02.09.09
Gemini version available ♊︎Steve Ballmer: “We cannot let intel do chip design on Linux ever”
And Bill Gates says: “I asked our people many times if there is
any backsliding on their not using Linux for this.”
WE CONTINUE exploring Microsoft’s mischiefs which were intended to derail Intel’s support of GNU/Linux. We make careful use of antitrust evidence that appeared very briefly in 2007 and then pulled due to a secretive settlement. Previous posts on the subject include:
- Bill Gates: “Where Are We on This Jihad?” (Against Linux at Intel)
- Microsoft on Intel’s Anti-Linux: “Please Keep Confidential. This is a Nightmare”
- Bill Gates on Linux@Intel: “This Huge Driver Group Scares Me.”
Today we take a look at Exhibit px06600 [PDF], Exhibit px06601 [PDF], and Exhibit px06604 [PDF]. Their lengths are 6 pages, 7 pages, and 5 pages, in turn. They overlap although they were scanned separately to be used as evidence. Having removed the repetition we have summed up all the text in the following two PDFs (thanks to Arun):
- px06601_fixed.pdf
[PDF] - px06600_px06604_fixed.pdf
[PDF]
The originals, which are raw scans, are available from the links further up. We also have them as plain text at the bottom. Let us go through some highlights in a chronological order.
It started with an alarming message to Microsoft employees (from Microsoft’s Mike Porter). This stated:
Intel decision to deploy Linux for EDA (chip design)
Intel plans to deploy Linux to run their internal EDA (chip design) applications, due largely to NT stability issues. Andy, Craig, and Albert have all committed to maintain their long-term strategy on NT, and work closely with us on messaging for Workstation Leadership Forum. Intel has been trying to move it’s internal chip design applications from AIX to NT for ~3 years. There are two key apps; desktop (interactive design toots) and server (C-Sym, a batch processing app). The server application has been ported, but Intel cannot get close to the 99% availability target required for production use – they claim ~96%. They have frequent system hangs and “blue screens’. We offered support thru local MCS, but Intel (Albert Yu) rejected our bid. They wanted more MS skin in the game. Albert and Louis Burns (VP IS) share the decision. Because of project deadlines, and their desire to design on Intel based systems, Intel did a quick port of C-Sym to Linux. The Linux version ls ’more robust than the AIX version’. Stephanie Boesh has put together a SWAT team and she has been working to pull multiple group together within Microsoft to improve this relationship and get the project back on track. Last week, we re-secured Albert Yu’s commitment to make this work.
At a later stage, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were entered into this debate.
As soon as Ballmer saw it he replied briefly and bluntly:
—-Original Message–
From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 9:48 AM
To: Bob Herbold; Shannon Perdue
Cc: Mike Porter (Exchange); Marshall Brumer (Exchange); Bill Gates
Subject: RE: Intel/Microsoft MarketingWe cannot let intel do chip design on Linux ever what do we need to do to change the decision who do we need to call we will put whatever w skin to the game they need.
Less than an hour later Bill Gates jumped in as well:
—-Original Message–
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 10:33 AM
To: Steve Ballmer, Bob Herbold; Shannon Perdue
Co: Mike Porter (Exchange); Marshall Brumer (Exchange)
Subject: RE: Intel/Microsoft MarketingAt the workstation leadership forum they reiterated their commitment to move all their stuff to Windows 2000.
I asked our people many times if there is any backsliding on their not using Linux for this.
If this has changed I wasn’t informed. I knew I would get a chance to talk to Barrett and the question I asked was whether I needed to bring this up or not.
If we are not in good shape on this I need to know.
It’s worth emphasising that no other person at Microsoft talked about shooting down Linux at Intel. It’s only Ballmer and Gates who had to pounce on this opportunity
Ballmer calls for others to take care of this:
—0riginal Message—
From: Steve Ballmer
sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 1O:48 AM
To: Bill Gates; Bob Herbold; Shannon Perdue
Cc: Mike porter(Exchange);Marshall Brumer(Exchange);Charles Stevens;Dave Derry;
Subject:Subject: RE: URGENT FW: Intel/Microsoft; MarkettingCharles stevens and dave derry please advise.
