One of our investor friends asked for my opinion about ATI's chipset business and here is pretty much what I said to him.
I saw some early sample boards at CeBIT with some nice features but not perfectly stable yet, as the bugs get fixed.
ATI and Intel have a special agreement to cooperate and some people have even suggested that Chipzilla helped the firm build its chipsets.
Both firms have some powerful partners and good OEM channels which they can use to gain acceptance in the marketplace.
News source: The Inquirer
I saw some early sample boards at CeBIT with some nice features but not perfectly stable yet, as the bugs get fixed.
ATI and Intel have a special agreement to cooperate and some people have even suggested that Chipzilla helped the firm build its chipsets.
Both firms have some powerful partners and good OEM channels which they can use to gain acceptance in the marketplace.
News source: The Inquirer
COMPETING WITH .NET
Borthwick said Windows XP repeatedly prompts users to sign up for Passport, Microsoft's authorization software for .NET.
AOL recently joined other large companies in the Liberty Alliance, that seeks to develop a competing authentication service, after failing to agree with Microsoft on making .NET compatible with an AOL suite of services dubbed Magic Carpet.
Borthwick said the states' proposal for broader disclosure of the inner-workings of Windows and protections against retaliation by Microsoft would allow rivals to develop services to compete with .NET.
The AOL executive also praised proposals by the states to allow third parties to license a stripped-down version of Windows that could be used to design customized computer desktops that feature non-Microsoft software.
Borthwick provided the court with a prototype for a child's computer featuring the Lego building toy that uses non-Microsoft middleware applications like Yahoo Messenger and Kodak picture maker.
He also saw possibilities for a sports PC or a music PC aimed at high-school and college students.
The proposed settlement aims to give computer makers greater freedom to feature rival software, but Borthwick said Microsoft's middleware would only be hidden.
Microsoft need only wait 14 days before prompting the consumer to reconfigure the desktop or sweep competing icons away into a folder off the opening screen, he said.
INTERACTIVE TV
The states argue that remedies in the case should be broad enough to protect technologies that have arisen since the case began, handheld computing devices and interactive television.
Earlier on Wednesday, Microsoft disputed the testimony of an interactive television executive who charged Microsoft had muscled in on his company's business.
Microsoft attorney Dan Webb challenged Mitchell Kertzman, chief executive of Liberate Technologies , to cite any examples in which Microsoft had used illegal tactics to cut into Liberate's business. Webb also questioned Kertzman's claim that Liberate poses a competitive threat to Microsoft.
Kertzman had said Microsoft was making inroads into interactive television by requiring the use of its software as a condition of major investments in cable television firms.
Webb pointed out that most of those companies, including Telewest , AT&T Corp. and Comcast Corp., still used Liberate software in their TV set-top boxes.
"Apparently you've done well with AT&T in spite of Microsoft," Webb said sarcastically.
Kertzman said Microsoft had so far not taken away any of Liberate's business because it had failed to produce interactive TV software. "We are doing well in this nascent stage of the market despite Microsoft's efforts to control the channels of distribution," he said.
News source: yahoo.com
View: Microsoft Remedy Should Address .NET Says AOL Exec
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.