Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2009/11/06/nvidia_launches_anti_intel_cartoon_site/

Intel lampooned by Nvidia toons

Graphic ridicule

By Rik Myslewski

Posted in Bootnotes, 6th November 2009 21:03 GMT

If anyone needs any further proof that there's no love lost between chipmakers Nvidia and Intel, they need look no further than a cartoon collection linked from Nvidia's corporate blog, nTersect

The small but growing compendium of anti-Intel funnies, snarkily titled "Intel's Insides", seems specifically intended to boil blood in the executive suites of Chipzilla's Robert Noyce Building headquarters in Santa Clara, California.

The most recent cartoon is dated November 4 - the day that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed suit against Intel for "a systematic worldwide campaign of illegal, exclusionary conduct." The cartoon depicts Paul Otellini at an Intel-labeled podium, echoing ex-president Bill Clinton's infamous Monica Lewinsky denial by saying "I did not have bribery, coercion and kickback relations with the computer industry."

An earlier cartoon touches on similar anti-competitive charges against Intel. Dated October 1, it portrays Otellini as a mobster modeled after Marlon Brando's Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather, saying "We'll make them a microprocessor offer they can't refuse."

Other cartoons take jabs at Moore's Law, Larrabee, and Intel's disputed marketing development funds (MDF) programs.

The black-and-while cartoons are the work of veteran editorial cartoonist Steven Lait, whose website describes his current freelance work for Nvidia as "Producing illustrations for corporate website blog covering issues in the semiconductor industry with a focus on competition."

Lait, as is true for any good editorial cartoonist, is an equal opportunity offender - his work has skewered California gubernatorial wannabe and ex-eBayer Meg Whitman and current California governator Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others.

And now he's found what should be steady work, considering the ongoing lack-of-love fest between Nvidia and Intel. Sued by Intel in a dispute over the scope of a 2004 cross-licensing pact, Nvidia countersued this March, alleging Intel breach of contract and seeking to make null and void Intel's license to Nvidia's graphic processing and 3D computing patents.

Having recently put its PC chipset business on hiatus pending resolution of its current legal battles with Intel, Nvidia execs must be hopping mad - incensed enough to pay an editorial cartoonist to lampoon its competitor.

After its whopping EU fine, the lawsuit filed by Attorney General Cuomo, and the ongoing investigation by the US Federal trade Commission, Intel is not looking especially virtuous these days.

And with "Intel's Insides", Nvidia wants to ensure that Chipzilla's reputation remains a target of scorn. ®