AMD Subpoenas Skype 418
I_am_Rambi writes "AMD has issued a subpoena to Skype in the battle of the anti-trust case against Intel. From the article: 'AMD is now focusing on a feature in Skype 2.0 that enables the ability to make 10-person conference calls only with Intel dual-core processors. Users with AMD dual-core chips or single-core chips are restricted to hosting five-person conference calls because only Intel's chips offer the performance necessary to host the 10-way call, according to Skype. [...] Skype's software is using a function called "GetCPUID" to permit 10-way conference calls only when that function detects an Intel dual-core processor on start-up.'"
That's a pretty flimsy excuse... (Score:3, Insightful)
And every other piece of software on the shelf just has the requirements written on the box, and it's up to the user to make sure your system is up to spec. But for some reason, Skype, and only Skype, has to check your CPU's make. Not clockspeed, not memory, not cache or storage space but cpu manufacturer to run.
They're gonna get nailed on this one. Hard. And they deserve it.
That took longer then I thought (Score:3, Insightful)
Then again it says a lot about skype that they even put in a hard limit in their software. Since hardware is improving all the time this will make your software quickly fall behind. It is like those software installers that check the platform string and refuse to install if it doesn't match their list. So you have to hack the game to work install on w2k3 (MS greatest gaming platform ever, would want it in a server room but runs games perfectly).
Even if intel launches some 6hgz chip skype would still be limited to 10 callers. Even if you run it on a super computer, skype would still be limited by 10 callers.
Oh well, pretty much everyone here on slashdot predicted this would end up in court.
Limiting your online product to a segment of the market. Oh yeah, the bubble is back with a vengenance. Does their website insist you run IE as well?
Re:Do we have evidence that Intel coerced... (Score:3, Insightful)
You are right, Anti-competitive practices are perfectly acceptible in a free market. If, I want to bundle my stereo system with a certain type of car because that car company has paid me to do so or vice versa or has some other mutually beneficial deal, that is perfectly acceptible. But as companies approach having a dominant marketshare we have decided that it is not acceptible any longer because of the ability of one company to extend a monopoly into other areas via these anti-competitive business relationships. There is no question that this practice is anti-competitive in nature, the real question however is does Intel really have that great a market dominance anymore that they could harm the marketplace with this kind of deal.
For similar reasons competing companies are not allowed to engage in price fixing even though it is perfectly fine for them to determine their own prices. Even though it might help the companies involved it will have the effect of hurting the overall marketplace.
So, no it is not about coercion. It is about what kind of collusion between what are supposed to be independent companies we will allow in a free market. And what kind of bundling of services we will allow a dominant company to do when it will exclude competition arbitrarily.
Re:Do we have evidence that Intel coerced... (Score:5, Insightful)
So when MS gets in a little trouble, there's still no big danger to them because there's no competitor out there selling drop-in replacements for their software with 100% compatibility.
Intel, OTOH, faces a significant threat from AMD. AMD's chips are better designed, and produce better performance while consuming less power. And with this, AMD's chips run all the same software that Intel's do, so there's nothing technical that locks you into one company over the other. The only big problem AMD has is that they don't have the fab capacity to match Intel's. Also, Intel's stock has been doing quite poorly for the past few years. While revenue has been at record levels, the stock price keeps stagnating. AMD's stock, OTOH, has been doing great.
As AMD grows and gains fab capacity, they're able to keep taking from Intel's dwindling marketshare. In the face of this threat, Intel is countering not by investing in engineering and improving their products, but by making a big new marketing campaign (notice their new logo?), and attempting more slimy, underhanded deals like this thing with Skype. All in all, it doesn't bode well for Intel.
Because it's pointless? (Score:3, Insightful)
A Skype executive declined to comment earlier this month when asked whether the company had tested the performance of its software on both Intel's and AMD's dual-core chips. An Intel representative confirmed that there are no instructions that specifically enhance the performance of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software like Skype's in Intel's dual-core chips. He also said that Skype's software is using a function called "GetCPUID" to permit 10-way conference calls only when that function detects an Intel dual-core processor on start-up.
I, personally, can not think of any reason why Skype would do this OTHER than Intel gave them money. I'm not sure it constitutes anti-trust or anything else illegal, but I find the effort patently rediculous.
At least Skype could say something like "we wrote optimized assembly code for the Intel Core Duo. Due to design differences between the Intel and AMD architecture, it's more difficult to manage the stack and keep track of shared registers on Intel's duo core processor. As a result, this code does not/will not work on AMD's processor without fine tuning." But they didn't say that. All we have is a note from a guy from intel that says basically says they're doing it arbitrarily.
Re:Do we have evidence that Intel coerced... (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now it looks like pretty basic product bundling or a partnership of some kind to make their products more "synergistic" or whatever (although the most minor kind of advantage I could possibly imagine...). That's very normal as long as nobody is making false claims. It's mildly annoying to the consumers, but if they are properly informed ahead of time, I see no real harm done. I can see how the anti-trust people would also get annoyed, seeing as Intel is the market leader, but I don't buy into that myself (that's another whole argument). But even for the anti-trust people, it's hard to imagine how Intel would corner the market with such a minor feature (slippery slope, I guess?).
That being said, it does annoy me that ANY software vendor would go out of their way to make their software less compatible. For that matter, anything that uses the CPU ID to influence high-level logic. It shouldn't be illegal, but it's like if MS Word had a (published) restriction that the spellchecker would only run if you had a Creative Labs(tm) SoundBlaster(tm) installed in the 3rd PCI slot, that would be really annoying.