Dell Protests 'Not Wintel's Lapdog'

An anonymous reader writes "C|Net is reporting on a protestation by Dell's CTO, Kevin Kettler, who says quite loudly that they are not Microsoft and Intel's puppet." From the article: "Essentially, Kettler argued, Dell was responsible for selecting, if not necessarily developing, many of the technologies in today's desktop computers and servers. Among standards for which he said Dell deserves credit are 802.11 wireless networking, PCI Express communications technology and 64-bit extensions to Intel's x86 line of processors."

64-bit extensions???

[Andy Dodd]

Um, Dell, you don't use AMD chips in any of your products. (I'm not counting Alienware here, since they were purchased long after AMD64 and EM64T came out.) AMD was the first company to release 64-bit extensions to IA32.

Dell also had nothing to do with IA64, considering Intel's primary partner for that was Dell's competitor HP.

802.11b????

[Pfhor]

What about apple and Airport, built into the ibook, released in 1999. I do not believe ANYONE had a builtin 802.11b solution back then, except for apple. (there was 802.11b, just as a pc card).

In fact, the ibooks were delayed because they had yet to pass FCC testing when they were announced at MacWorld.

Re:64-bit extensions???

[GraZZ]

For all the people that haven't read the article, Dell isn't saying they developed 64bit extensions for Intel. What they're saying can be summed up in the following hypothetical dialog:

Dell Strategist: "This AMD 64 bit thing is really being marketed well, and demand for 64 bits is increasing. You'd better have 64 bit soon or we'll be forced to start selling AMD machines."
Intel Strategist: "Yikes, ok, ok, we'll get R&D on ripping off*cough* working on a similar solution"

Re:Uhhhh....

[rbannon]

I'm no apologist for Gore, but I believe this often quoted statement was never made by Gore. It's plan ridiculous.

Re:Uhhhh....

[Onan]

That misquote just gets funnier and funnier over the decades, doesn't it?

(He helped in the creation of the Internet the only way that politicians ever do anything: he voted to fund it. And he never claimed to have done anything more than that.)

Re:Never seen...

[HardCase]

I've never seen an option to get Windows in 64bits on the Dell site.

You didn't look very hard. My Precision 470 came with XP64:


Important: Not all current applications and/or peripherals are compatible with 64-bit and may not function properly. Be sure to verify compatibility with all application and peripheral vendors prior to purchasing a Dell Precision platform with a 64-bit operating system.
        Genuine Windows® XP Professional SP2 with media
        Genuine Windows® XP Professional SP2 without media
        Genuine Windows® XP Professional x64 w/ media
        Genuine Windows® XP Professional x64 w/o media
        Red Hat Linux v4.0 No Media
        Red Hat Linux v4.0 with Media
        Red Hat Linux v4.0 64bit No Media
        Red Hat Linux v4.0 64bit with Media

Anybody rtfa?

[SocietyoftheFist]

The blurb at the top of the page isn't in context. Dell is saying they pushed Intel to use 802.11b instead of HomeRF, that they asked for 64 bit extensions in their processors and pushed for PCI Express.

Re:Uhhhh....

[gfxguy]

"During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Yes, he did say it, and he later acknowledged that he should have phrased it differently. He obviously meant he supported some of those technology initiatives and grants way back when.

I'm sure as hell no Gore apologist (look at my signature), and I think Gore is practically certifiable these days... but at the time, while I didn't vote for him, I got very annoyed when Bush supporters who brought up this subject. Of all the valid things to debate, people had to keep repeating this crap.

Re:Uhhhh....

[Slithe]

Dell DOES sell Linux workstations.
  http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare.a spx/precn_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd [dell.com]

Re:Uhhhh....

[dekemoose]

For the record, Dell does sell Linux on servers, workstations and (allegedly) their N series desktops. However, it appears that you can only get Optiplex and Dimensions in their N series without an OS, not with Linux installed, at least from what I can determine on their somewhat mysterious website. They do move a pretty decent number of Linux servers.

Re:WTF?

[Sebastopol]

But AMD went off and did their own implementation of Intel's Vanderpol (VT) secure virtualization.

So either they want a fight, or they want to save face.

But you are 100% correct: anything Intel invent's AMD can use, and vice versa. They only caveat is that they are not required to supply implementation details, just patented methods.

Very strange bedfellows.

Re:www.dell.ca

[dekemoose]

Search for Dell N Series

Re:802.11b????

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know either till I jfgi. [urbandictionary.com]

Re:Uhhhh....

[fbg111]

And now also AMD-based PC's... sort of [cnn.com].

Re:Uhhhh....

[barawn]

but to keep denying that is what he said

Great-grandparent: "Gore invented the Internet."
Grandparent: "misquote"
Parent: "took the initiative in creating the Internet"

took the initiative in creating != invented

It's a misquote. Was it well worded? No. But the misquote (which... it is) makes it seem worse than it was.

