Non Disclosure Agreements.... WHY?

[jonnyGURU]

As some of you know, I am censored here by the powers that be in my life (no, not Anandtech moderators, thank you) due to my current position in the industry (we'll leave it at that), but I have to wonder... and bring to light under MY OWN handle.... what is the point of NDAs?

We get a hot new product in the form of an eval.

We can test it, tweak it, run it over with a car, but WE CAN'T brag how much the product rocks until the supplier of said product gives us the green light?

WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?!?!?

If I hype up a product that I get on eval, wouldn't that make you want the product MORE?!?! If I got, let's say for example, a Tyan Thunder K7 and found that it was such a kick ass board that Intel should fold up shop tomorrow, I'm not allowed to tell everyone?!?

I may be pushing some buttons here, but I'm just a little burned out. The people I talk to everyday that make their feeble attempts at putting PCs together has likely stripped 20 years off of my life, but I DO IT BECAUSE I LOVE COMPUTERS and there's no way ANYONE can get the exposure to the full gamut of equipment that I have access to in any other position.

So why.... why the NDAs?

 

[brxndxn]

I don't like them.. You should disclose any information that you like - and just don't tell them that you did.

 

[RossGr]

I have always seen NDAs used during the development process, When we are working on a new product, the vendors called in to help fill our process equipment needs must sign a NDA. This is to give the company legal recourse it the vendor were to take what he learns of our process to a competitor. You will find that the silicone wafer fabs all use equipment provided by the same vendors. LAM, INSPEX, Electoglass, SVG to name a few. So the same tech rep could be in Intel Fabs one day and AMD the next. NDAs are necessary and generally respected as a essensitial part of business.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Well of course NDAs serve a purpose... IN GENERAL. But I'm talking about getting a motherboard a week or two ahead of schedule and not being able to say it runs this or it does that. I'm not giving the board to a competitor. But even if I did.... Are they going to clone it and have a street ready product within two weeks? No.

I just fail to see the point.

When there was first word about the Tyan Thunder, I was told to be quiet. When I was told that there was a thermal issue being worked on (solved by only "approving the board" for use with Palominos aka Athlon MP CPUs), I was told to be quiet.

Who am I going to inform????