Then they start pressuring Intel:
—0riginal Message—
From: Dave Derry
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 11:58 AM
To: Keit Eide; Bill Henningsgaard;Stephanie Boesch
cc: Matt Pease; Bill Wood; S. Somasegar (Exchange);Ramesh parameswaran (Exchange);Gregory
Jensenworth (Exchange); Michael Murphy (Premier);
Subject: RE: URGENT FW: Intel/Microsoft; MarkettingWe met with Albert Yu, VP Microprocessor group, on June 17th, he too reiterated Intel’s commitment to move their EDA/applications/tools to windows 2000 we have SWAT team including developers working closely with Intel with this migration. I don’t believe linux is a further threat going forward going though, they did thru necessity move a tool to linux.
Stephanie can you add further updates as to progress we have made and your take on Linux making further inroads.
Further:
—Original Message—
From: Bill Henningsgaard;
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 12:31 PM
To: Stephanie Boesch (Exchange); Dave Derry; Keit Eide
CC: Matt Pease; Bill Wood; S. Somasegar (Exchange);Ramesh parameswaran (Exchange);Gregory
Jensenworth (Exchange); Michael Murphy (Premier); Mike Porter (Exchange)
Subject: RE: URGENT FW: Intel/Microsoft; Marketinglet’s be very honest about our current status on this. my read is that Intel is committing to providing everything we need to deliver their requirements, whether we are on a track to do this is much more questionable.
their requirements are very demanding – a robust and stable computing platform that will run their chip design and test scenarios AND support an interoperable environment to allow them to coexist their current UNIX-based environment with a future NT-based environment during an extended migration, in their minds this means that NT needs to support most/all of the functionality that UNIX supports today, including running their test scripts, etc. based on their current understanding after 3 years of trying to do this, NT cannot deliver on these requirements and we have no plans in place that will change this Linux delivers this with little effort to even so, an executive view, Intel is very committed to helping us t make NT the platform they need.
our current status is that we’ve committed development resources to this effort and are trying to understand in detail what their environment looks like. i question whether we’ve made significant progress in the last 3 weeks. I refer to gum’s phone call about his perception of lack of progress which I share.
there is a phone call today (it’s the 8th here) that will summarize progress and identify issues – that will either confirm or refute whether we’ve really moved the ball forward.
in summary, the ball is completely in our court. we’ve got excellent support from intel in allowing us to try to make N’F the platform they need, but honestly I think their management team believes we are NOT on track to do this. if we don’t make very tangible progress that changes this perception AND if we don’t deliver a timeline that allows them start using NT per the requirements above in a reasonably short (6 month) timeframe, I think they will force us to admit we can’t deliver and they will move to linux.
keith – i can’t be on the call on the 8th, so i need you to forcefully and honestly communicate whether we’ve made tangible progress, we need to escalate to steve if we’re not on a track to win after that call.
Lastly:
—Original Message—
From: Stephanie Boesch (Exchange)
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 3:30 PM
To: Bill Henningsgaard; Dave Derry; Keit Eide
cc: Matt Pease; Bill Wood; S. Somasegar (Exchange);Ramesh parameswaran (Exchange);Gregory
Jensenworth (Exchange); Michael Murphy (Premier); Mike Porter (Exchange)
Subject: RE: URGENT FW: Intel/Microsoft; Markettingunfortunate that MikePo was left off this thread …… he has already reported back to SteveB on the project status from the development team’s perspective. I suggest we not followup with additional email from the field.