Re:Uhhhh....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only did he vote to fund it, but he was the only politician on the hill that attended every single major meeting in the development of the internet as we know it today. There's no doubt that it was a "pet project" of his. He deserves a great deal of credit for helping garner momentum for the intitiative from a funding, political, and business standpoint.

Internet != NSFnet

[erice]

He helped in the creation of the Internet the only way that politicians ever do anything: he voted to fund it. And he never claimed to have done anything more than that.

Unfortunately, even that is much more than he did. The Internet began with ARPAnet in 1969! Al Gore helped secure funding for NSFnet. Now NSFnet was an important stage in the evolution of the Internet but voting to fund NSFnet does not equate to inventing the Internet, even if funding == invention.

Why these Dell protests are good

[Overly Critical Guy]

It's good for Dell to push Microsoft and Intel around a little. Microsoft needs to have the #1 PC manufacturer tell them, "Uh, we're not under your thumb." Remember the 90s, when Microsoft controlled OEMs with an iron-fist, illegally coercing them into shipping only Windows through license revocation threats?

Re:Uhhhh....

[Onan]

Actually, a bit more context than that might have been helpful. Here's the actual question he was answering:

Wolf Blizter: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now. Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?

Which does seem to clarify that he was describing how his relationship to 'net compares to other politicians'. And it's not terribly absurd to claim that being a federal legislator who was advocating further development of the Internet in the 1980s does constitute being ahead of the game--for that particular game. I really don't think he was trying to convince anyone that he was Vint Cerf.

Some bloke with far more time available than I have seems to have gone into this [firstmonday.org] in exhaustive detail, and in a way that doesn't appear to be especially biased.

Re:Ok, it's easy to be cynical about this...

[wembley]

point me in the direction of another manufacturer who's committed to ExpressCard and not still releasing PC card stuff

Apple. [apple.com]

I hear they run Windows pretty fast, and come with some other software you can try.

Re:Uhhhh....

[good soldier svejk]

Interestingly, the internet Al Gore pushed for and the Internet that came about were essentially two different things. What he tried to get created would have been essentially restricted to schools and educational materials, and scientific institutions. An education friendly "information highway." The last thing Gore actually wanted, was a commercial internet, truely publically accessable and alterable, with few government controls.

Bullshit. Al Gore was the administration point man pushing the US National Information Infrastructure Act 1993 deregulating and partially privatizing the internet.

GORE: We need to look ahead, to protect it when it needs protecting, but not get in the way when it needs to walk alone. Like those wireless operators should have done in the North Atlantic, we should be alert to where the collisions could take place, and we shouldn't hesitate to chart a new course.

GORE: If we do that, then much more than the telecommunications industry will grow strong. This country will grow strong and humankind will as well.

GORE:Thank you very much. (Applause.)

Q: If you're talking about totally deregulating the information highway what steps do you think should be taken to ensure that the information superhighway is not captured by a few megacorporations for anticompetitive purposes?

GORE: One of the policymakers who has been meeting with us on a regular basis for the last several months is Ann Bingaman, the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, and our administration believes very strongly, as I said in part of this presentation, that just as suffocating overregulation can stifle competition and innovation, so the abandonment of antitrust principles and the surrender to private conglomerations of monopoly power can have the same effect.

-Al Gore Promoting the NIIA (internet deregulation), 1993

Re:Internet != NSFnet

[lysergic.acid]

Internet != ARPAnet

And did you read the GP? Al Gore never claimed to have invented the internet. That's just a strawman attack that Gore critics like to bring up continuously. Al Gore stated that he took the initiative in creating the internet, as he was the first politician to recognize the importance of the internet and did in fact promote and support its development from his seat in Congress in the early days of the net. Even Vinton Cerf [wikipedia.org] and Robert Kahn [wikipedia.org] have recognized his initiative as having been vital to the success of the internet [interesting-people.org] as it exists today.

From Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn's joint statement:

No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented" the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the university community. But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.

Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective.

As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept. Our work on the Internet started in 1973 and was based on even earlier work that took place in the mid-late 1960s. But the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication. As an example, he sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises.

As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and unconnected networks into an "Interagency Network." Working in a bi-partisan manner with officials in Ronald Reagan and George Bush's administrations, Gore secured the passage of the High Performance Computing and Communications Act in 1991. This "Gore Act" supported the National Research and Education Network (NREN) initiative that became one of the major vehicles for the spread of the Internet beyond the field of computer science.

...

So get a clue [salon.com] before you start discrediting other people and perpetuating gross exagerations of their statements.

Re:802.11b????

[root_42]

A lot of keyboards were still using the old 'keyboard port' (was this called PS/1? I never heard it described as anything other than the 'keyboard port').

The connector you are talking about is called a DIN-connector, where DIN means "Deutsche IndustrieNorm" (German industry standard):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIN_connector [wikipedia.org]

It was also used for MIDI, tape recorders and lots more.