Hmmm

Another niche tech product backfires on its creators. I wonder if they'll ever learn.

From TFA:

Sony's specific allegations:

[T]he omission of Vista support for Turbo Memory arose to avoid further delay of the OS released. Vista currently cannot recognize which kinds of processes and files need to be preloaded into Turbo Memory, [Sony's David] Spaeth said.

vs. Microsoft's vague assurances:

"Windows Vista supports Intel's Turbo Memory, and Microsoft and Intel have worked together to ensure that Turbo Memory works with Windows Vista technologies. There are no issues which we are aware of that would prevent [manufacturers] from adopting Turbo Memory for great performance results with Windows Vista."

Guess who seems more confident in their assertion?

Re:From TFA:

So are you trying to say one marketing droid is more credible than another? The whole turbo memory issue is dubious at the moment. Under certain load conditions and system configurations it does appear to offer decent performance improvements but can frequently degrade general performance. It's currently more attractive to the manufacturers than the end user though because it's a lot cheaper for them to put in flash memory rather than ram and let the user take the performance hit. I'm curious about what happens when the flash memory fails. Have you got a new paperweight or does the OS just ignore it and carry on with the ram available? HP have opted against it as well because they feel theres no substantial benefit from what is still quite immature technology.

From TF Intel.com

Tests run on customer reference boards and preproduction latest generation Intel® Centrino® processor technology with optional Intel® Turbo Memory enabled against like systems without Intel Turbo Memory. Results may vary based on hardware, software and overall system configuration. All tests and ratings reflect the approximate performance of Intel® products as measured by those tests. All testing was done on Microsoft Windows Vista* Ultimate (build 6000). Application load and runtime acceleration depend on Vista's preference to pre-load those applications into the Microsoft ReadyBoost* cache. See www.intel.com/performance/mobile/intel_turbo_memor y.htm [intel.com] for more information.

Which in turn yields:

Performance measurements collected on pre-production Lenovo ThinkPad* T61 with pre-production BIOS. Detailed Notebook Configurations

  PCMark05 Test from FutureMark is an application-based benchmarking tool used to measure overall PC performance. By using portions of real applications, this benchmarking tool can assess PC performance. (+36% improvement)

  Google* Earth loading a fly through of a national park followed by Adobe Photoshop* Elements 5.0 creating a slideshow showing pictures from the same park. The input files for Adobe Photoshop Elements are 48 digital photos with a resolution of 10 MPel. (+127%)

Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance. Buyers should consult other sources of information to evaluate the performance of systems or components they are considering purchasing. For more information on performance tests and on the performance of Intel products, visit www.intel.com/performance/ or call (U.S.) 1-800-628-8686 or 1-916-356-3104.

But Sony is trustworthy, they'd never lie.

Re:From TF Intel.com

What appears to be going on here is that Microsoft is technically correct in stating that Turbo Memory is supported. Sony appears to be incorrect in claiming that it is not but may well be correct in stating that first generation support does not improve performance as it should.

Looks to me more like Sony overstating their case in explaining why they are not offering support now.

Why anyone would expect this to work 100% till the first service patch is beyond me.

Deceptive Marketing Practices...

...must be one of most redundant statements in the English language.

Summary, if I understand it correctly:

Sony: Vista doesn't support TurboMemory.
Microsoft: It does too. See? It uses the flash memory for...things. Vroom.
Sony: You call that support? It doesn't do what it's supposed to.
Microsoft: Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not happening. It's integrated and magical.
Sony: Yeah, it'll half-work, as long as you micromanage what files are cached.
Microsoft: See? Integration.
Sony: Um...no. Not quite.

Re:Summary, if I understand it correctly:

Microsoft: What? We said we support it. As in, "We think it is a great technology. Go Intel."

It is likely that there is some support but it....

does not work in the way that it was marketed as giving a nice speed up and M$ just pushed it back to vista sp1.

Sony is right...

There was a test recently in the german gamers magazine Gamestar, and they found that ''turbo memory'' did nios speed things up at all in a number of different set-ups they tested.

Must be a day that ends in "y"...

Microsoft? Using "deceptive marketing practices."

Huh.

Who'd of thunk it?

Must be a day that ends with "y".

(rolls eyes)

The real problem...

"The issue is that the OS needs to learn what to load into the Robson memory in order to increase performance," Sony said."

It sounds to me like Microsoft may have implemented it poorly so it's a feature that doesn't really help.

How many people here are old enough to remember the transistor radio? I remember the big thing was to get a five transistor radio. That was a radio with five (5) transistors. And they had five too but if you looked you might see that one of the three leads on two of the transistors were cut.

Unscrupulous companies were putting five transistors into their radios so that they could advertise that feature but they were using two of them as simple diodes not as transistors. What you paid for was a five transistor radio but what you got was a in effect three transistor radio. You couldn't really sue because the unit had all five transistors, just some of them weren't being used as transistors.

Re:The real problem...

