Intel Funds Attack Report on AMD

lokem · Mar 28, 2002

I've been reading this at a couple of sites now and since it hasn't been posted here, I guess it's newsworthy enough IMO:

Intel funds attack report on AMD
by Scott "Damage" Wasson - 06:30 am, March 28, 2002
http://www.tech-report.com/onearticle.x/3515

Market analysis firm The Aberdeen Group, who gets paid by corporations to do the kind of benchmarking and analysis we do for free in public, recently released a report criticizing AMD's new "model number" rating system for its Athlon XP processors. The report, entitled "AMD's Gigahertz Equivalency: Inexperienced Buyers Accept Bad Science," isn't exactly what one would call even-handed. The Aberdeen analyst ignored a number of relevant facts in an apparent attempt to attack his imagined, bad opponent instead of AMD's actual, somewhat nuanced rating system.

For instance, the Aberdeen report criticizes the AMD rating system as a false equivalency for Pentium 4 clock speeds, but AMD was careful to state the ratings are based on the theoretical performance of Athlon T-birds at a given speed (since Palomino-based Athlon XPs are faster clock for clock). Splitting hairs? Maybe, but it's important to understand that which you're being paid to critici... err, analyze.

There are some legitimate reasons to gripe about AMD's rating systems, but the author of the Aberdeen paper seems unaware of them. Instead, he claims the "key flaw is that the equivalency rating is a snapshot in a moment in time," seemingly unaware that AMD has stated its current rating system is a "bridge metric" to something ostensibly better coming from its True Performance Initiative. In other words, AMD has itself stated the current model ratings are the product of a "snapshot in time."

I could go on, but all of that's beside the point. The real story here emerged shortly after publication of the report, when The Inquirer found out that Intel funded the Aberdeen "study." Which explains pretty much everything.

Other sites covering the same topic:
http://www.theinquirer.net/27030210.htm
http://www.hardocp.com (it's in the earlier news posting)

Prelapsarian · Mar 28, 2002

That most definitely sucks. A report funded by your competitor to bad mouth you.

lokem · Mar 28, 2002

Agreed. While that practise isn't new, I'm surprised that Intel has sunken so low as to do such a thing. I know what my future CPUs are gonna be...

boeingfixer · Mar 29, 2002

Lokum,

Here is also an interesting article from AMDzone about some other stuff Intel is doing.

Intel Teaches About AMD....?

A few people have e-mailed about this, and franky this is about the funniest thing I've seen all day. Even after the whole fiasco with Aberdeen's article about AMD's Performance Ratings on the AthlonXP's, *ntel is continuting to try and spread their version of the 'truth.' *ntel is now offering online classes to members of it's Product Dealer Program. Here's a sample of the e-mail:

Full article

Interesting huh ??

SuperCheetah · Mar 29, 2002

Analyst stands by AMD bashing report!?!

They guys never cease to amaze me. They get paid to make this false report bashing AMD's marketing scheme and now they get paid more to say that they "stand by their report". I would say it too if they paid me enough money and I had already printed the false report.

http://www.designtechnica.com/article.php?sid=1328

The analyst from Aberdeen Group who wrote the report (mentioned here previously) alleging that AMD's new CPU naming convention for the Athlon XP chips was inaccurate/misleading has spoken up to stand by his claims.

Peter Kastner, the analyst in question (Chief Research Officer at Aberdeen Group, no less), says that "Intel, AMD and all the major chip makers are clients of ours. If that prohibits us from writing what we believe, it would prevent us from writing at all."

According to the man himself, his main gripe with AMD's marketing strategy was that although the recent rebuttal from AMD claimed that the figures were designed to allow comparisons with the old Thunderbird Athlons, their white paper made extensive comparisons to Intel's chips. Additionally, he wasn't convinced that AMD are doing enough to stop sales drones in big retail stores from throwing AMD's chip numbers at the customer without explaining that they're not clock speeds.

As he was a founding member of the Transaction Processing Council (who came up with some big whole-system benchmarks dealing with database stuff), he should know what he's talking about.

Re: Analyst stands by AMD-bashing report (Score: 1)
by Ioman on Friday, March 29 @ 17:20:04 PST
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I am glad that we are following this so closely. I think it shows that most analysts don;t have a clue what is going on in the computing world, yet they influence the market so heavily with their statements. After reading about Intel and their influence with all of this and how they influnce PC Mark 2002 (see previous news) I have no question in my mind that they WILL be without a doubt Microsoft of their market (if they aren't already). It is sad to see a company get their tentacles into everything to increase a profit.

The bottom line is that the computer market is not growing as fast as it used to and sales are slowing down. Intel tried to get into other markets (consumer electronics) that were meant to boost PC sales but they have failed. Now they are resorting to tactics to "trick" the consumer and market. This is a shame....

The fact that these "analysts" can be bought off is just sad and what is even sadder is the fact that Intel would drop to such depths. I know this might sound like I'm bashing Intel, but I would do the same if AMD were to do it. It is just shameful and very bad business ethics.

boeingfixer · Mar 29, 2002

I was pretty discusted about that too Super. Its like, you start getting ahead of the "big guy" and everyone wants to debunk you. Not talk the good, just try to knock you down....you know ??

lokem · Apr 3, 2002

Originally posted by boeingfixer
I was pretty discusted about that too Super. Its like, you start getting ahead of the "big guy" and everyone wants to debunk you. Not talk the good, just try to knock you down....you know ??

Problem is, the "big guy" has enough ammo to wipe off a lot of "non complying" companies. It make business sense to join the "big guy" instead of the "underdog"

lokem · Apr 3, 2002

Viahardware.com just posted an analysis on that report:

Aberdeen Report AMD Analysis
Author: Joel 4/03/2002
http://www.viahardware.com/aberdeenanalysis.shtm

Our Analysis of the Aberdeen Report on AMD GHz Equivalency

Every so often, (usually about 11 PM with this column due at midnight) I begin frantically wondering what to write about. Then, by the grace of God, a topic descends from on high.

Alright, in this case, the truth isn’t quite so melodramatic—but the white paper released by the Aberdeen Group yesterday regarding their opinion of AMD’s GHz Equivalency makes for some interesting reading—and some even more interesting analysis that we at VH thought you readers would appreciate, especially as the paper continues to make waves.

The Executive Summary

The paper begins by agreeing with AMD’s stated reason behind its model numbers—namely, that GHz alone is no longer a reasonable measurement of processor performance. From page 1: …there is no single accepted performance metric that allows buyers to compare microprocessor performance across a wide spectrum of PC usage.

Comparisons between processors certainly cannot be made between different processor architectures based on clock speed, for the simple fact that different processor architectures do different amounts of work per clock tick—not to mention application dependencies.”

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