Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 16th Mar 2009 17:04 UTC
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Member since:
2007-02-17
The only way that patents spur innovation in IT is that companies spend extra R&D dollars to come up with a different system to get around existing patents. Intel's only real advantage in the marketplace is a large base of software products (existing Windows applications) that are distributed as binary executable files, for x86 only.
There is however, a large and ever-growing base of software that is distributed as source code, and which performs equivalent functions. OpenOffice.org, for example, is said to have grabbed about 20% of the installed base of desktop Office suites. Most of this is on x86, but OpenOffice is not constrained to that architecture ... and OpenOfice users can easily move to an alternative architecture if need be.
If Intel push too hard, other architectures and operating systems can perhaps get a foothold in some of Intel's core markets.
Obligatory supporting links:
At stake:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=09/03/16/1839231
"At stake is not only AMD's ability to build processors that use Intel's x86 technology, but also Intel's ability to use AMD's x86-64 tech in its CPUs".
Wow. Potentially, no AMD x86 at all, and no x86-64 from Intel. Itanium, anybody?
Other alternative architectures:
On netbooks (ARM):
http://www.product-reviews.net/2008/11/13/arm-netbook-custom-ubuntu...
On high-performance servers (SPARC):
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/03/09/suns-rock-processor-trac...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_processor
Edited 2009-03-16 22:40 UTC