I remember seeing an article about that. The first had one transistor, then two, then three. Then people kept adding transistors and claiming it made their radio better. While some actually did that, the article had pictures of radios where off on a part of the circuit board that wasn't connected to anything there would be 3 or more transistors just soldered onto the board, no connections. They would buy bad transistors and just stick them in, not even using them as diodes, so they could call it a 5 transistor radio.

Frankly, I believe Sony in this case. Getting the algorythim right for this would be tough. It woudn't surprise me if the one MS made is currently ineffective. It will take time to find a better one.

I'm a bit confused...

Is Turbo Memory technology hardware that is designed and built around an OS (Vista)? That seems to be a very peculiar (read:bad) idea. What does it mean for other users who intend to utilize different operating systems? Is there a loss of performance or just an added feature that cannot be used?

Intel disagrees with you...

It's interesting that Intel themselves calls it an "entirely new system innovation for Windows Vista PCs..." [intel.com] and says that it "Works on Windows Vista only." [intel.com]

Perhaps you can point to the specification which would allow it to be used by other operating systems. If I have a dual-boot system, does the specification allow it to keep info for each? If so, how is it determined which OS gets use of how much of this memory?

Deceptive marketing

Microsoft has opened itself to being sued for deceptive marketing practices

Considering they got away claiming they were selling Operating Systems, I don't think this will be a problem.

Sony, psts!

Sony, look, if Vista is not using the turbo memory technology you could use the free space there to load your root kits even faster....

The Death of "Turbo."

(rant)
Does anyone actually remember when "turbo" had a technical definition beyond "really fast?" Does anyone realize that, in the computing world, "turbo" is essentially meaningless? (Go ahead, demonstrate for me how you pressurize the incoming bitstream mix using the processor bitstream exhaust pressure...) Or has the influx of market-roids slapping a "turbo" badge on any slightly-faster-than-last-year's technology made this term utterly useless?
(/rant)

Re:The Death of "Turbo."

(rant)
Does anyone actually remember when "turbo" had a technical definition beyond "turbocharger"? Does anyone realize that, in the engineering world, all that "turbo" means is "involving turbines" (go ahead, demonstrate me how you pressurize the incoming steam mix using the turbogenerator exhaust pressure)? Or has the the influx of market-roids dropping the "charger" on any turbocharged piston engine made this term utterly useless?
(/rant)

SCNR.

The Turbo Button!

The death of "Turbo" was when the Turbo Button stopped appearing on computer cases :X Now wasn't that cool or what, you had TURBO and the speed of your procesor was indicated on a led display.

What it does, and why it doesn't work (and does)

To keep it simple, it is flash memory (slower then ram (regular memory), cheaper then ram, not as long lasting as ram) that is added as an extra cache.

That is it, nothing more. Just a file cache. The OS controls it and has to tell it what to cache and what not.

Cacheing in itself is pretty simple and its speed increase is pretty damn obvious to all those of us who have lived through the age of the minimal/full setup for games. The game/data comes on the CD, with it being optional to "cache" it to the HD. The more you cache on the HD, the faster the game will load its data.

Now there are problems with cacheing. What to keep, and what to loose.

Take again a game. Say I a racing game. As I drive around the track new scenery comes up and has to be taken into memory. If it is full then old scenery needs to dropped out. Obviously the machine that has enough memory to take the ENTIRE track into memory will perform the best. Next will be the machine that can at least load it from something like an HD, preferrably a special cache file of the track that combines all the needed data in one handy arrangement, slowest will be the machine that is forced to read the track data from the CD as you drive around.

Turbo Memory(cache) is designed to load frequently used data(applications are data as well) into its memory, so that it can be loaded into main memory faster then if it had to be loaded from HD.

And there is its problem. HD's ain't slow, and it still got to be loaded from the cache into memory. The game engine itself barely benefits from this, it just might reduce the loading time IF your OS deems the game engine to be fit to be loaded. The game data itself will be too big to load. In a linear game you wouldn't even have much to cache, either stuff is needed constantly, and needs to be in main memory OR is used once, and there is no point in cacheing it.

This kind of tech ain't knew. Were it excells is in reducing the startup time of many small often run applications. Were it sucks donkey balls is when it comes to big run once, stay loaded type apps.

What is even worse, AI in OS'es generally just isn't very good and often gets it wrong. In trying to guess what you are doing it will often guess wrong and actually hurt performance.

Turbo Memory works with certain workflows were you would be better off with just more memory and or faster HD but can't have/afford that.

I am therefore not suprised at the Sony and MS reaction. Both are absolutly correct. Sony tested it with their set of tests, and found it not worth the cost. Very likely they just have a certain workflow they test for with memory setups that are designed for that. (Might Sony make more money from selling main memory, then turbo memory) MS will have tested for different circumstances, perhaps those that favor their cacheing system and with the knowledge that MS does NOT sell main memory?

