This was originally going to be a rant about how Intel was possibly going to make an x86-64 processor based an AMD's design... even after touting how much better their own Itanium was. But, then, I realized the larger issue at hand.
I realized that one of the problems with capitalism is that it breeds arrogance, and thus fools. In a capitalistic market, each company has to push their own products as being the best over everybody else's, whether or not their product really is better. I remember when Apple was on their kick about the Gx processors and they would have "benchmarks" saying how much better they were than the Pentium X, but citing only an IntegerMark test. In reality, the Gx chips were not nearly as good as the tests made them out to--only because the Gx had great Integer math routines and the Pentium X did not. If Apple had shown a floating point test, then they would have had no ad campaign.
Is it ethical for companies to stilt their products like this? Probably not, but what bothers me even more is that 1) consumers fall for this advertising and 2) consumers don't get really annoyed with companies that push a certain product and then suddenly change their strategy (think Intel with Rambus... now Intel has SDRAM and DDR chipsets for the Pentium 4). This arrogance that capitalism requires is just plain annoying, and can make companies look downright stupid sometimes--but nobody seems to notice. That's the other thing that I find confusing. Are consumers that naive, that unobservant, that uncaring, or what?
I'm not an economist, so I'm probably spouting off something here that violates some economic laws, but in my books it seems that consumers might appreciate some honesty and humility. Yes, it sounds rather bizarre, but I think that a humble company might just quietly work it's way to the top, and nobody would even realize it.
Or, perhaps, they would be slaughtered by all of the other arrogant companies trying to claw, bite, scratch and kick their way to the top.
I realized that one of the problems with capitalism is that it breeds arrogance, and thus fools. In a capitalistic market, each company has to push their own products as being the best over everybody else's, whether or not their product really is better. I remember when Apple was on their kick about the Gx processors and they would have "benchmarks" saying how much better they were than the Pentium X, but citing only an IntegerMark test. In reality, the Gx chips were not nearly as good as the tests made them out to--only because the Gx had great Integer math routines and the Pentium X did not. If Apple had shown a floating point test, then they would have had no ad campaign.
Is it ethical for companies to stilt their products like this? Probably not, but what bothers me even more is that 1) consumers fall for this advertising and 2) consumers don't get really annoyed with companies that push a certain product and then suddenly change their strategy (think Intel with Rambus... now Intel has SDRAM and DDR chipsets for the Pentium 4). This arrogance that capitalism requires is just plain annoying, and can make companies look downright stupid sometimes--but nobody seems to notice. That's the other thing that I find confusing. Are consumers that naive, that unobservant, that uncaring, or what?
I'm not an economist, so I'm probably spouting off something here that violates some economic laws, but in my books it seems that consumers might appreciate some honesty and humility. Yes, it sounds rather bizarre, but I think that a humble company might just quietly work it's way to the top, and nobody would even realize it.
Or, perhaps, they would be slaughtered by all of the other arrogant companies trying to claw, bite, scratch and kick their way to the top.
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