I agree little progress has been made over the last three weeks. This has primarily been due to Intel’s change in command. Intel is creating a new team of engineers including new management to drive this project moving forward. In addition, we have made similar changes by adding dedicated PM resources to the effort and moving the management to RameshP. We are slowing coming out of the investigation phase and now looking at solutions. This has caused a delay in getting the ball rolling from both sides.
We have commitment to make this effort work, but the question will be on what project. And in what time frame. We don’t have enough Information yet to make these estimates.
We also need to realize that all efforts are now on Windows 2000 which will probably surface “new” issues as well.
From the other file we pull:
isn’t intel already using linux for EDA?
To summarise, Microsoft’s Windows was too unstable for Intel. It gave them blue screens of death and other issues. Intel then decided to port the software to GNU/Linux, so Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer immediately commissioned a lobby to stop this (shades of Wal-Mart and Dell [1, 2]). The goal was to ensure GNU/Linux is not “making further inroads.”
The full correspondence, for readers’ own judgment, lays bare below. █
Appendix: Comes vs. Microsoft – exhibits px06600, px06601, and px06604 (combined) as text
From: Mike Porter (Exchange)
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 1999 1:35 PM
To: Stephanie Boesch (Exchange); Bill Henningsgaard
Co: Keith Eide; Ramesh Parameswaran (Exchange)
Subject:RE: Intel/S Microsoft Marketing
OK by me!–original message—
From: Stephanie Boesch
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 1999 1:34 PM
To: Mike Porter (Exchange); Bill Henningsgaard
Co: Keith Eide; Ramesh Parameswaran (Exchange)Subject:RE: Intel/Microsoft Marketing If we feel a more detailed response needs to be given, then Ramesh should do this as he’s driving this moving forward. I would prefer to send an exec update after our 7/15 meeting.
—original message—
From: Mike Porter (Exchange)
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 1999 1:35 PM
To: Stephanie Boesch (Exchange); Bill Henningsgaard
Co: Keith Eide;
Subject:RE: Intel/Microsoft MarketingFYI.., Bob Herbold asked me to send this to BillG. Please feel free to chime in if you have data the differs. I may own the overall Intel relationship, but I can’t possible track everything… Bill knows that.That’s why I’d set the pointer to Stephanie in the update.
—original message—
From: Stephanie Boesch
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 1999 1:34 PM
To: Bill Henningsgaard
Co: Keith Eide; Mike Porter (Exchange);
Subject:RE: Intel/Microsoft Marketingfyi
From: Carl Stork (Exchange)
Sent: Monday, July 12, 1999 7:21 AM
To: Mike Porter (Exchange)
subject: RE: Intel/Microsoft; Marketingisn’t intel already using linux for EDA?
From: Dave Derry
Sent: Friday, July 09, 1999 11:09 AM
To: Stephanie Boesch (Exchange); Bill Henningsgaard; Keith Eide
cc: Matt Pease; Bill Wood; S. Somasegar (Exchange); Ramesh Parameswaran (Exchange);
Gregory Jensenworth (Exchange); Michael Murphy (Premier); Mike Porter (Exchange)
Subject: RE: URGENT FW: Intel/S Microsoft; MarkettingJust to close the loop, do we not need to respond to the real from Steve?
—Original Message—
From: Stephanie Boesch (Exchange)
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 3:30 PM
To: Bill Henningsgaard; Dave Derry; Keit Eide
cc: Matt Pease; Bill Wood; S. Somasegar (Exchange);Ramesh parameswaran (Exchange);Gregory
Jensenworth (Exchange); Michael Murphy (Premier); MikePorter (Exchange)
Subject: RE: URGENT FW: Intel/Microsoft; Markettingunfortunate that MikePo was left off this thread …… he has already reported back to SteveB on the project status from the development team’s perspective. I suggest we not followup with additional email from the field.
I agree little progress has been made over the last three weeks. This has primarily been due to Intel’s change in command. Intel is creating a new team of engineers including new management to drive this project moving forward. In addition, we have made similar changes by adding dedicated PM resources to the effort and moving the management to RameshP. We are slowing coming out of the investigation phase and now looking at solutions. This has caused a delay in getting the ball rolling from both sides.
