Kiss Intel: How The Chip Maker Stumbled

Something unusual happened in the computer industry last week. Competition broke out -- by mistake. You could actually get a significantly better computer from Micron than from Dell or Gateway, for instance.

What happened?

In an industry dominated by a "lock-step" mentality, Intel tripped, and, like a Mack Sennett comedy, everyone marching behind stumbled over the fallen body.

Here's the story.

Intel was set to introduce a new chipset for motherboards, known as the 820 series. Chipsets are like "middle management" in a computer. They are specialized computer chips containing the instructions that determine how your computer will function and what features, like input and output capabilities, it will have. A chipset shouldn't be confused with a central processing unit (CPU). While a CPU -- a Pentium chip, for example -- acts as the brain of your computer, the chipset provides the heart, nerves and bone structure of the computer. Your brain can tell your hand to move, but if the two aren't connected by nerves, bones and skeleton, nothing will happen.

Intel, We Have A Problem

The 820 series chipset was to introduce several new features, including a faster video port custom-made for 3-D graphics, a speedier connection for memory and improved connections that will mean any device attached to your computer, internally or externally, should perform its jobs better and faster. These are all good ideas. Unfortunately, Intel discovered a problem, and delayed the 820 introduction for at least a month.

Meanwhile, Micron decided Intel's high-speed memory connection, called Rambus, was vulnerable, and designed its latest computer around a chipset from Via Technologies having nearly the same new features. Via shipped on time; Intel didn't. So for the first time in quite a while, one company has a significantly faster PC than all the others -- at least for a few weeks.

Is it important that Micron has the fastest Pentium-based PC?

Not really.

Should Intel be criticized for missing a shipping date?

No. I'd rather see them get it right than get it first.

So what's the point?

Speed Doesn't Matter

Intel so dominates the PC market that innovation in computer design rests almost solely with Intel. One PC box is just like another. They look alike, they sound alike, at times they even talk alike,...Geez, I'm channeling Patty Duke.

Seriously: Intel has stacked the market so competition is based almost solely on price.

If every manufacturer sells nearly the same 500 MHz machine on Friday, and upgrades its line to nearly identical 600 MHz machines on Monday, who benefits? The consumer's price may be lower, but where's innovation?

And another thing: As computer consumers, we've been trained to salivate like Pavlov's dogs at the mere mention of a"sky-high" MHz rating. Frankly, I'd rather have a smarter computer than a faster computer, and smarter and faster don't always equate. For instance, my four-year-old 180 MHz Pentium system, running with a hardware-based MPEG-II decoder, makes better looking pictures from DVD than a significantly faster Pentium III machine running software-based decoding.

Intel Misses The Boat On Video Transmission

Can you name a hardware feature that sets one manufacturer's computer ahead of another? Here's a hint: Think Apple. Can't think of a feature? Think Firewire.

Firewire is Apple's trade name for the IEEE 1394 interface, an extremely high-speed data connection between computers and peripherals. With last week's introduction of the new iMac line, Apple now includes Firewire on all of its desktop computers except the $999 model. So what's the big deal?

IEEE 1394 is the standard for the digital transmision of video data in consumer electronic equipment. Want to get pictures from your digital still camera -- fast? Use 1394. Want to edit video on your computer? Use 1394. IEEE 1394 interfaces can be found on digital televisions, digital settop boxes, DVD players, the new Replay TV recorder, CD players and audio gear. Even the new D-VHS VCRs for HDTV home recording use IEEE 1394 as will Sony's new Playstation 2 (although Sony calls it i.LINK).

You'll be hard-pressed to find a PC with built-in IEEE 1394 connectors. Sony and NEC, both manufacturers of consumer electronic gear, ship computers with the 1394 interface. Silicon Graphics includes 1394 support in its Visual Workstation line. Compaq, according to the IEEE 1394 Trade Association, is the only mainstream US computer manufacturer to include native 1394 support on a line of computers, the Presario 5600 series. Not surprisingly, Compaq and Sony along with Apple, are among the patent holders for IEEE 1394.

You can add IEEE 1394 to your home computer, if it's got an open PCI slot and you've got several hundred dollars. So far, the add-in cards ain't cheap.

Where does Intel stand on IEEE 1394? Until recently, it was pushing an alternative, the USB 2.0 standard, which isn't on any consumer device or computer so far. In May, Intel joined the 1394 patent pool, but there's been no rush to embrace Firewire.

Moral Of The Story: Be Independent

Hopefully, PC manufacturers will learn a lesson from last week's Micron coup, namely, that it doesn't pay to blindly follow Intel's lead. Maybe those manufacturers will remember the last time that Apple was a hot commodity, with the advent of desktop video publishing, because they're about to see Apple become a hot commodity again, this time with the advent of consumer video publishing made possible by the latest generation of digital video gear and the IEEE 1394 interface.

I'd like to add an IEEE 1394 board to my computer, but my four PCI slots are already filled with a video board, audio board, networking card and MPEG II decoder. No luck there, but what about getting a new motherboard, with built in IEEE 1394 support? Surely there must be one out there? There is -- exactly one -- from ASUS; but, it's only got three PCI slots.

For now, I'll get along without Firewire, but I'll be thinking of my next computer, something truly innovative -- a Mac.

--Tom Egan has worked the information business from photography and journalism to video production and online editing. He writes about technology from his home in Saint Paul, Minn., within three blocks of four bars that serve Guinness on tap.