Get hooked up with AT&T ConnecTech
- Related Stories
-
LinuxWorld not just for Linux fans anymore
April 6, 2006 -
Intel acknowledges Itanium flubs, predicts strong future
March 23, 2006 -
Itanium: A cautionary tale
December 7, 2005 -
Intel, Microsoft endorse HD DVD
September 26, 2005 -
Dell shuttering Itanium server business
September 15, 2005 -
Dell axes high-end server
July 21, 2003 -
Intel wares favor Wi-Fi for home networking
August 29, 2001 -
Intel to delay new chipset as Rambus reels
September 24, 1999
(continued from previous page)
While Dell ditched its Itanium systems in 2005, the decision to do so actually came much earlier, Kettler said. It made the shift in 2003, when it dropped plans for an eight-processor Xeon server. The time lag was because Dell had to keep selling some models for those few customers who wanted Itanium systems, but most just weren't interested in them, he said.
If it were up to Kettler, Intel would drastically scale back its Itanium work--a direction 180 degrees opposed to Intel's increasing investments in the chip. "I ask how many developers they have on Itanium," every time he meets with Gelsinger, he said. Whatever the answer, Kettler says, "That's two times too much."
Kettler oversaw Dell's memory technology before becoming CTO four years ago. In that earlier role, he inherited one mess: Intel's strong affinity for Rambus memory subsystem, a product fraught with delays, technical difficulties and business problems. Intel eventually backed off the Rambus technology in favor of today's prevailing standard, double data rate (DDR) memory, which is more broadly endorsed.
More recent memory troubles have hit Intel. The slow transition to a variant of DDR called FB-DIMM is holding back the arrival of servers with dual-core "Dempsey" Xeon processors. Dell suffered because Intel didn't draft enough industry support for FB-DIMM, Kettler said.
Dell didn't invent PCI Express, the higher-speed successor to the prevailing Peripheral Component Interconnect technology for plugging in video cards, but it should get more credit for ensuring its success, Kettler said. It was Dell's market clout that gave graphics chip companies such as ATI and Nvidia the confidence that they could make the jump to PCI Express from the previous Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) connectors, he said.
Picking on Microsoft
Intel isn't the only major ally to have fallen out of step with Dell. The PC maker's customer surveys have led it to believe the Blu-ray format should succeed DVDs, Kettler said. At the same time, royalties for Blu-ray are lower than for the rival HD DVD format, and the Blu-ray video content is better, he added.
Microsoft and Intel endorsed HD DVD over Blu-ray in September, and Hewlett-Packard, formerly a strong Blu-ray advocate, softened its stance shortly afterward. Kettler suggested Microsoft hasn't revealed the true reason for its fondness for the format. The company has a "franchise to protect," he said: its Xbox business, which competes with the Blu-ray-enabled Sony PlayStation 3.
Microsoft, not surprisingly, disagreed with this assessment and asserted its motives for preferring HD DVD are broader. HD DVD drives and disks are cheaper and arriving sooner, argued Jordi Ribas, director of technical strategy in the Windows Digital Media Division, and interactive elements of the disks are easier to program in HD DVD's iHD than in Blu-ray's Java.
"With Intel and HP sharing our views on this as well, I would say these (factors) are more critical for the PC ecosystem than for gaming," Ribas said. "Blu-ray has been spinning a good yarn over the past year, but it's becoming clearer that the technology is more expensive and has fewer features, and many of their technology claims are far from deliverable."
Dell is sticking to its guns, though. "Microsoft may bitch, Intel may bitch," but the customers want Blu-ray, and that's what matters to the PC maker, Kettler said.
While Dell has argued that it has a tight connection to customers, it doesn't have a perfect track record of predicting what they want, Kleynhans said. "They didn't do so well with the Dell DJ" music player, and the company opted for smart cards to store encrypted passwords on PCs rather than the trusted platform modules that the industry ended up preferring, he said.
"History shows there are wins and losses for all of these guys," Kleynhans said.
See more CNET content tagged:
HomeRF,
IEEE 802.11,
Wintel,
Intel,
wireless networking
AND wields so much more power in the industry than Dell, it's a
joke this article was ever written.
Ted McCarty
You people at Dell really believing this junk that you say?
Dell does no more for the industry than any leading company would. They get to set some direction because of their size. I'm sure that HP and IBM can give examples of how they'd "established" something in the industry.
Their blind loyalty to Intel continues to hurt the industry as a whole.
Yellow; pale with a plastic shovel.
Dell was an earlier adopter in the PC world for 802.11, but Apple put Wi-Fi on the map with their Airport hub and cards. Apple didn't develop wi-fi, but it saw a good thing and put it on the market first.
