Intel Back With A Vengeance, Apple Back To High End Drawing Board

ComputerWorld (and others) have reported some interesting news items out of Intel, the erstwhile computer chipmaker.

During the last several years, it was interesting to see how Intel faced competition and where it's greatest threats came from. Instead of Intel getting beaten by PowerPC chips, that were made originally by the giants IBM, Motorola and Apple, Intel had a far rougher time competing with the brash and bold people of AMD. Now, however, the tide seems to have turned.

I have to say that intel has come back with quite a lot of steam, thunder and vengeance, or, add your own cliche' here.

I do find it amazing that Microsoft is still so far behind in helping applications and users take advantage of even the dual-core chips available today in most computers being sold today. Application makers are also not off the hook in that regard.

As usual, people are buying computers that can do far more than they can do. What I mean by that circular sentence is that the capabilities of the chips in most cases are outstripping the capabilities of the software to benefit from them.

Sure, most software products, especially image processing, speech recognition, video compression, etc. push computer CPU chips to the limit in terms of their clock speed. But, to use a bad example, that is somewhat like driving a Ferrari mostly with just one of the rear wheels, while the engine RPM nears redline.

One hopes that better use of these multi-core chips is at hand soon, before people realize that the multi-cores are not worth upgrading for.

As a MacUser I am looking forward to the Q4 release of smaller quad-core Intel chips, with QuickPath. I suspect that may be when my beloved 2003 vintage PowerBook G4 17" (whose design is still used on MacBook Pro laptops) will finally get a new shape and design.

That may also be just in time for some new battery technologies, as well as laptop sized Blue-Ray drives to become available.

That surely would be a nice toy, I mean, tool, to get in the New Year 2009.

What do you think?

Simonyi's INTENTIONAL Software History Revision?

I am shocked that InformationWeek would allow the publication of an interview with someone without questioning some wild claims, or possible untruths, the person made in a High Five interview with J. Nicholas Hoover on August 20, 2007.

It's bad enough that Microsoft still cannot even successfully COPY others' products (anyone know how to spell ZUNE), still has its vision coming from people who thought 640KB RAM was enough for everyone and the Internet was a fad, and is a company that continues to blatantly practice anti-competitive behavior as showed by the recent court findings against it in many places.

But, Charles Simonyi, now of Intentional Software, and an ex-Microsoft executive, is either delusional or intentionally revising history of the tech industry. In his HIGH FIVE Interview in InformationWeek recently, he makes the laughable claim that Microsoft was working on the GUI (graphical user interface) and trying to sell computer mice way before Apple.

If only I could dig up an old letter from Microsoft to me, in response to the offer I made to license them a mouse I had invented for disabled computer users in the 1980's. Microsoft's management had clearly stated to me in writing and a follow up conversation, that Microsoft had no desire or intention of ever selling hardware or computer mice as they did not see a fit with their business!

Mr. Simonyi has the money to buy a trip to space, but is either now spaced out, or just high, or just not "intentionally" truthful in his claims in the InformationWeek High Five interview. The InformationWeek writer should have dug deeper on that question but seems to have let it slide.

Imran

Stolen content from Bill Gates' new "visionary" book

Here is a stolen list of content points from (the so-called v:$:onary) Bill Gates' upcoming new book.....

- Internet will be huge one day
- People will be able to communicate easily using it one day
- Security will become important one day, maybe
- Online music will be a revolutionary new market one day
- Lots of cell phones will be used one day
- Lots of PDA and cameras will come in cell phones one day
- Open Source is a fad going away any day
- iPod is a temporary thing, (we will copy it any day)
- iTunes is a fad (our version is too buggy to release yet)
- Windows XXXP will only require 3 major patches before it runs
- Blue screen will be replaced by Red, to softly tell people they'e bloody fools to buy the new OS
- Longhorn is beginning to feel like one, Bill REALLY needs it to get out sooooooon!

:-)