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Microprocessor
Headline News
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Week
of November 23, 1998
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| November 25, 1998 |
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By John Lettice
November 25, 1998
The Register
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Microsoft OEM division senior VP Joachim
Kempin seems to be a specialist in thinking the
unthinkable, being a loose cannon, or both. Last week his
radical recommendation that Microsoft move over to a
rental model for its software became public, and now it
emerges that at the same time he was suggesting Microsoft
buy NatSemi or AMD. Given the timing (December 1997,
in a suggestion to Gates), our verdict on Kempin has to
start tilting towards loose cannon. Microsoft was
immersed in the Windows 95/Internet Explorer integration
battle with the DoJ, and had for quite some time been
taking a ‘heads down’ view of major
acquisitions. The high tide came when the DoJ effectively
warned it off from buying Intuit, and although the
company slipped WebTV in afterwards, that didn’t
necessarily look such a big deal at the time.
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See Related
Stories Microsoft's
plan to levy annual rental fee for Windows
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By Richard Richtmyer
November 25, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is advising
buyers of the latest versions of its K6-2 processors that
there is a compatibility problem between the processors
and some versions of Windows 95. The problem, which is
intermittent at 350 MHz but occurs more frequently at
higher speeds, stems from a software timing loop that is
sensitive to processor frequency, AMD is reporting in an
advisory on its Web site.
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Howard News Service
November 23, 1998
San Jose Mercury News
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Next year's computers will run
significantly faster, not just because Intel, the world's
largest chip manufacturer, plans to deliver faster
versions of the Pentium processor, but because PC
manufacturers will start to move to a faster type of
memory known as RDRam (Rambus Direct Random Access
Memory). Rambus of California has been developing RDRam
for several years, but the first samples have only just
been delivered to PC manufacturers. However, 15 memory
manufacturers have signed licenses to produce the chips,
including Fujitsu, NEC and Toshiba from Japan, Siemens
from Germany, LG Electronics and Samsung from South Korea
and IBM. RDRam chips should appear in reasonable volumes
in the second half of 1999.
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| November 23, 1998 |
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By Lisa DiCarlo
November 20, 1998
PC Week Online
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) has
advised customers of an incompatibility between the
latest versions of its K6-2 processors and certain
versions of Windows 95. If the incompatibility occurs,
systems will fail to boot. The Sunnyvale, Calif.,
company posted an advisory on its Web site stating that
"when you are starting Windows 95 OSR [OEM Service
Release] 2, 2.1 or 2.5 on a computer with an AMD K6-2
processor running at speeds of 350MHz and above, you may
receive one of the following error messages:
Device IOS failed to initialize. Windows Protection
Error. You must reboot your computer.
Windows Protection Error. You must reboot your
computer."
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By David Lammers
November 20, 1998
EE Times
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Taking its Rambus program closer to the
goal of having next-generation systems on the market next
summer, Intel Corp. booted a Windows machine based on the
Rambus memory architecture at Comdex earlier this week. The
demo, which ran a game called Forsaken, came as PC makers
are knee deep in the process of testing newly received
samples of the processors, chip sets and memory modules
that are expected to drive the new memory architecture
forward.
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Intel
Sacrifices Share on ASP Altar
Despite Plunging PC Prices, Intel's
Average Selling Price Remains Steady
By Linley Gwennap
November 16, 1998
Microprocessor Report
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We have all seen reports of plummeting
PC prices. Some indicate that the average selling price
(ASP) of desktop PCs has fallen by 20% or more during the
past two years. Yet Intel continues to report that the
ASP of its processors has dropped only slightly during
this period. How can the largest PC processor maker defy
gravity so brazenly? The first part of the trick is
that PC prices and processor prices are not directly
related. Most of the drop in PC prices has been due to
falling prices of DRAM and disk drives. During the first
half of this year, an overstuffed channel resulted in
even more price competition than usual, leaving PC makers
with dwindling margins. As a result, processor vendors
saw only a fraction of the decline in system price.
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