Geesh..
While other's were going to DDR you stuck with PC133, why? Because Intel still wanted to prove that RAMBUS was a much better architecture. If you had any say about what Intel was delivering to you then what happened there?
You followed Intel all the way through the P4 lineage even after they hit the thermal "brick wall" of 4GHz and had to back off to 3.8 GHz. Where was your CTO then? Intel promised that the P4 would go to 5GHz which was almost required for the P4's long pipeline.
I won't comment on the MS side of the house because I actually thing that they do listen to you.
But let me put it this way, Dell may as well be named Intdell because you totally depend on Intel to tell you what to do. You design your systems off of Intel reference boards and you are Intel's lapdog (although I can think of a better term but can't post it here).
Fred Dunn
They paraphrase the same thing they have been saying over and over but not doing and it's still news.
They say these things I think becasue they are trynig to convince Wintel, but these days the pro AMD statements made from Dell must be a running joke around the Intel water coolers.
Boss: "You get those TPS reports?"
Dolt: "They are on your desk right next to the press release that Dell began shipping AMD desktops"
As a large customer they were able to influence the Intel wireless standard and push them towards the 64 extensions. Good for them, it sounds like standard business practices to me, but it only seems to work one-way. Most successful businesses listen to their customer base and respond, Intel listened to Dell, but Dell isn't listening to the consumer. When they actually decide to broaden their horizons and offer something up outside of the Wintel playbook, then maybe they can claim to have a leadership role in technology. Until that time they are just a successful lapdog that occasionally nips at the master.
Dell could undercut all the exisitng PC makers with this model, because they didn't do research and development or have to support brick and mortar storefronts. They were grabbing market share from everyone. Compaq and HP merged as a result of this threat. During the confusion of the merger, dell grabbed even more share of the market. Perhaps dell expanded too rapidly or the other makers now have their act together, as dell is now showing cracks in its armor.
A company of inovation? Hardly. They may have influenced others, but dell shouldn't be boasting about being responsible for inovation.
computers. Ang mundong ginagalawan mo ay para lamang sa mga
hunghang na tulad mo. Huwag ka sanang makahawa.
Dells
Apple was the first to get rid of floppies.
Apple was the first to have super drives where you could write DVD and CDs using the same drive.
Apple had the touch pads on laptops most use today.
And of course Apple had mice first :)
Dell is a follower. Maybe they push things out into the pc market, but it's usually well after the market has been there and doing things on their own for sometime. There is never any risk involved.
Frankly, all these Apple love letters are about as out of place here as posting Linux kernel patch notes in a thread about a new version of Internet Explorer.
Now, with Apple able to compete directly with Dell... Dell has to be more than a computer assembler. Now, they've magically crowned themselves kings of innovation, thanks to Dell's P.R. department and c|Net's lack of journalistic instinct.
Most people know Apple is an innovator. But Dell is no more innovator than is your local police department an innovator for choosing a Dodge Charger instead of the Ford Crown Vic or Chevy Caprice. For all we know, Dell has *hurt* innovation by using their market share to force suppliers to toe Dell's line.
Now, with Apple as a competitor, we'll likely see some real innovation from the Wintel side of the fence.
NOW THAT was funny. Oh look here comes Apple with their way over priced, running XP, un-supported Intel box with different plastic....look out they are going to move from 4% to 4.5% market share!!!!!!!!!!!
Wake up please.
They should be happy with their role in the industry, and shouldn't feel the need to make stuff up.
cutting costs of their products. Sometimes to an absurd level
(i.e. the option to add or remove the mouse pad). I don't
remember Dell being involved with creating any new
technologies. They slap together off the shelf components from
several suppliers into a box and slap the Dell logo on it. What
has changed since the time Michael Dell was assembling
computer parts from his dorm room to this day is economies of
scale. Better inventory and supply chain management and
improvements in cutting the cost of manufacturing down. Dell
was probably one of first batch of large companies to off shore
their tech support and move their production from the US to
China. Calling Dell a technology innovator is a joke. Individually
IBM, HP, Apple, SGI, Sun innovate far more technology than Dell
ever has. Dell is the biggest assembler of computer components
and parts like Gateway, Acer, Packard Bell and is so far doing a
better job of assembling computers than their competition. I'll
give Dell credit for that, but definately not for innovative
technology. This article should be put under the humor column
of C|Net
- nothing new
-
by
April 10, 2006 6:27 PM PDT
- The only thing dell is inovative at is sticking it to their customers and the exec's on how to in- crease their pay. Lousy service may pay for awhile but after awhile it will come back to the bottom line (of course only the poor working stiffs will feel the pain)
-
Reply to this comment
-
See all 76 Comments >>