Magee set straight on Rambus ruling

Intel P4 strategy dented by Rambus ruling

For the faint of heart who might not wish to be exposed to the unadulterated filth of this week's RamboFlame, we are printing a couple of the more reasonable missives received on this subject. Fathi Ali come on down:

I have read your article twice but I still don't see how the heck could this ruling dent Intel strategy! First, this ruling is a pre trial one regarding some basic definitions and hence the outcome of the trial is still not easily predictable. Second, the outcome of these law suits will determine if memory manufacturers will pay royalties on DDR and SDRAM to Rambus or not. How does that effect Intel in any way? You write over 10 paragraphs and never bother to explain how you come up with such catchy title.

Every benchmark I have seen clearly demonstrates that the P4 benefits greatly from the great bandwidth RDRAM offers and if it was not for RDRAM, the P4 would be no match for the Athlon and hence it is obvious that coupling the P4 with SDRAM (or even DDR for that mater) might prove successful only to those people who don't care about performance.

I know you might turn around and say if MM don't have to pay royalties on DDR, it will be cheaper than RDRAM and puts Intel at a disadvantage. Gee, you people are so bad in math! the royalties are in the ~2% range. So on a 128 MB stick, it will cost OEMs about a dollar more if Rambus collects royalties on DDR. Oh I see it, whether a PC costs $1299 or $1298 will make a dent in Intel strategy!

Keep spinning. Catchy titles may attract first-time readers but eventually they get tired of it.

To which Mike replied:

You say you don't get the point but it's obvious that in some ways you do. Did you check the background of the case, viz-a-viz Intel?

And did you see that Dataquest agrees the entire PC industry is being affected by this unseemly legal squabbling?

Oh yes. Then there was Doug Shekoyan:

You know, I just wrote you a letter telling you that you wrote a great piece on AMD's memory predicament, and now I have to eat my words because you go and write what is arguably your lamest article yet. This one on Rambus' legal problems affecting Intel was just lame. There's nothing there. Your article is a joke.

Where's your editor, on vacation? Re-read your own article. You don't say anything of substance. You painfully explain the current dynamics of the memory/cpu industry, but you NEVER explain how this preliminary ruling affects Intel's competitive position in the marketplace. Will it slow adoption? Who knows, you don't address anything that's meaningful. You're not even on the right page.

I don't mind reading something negative on Intel, but your article isn't even controversial. It doesn't say anything. How can you debate a person who doesn't state anything of substance? Pretty lame, even by your standards, Mr. Magee. Of course you won't write back to explain yourself, so don't bother with one of those "boilerplate: 'Just got back from vacation'" bullshit messages you send out.

Blimey! Well, that's what happens if you prod the Rambus hornet's nest with a stick. Reckon there'll be more of the same next week.