Wednesday 1/3/2006

Some minor kerfuffling occasioned by today's leader, where Intel is mildly scolded for making Skype conferencing call software that doesn't work with AMD. There's no technical reason why: Intel had to include a special 'is this AMD? Then stop' code. There's no legal reason either why Intel shouldn't choose to promote its chips by writing such software; the trouble comes from implying that anything else is going on.

A while ago, our sales bods did a deal with Intel over us hosting an Intel giveaway game or similar, 'enhanced' to run under whichever Pentium had just been launched. Us editorial types looked at the software and asked "Isn't this doing only what you could do on the old chip?", and got told by Intel 'Yes, but we've bunged in some delay loops so it only runs smoothly on the new'. Perfectly legitimate, but tacky — and this has much the same feel about it. You shouldn't need to do that.

And if you've got AMD banging the holier-than-thou drum so loudly, you're leaving yourself open to criticism. This way, you do the work and AMD gets the publicity. AMD's hasn't got a hope in hell of getting anything legally positive out of its opportunistic subpoena, and I have to say it's going to waste a lot of everyone's time and energy to no good effect. At least we all got some free software out of Intel's marketing effort. Still, AMD's getting useful publicity out of Intel's investment.

If Intel had bundled the Skype software with the chips — as opposed to having it available for download with an Intel Only stamp on it — I don't think anyone would think twice about it. The perception would then be that it's linked to your product, rather than "we're free to all" Skype. Or, why not have the getcpuid test in there and still let the thing work under AMD — but with adverts for Intel popping up every so often? That would have been rather fun.

It's not that Intel can't or shouldn't put the effort in to help promote its products by making good stuff to give away, just that trying to be cute about what you're doing and why will backfire. You may remember that Windows 3 refused to run under DR-DOS for no very good reason except that it version tested and spat out an error. You may remember how that went down in court – and regardless of how the two situations aren't comparable, that's the sort of parallel people will draw.

Intel, like Microsoft, gets annoyed that its behaviour is examined with more thoroughness than is that of its competitors. That happens when you're running a near monopoly: life's hard when you're very successful. You'd miss it if it went away.