So what does this mean to you? Make sure you check that any review of technology like this resembles what YOU do with your computer. Always run the same apps that stay active, handfull of large apps and can afford/have enough main memory, then don't bother. Are you someone who runs countless little apps, constantly closing them and reopening them and just don't have enough or can't enough main memory, then it might work for you. IF Vista properly regonizes what you are doing and can use the cache as it is intended.

So no Sony OR MS bashing needed here. Simply different views of how users us their computer.

Intel and Microsoft Marketing at it's best

According to several articles regarding this subject, the questionable utility of Turbo Memory is not the fault of MS alone:

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/31976/135/ [tgdaily.com]

TG Daily reports that Intel's showcasing of Turbo Memory included benchmarks that's anything but real-world applicable: "The benchmark appeared to slam several pictures at lightning speed into Photoshop, something that would play to the strengths of flash memory because the pictures would already be stored in flash for fast opening by Photoshop. Realistically though, we think the average user wouldn't capture dozens of pictures and then open them all in Photoshop in one fell swoop."

Which leads to an Anandtech article showing that in many cases, performance suffered as a result of Turbo Memory implementation - particularly with boot and hibernation times. Now these are cases where users are MOST likely to notice performance differences.

Finally, in the cases where Turbo Memory would seem useful, it appears that HP discovered that using far more versatile, ubitquitous flash solutions such as SD and USB drives (not to mention just adding regular system memory (what a concept!)) yielded similar and more economically sensible results: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6188522.html [zdnet.com]

Maybe if Vista didn't need such obscene amounts of memory, this wouldn't be an issue; but I digress.

Turbo button?

The case of the AT box under my table which I use as a router-cum-fileserver has a "TURBO" button on the front display.

The box usually runs OpenBSD, so I tried starting a Vista installation to see what all the fuss was about.

Unfortunately, it appears 64MB of "tradtional" RAM is not enough for Vista.

Who to root for?

I have such vitriolic hatred for both companies that I don't know which side to pull for. Guess I'll pull for MS - Sony is the root(kit) of all evil. By the way, am I the only one around here with a fetish for veiny women?

Right. Call me when...

...Sony have a fecking clue about software.

The day I trust Sony's views on what makes good software is the day I call up Satan for his advice on which Snow-Plough model gets you to work fastest.

Turbo?

That sounds so, so...eighties.

Or is it memory that can only be used by TurboPascal?

There was an article in one of the trade rags

That did a benchmark of the USB flavor of "ready whatever it is". Their tests showed almost NO benefit of the "feature". I would, as much as I hate to admit it, have to agree with Sony here.

Mobcrosoft

Microserf: "Yeah, we almost ran out of Black Suites and brown paper bags that week for all the extra delivery goons we had to deploy"

O.....kay. So a linux kernel is hard to set up?

So there's contention because Sony says a Microsoft feature doesn't work but Microsoft says Sony corporation just can't figure out _how_ to make it work?

Now there's an advertisement for hap-hap-happy Windows user friendliness. Wanna pay $400 to set me up with some Vista _real_ soon with news like that.

lawyer logic!

"well.... it doesn't NOT support it!"

Bigger question

The bigger question here is:

When is the Linux kernel going to make use of Turbo Memory? It would be funny if, after MS touting this tech for so long, we can say "but you need Linux before it will work properly".

Dilemnas, dilemnas...

What a dilemna: In a fight between Sony and MS, which side do Slashdot users cheer for?

I have a better answer for Turbo Memory

put the freaking OS on it's own solid-state drive. Half of the time shit loads slow because it has to load subsystem crap from a moving platter. Once it's been stored to RAM, things load faster. OS+subsystems on it's own direct to FSB connected solid-state chip would fix half of this mess as it is.

Confusion on my part

Could someone perhaps explain to me why Sony is weighing in on what seems to me to be a private matter between microsoft and intel? This just seems to me to be analogous to mac suing sony because the ps3 doesn't support all hdtv's [or didn't, i don't know fixed that problem or not]

Re:Hmmm.

WinFS redux? PC-to-PC synchronization rehashed? Windows Vista scripting shell encore?

We used to play a (DOS) joke called "Turbo Copy"

Just press "ALT" then "E" then "A" ... then hit the Deliver key (DEL).

Turbo Copy! 100% data loss, but it sure is fast!

Maybe that's how MS saves their roadmap.txt file.

Re:Sony is less trustworthy than Microsoft...

How can you say sony has a better design than apple with all those defects? I've never had my iBook mysteriously power on, and I've accidentally dropped it before without issue. My iBook on a new battery gets 4-5 hours with wifi enabled. I have about a year old battery getting 3 hours with wifi. I would argue the appearance is better with most Apple products as well. Design is more than the outward appearance of a product. Its also the engineering behind it.

I would guess that both Sony and Microsoft are correct. Microsoft implemented a feature in vista and Sony tried to use it as it was described. We all know that Windows doesn't work as advertised. It never has regardless of service packs.