Competition Is Not Good
Linked by Kroc on Thu 30th Aug 2007 13:03 UTC
Editorial I hear often that when something new appears that "competition is good". The primary reasons competition is seen as good, are: it drives down prices; it gives consumers more choice; it pushes technology forward, quicker. Competition is not good because: competition is why consumers have to choose between HD-DVD and BluRay; competition is why DRM exists; and more. In this article, each of the supposed benefits of competition will be looked at in more detail.
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RE[2]: What a crock!
by sbergman27 on Thu 30th Aug 2007 15:50 UTC in reply to "RE: What a crock!"
sbergman27
Member since:
2005-07-24

"""
I do. The competition between Intel and AMD is one of the things that has kept the x86 architecture around several years past the point when it should have been dumped.
"""

You are perfectly free to buy an Itanium, a Sparc, or a PPC. Anyone is.

Intel tried to push Itanium. The industry, and the public chose X86_64.

X86_64 solves the two biggest problems with x86_32 very cleanly. It removes the addressing constraints. And it eliminates the register-constrained nature that has been the bane of x86 for decades.

There are babies. And there is bath water. And it is best not to confuse the two, since people tend to have rather strong feelings as to their relative values.

Opinions differ, of course. I'd take the bath water any day. ;-)

Edited 2007-08-30 15:51

Reply Parent Score: 4

RE[3]: What a crock!
by evangs on Thu 30th Aug 2007 17:16 in reply to "RE[2]: What a crock!"
evangs Member since:
2005-07-07

Whatever for? Geeks don't bathe.

Reply Parent Score: 4

RE[4]: What a crock!
by sbergman27 on Thu 30th Aug 2007 17:25 in reply to "RE[3]: What a crock!"
sbergman27 Member since:
2005-07-24

"""

Whatever for? Geeks don't bathe.

"""

I'd use it in my nifty-difty water-cooled, overclocked, quad core system, of course! The baby would only clog the pipes. ;-)

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[3]: What a crock!
by alexandru_lz on Thu 30th Aug 2007 18:08 in reply to "RE[2]: What a crock!"
alexandru_lz Member since:
2007-02-11

You are perfectly free to buy an Itanium, a Sparc, or a PPC. Anyone is.

Intel tried to push Itanium. The industry, and the public chose X86_64.

I agree, and what I meant was not necessarily that we should have all moved to SPARC. The competition itself also had the advantage of making both Intel and AMD push the x86 with some good innovations.

However, in those moments when I daydream, I keep thinking what computers would have been like if desktops hadn't been hindered by the slow progress of x86 in the late 90s.

Many thanks for your reply. I should have pointed out those things from the very beginning before criticizing the article's author for not telling the whole story about competition.

Reply Parent Score: 1