We have commitment to make this effort work, but the question will be on what project. And in what time frame. We don’t have enough Information yet to make these estimates.
We also need to realize that all efforts are now on Windows 2000 which will probably surface “new” issues as well.
—Original Message—
From: Bill Henningsgaard;
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 12:31 PM
To: Stephanie Boesch (Exchange); Dave Derry; Keit Eide
CC: Matt Pease; Bill Wood; S. Somasegar (Exchange);Ramesh parameswaran (Exchange);Gregory
Jensenworth (Exchange); Michael Murphy (Premier); Mike Porter (Exchange)
Subject: RE: URGENT FW: Intel/Microsoft; Marketinglet’s be very honest about our current status on this. my read is that Intel is committing to providing everything we need to deliver their requirements, whether we are on a track to do this is much more questionable.
their requirements are very demanding – a robust and stable computing platform that will run their chip design and test scenarios AND support an interoperable environment to allow them to coexist their current UNIX-based environment with a future NT-based environment during an extended migration, in their minds this means that NT needs to support most/all of the functionality that UNIX supports today, including running their test scripts, etc. based on their current understanding after 3 years of trying to do this, NT cannot deliver on these requirements and we have no plans in place that will change this Linux delivers this with little effort to even so, an executive view, Intel is very committed to helping us t make NT the platform they need.
our current status is that we’ve committed development resources to this effort and are trying to understand in detail what their environment looks like. i question whether we’ve made significant progress in the last 3 weeks. I refer to gum’s phone call about his perception of lack of progress which I share.
there is a phone call today (it’s the 8th here) that will summarize progress and identify issues – that will either confirm or refute whether we’ve really moved the ball forward.
in summary, the ball is completely in our court. we’ve got excellent support from intel in allowing us to try to make N’F the platform they need, but honestly I think their management team believes we are NOT on track to do this. if we don’t make very tangible progress that changes this perception AND if we don’t deliver a timeline that allows them start using NT per the requirements above in a reasonably short (6 month) timeframe, I think they will force us to admit we can’t deliver and they will move to linux.
keith – i can’t be on the call on the 8th, so i need you to forcefully and honestly communicate whether we’ve made tangible progress, we need to escalate to steve if we’re not on a track to win after that call.
—Original Message—
From: Stephanie Boesch (Exchange)
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 11:58 AM
To: Dave Derry; Keit Eide; Bill Henningsgaard;
cc: Matt Pease; Bill Wood; S. Somasegar (Exchange);Ramesh parameswaran (Exchange);Gregory
Jensenworth (Exchange); Michael Murphy (Premier);
Subject: RE: URGENT FW: Intel/Microsoft; MarkettingKeith, I’m on the read today heading to Dallas. I’ll send you our feedback this evening for you to incorporate.
—Original Message—
From: Dave Derry
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 11:58 AM
To: Keit Eide; Bill Henningsgaard;Stephanie Boesch
cc: Matt Pease; Bill Wood; S. Somasegar (Exchange);Ramesh parameswaran (Exchange);Gregory
Jensenworth (Exchange); Michael Murphy (Premier);
Subject: RE: URGENT FW: Intel/Microsoft; MarkettingWe met with Albert Yu, VP Microprocessor group, on June 17th, he too reiterated Intel’s commitment to move their EDA/applications/tools to windows 2000 we have SWAT team including developers working closely with Intel with this migration. I don’t believe linux is a further threat going forward going though, they did thru necessity move a tool to linux.
Stephanie can you add further updates as to progress we have made and your take on Linux making further inroads.
—Original Message—
From: Dave Derry
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 11:27 AM
To: Keit Eide; Bill Henningsgaard;Stephanie Boesch;Matt Pease;
Subject: RE: URGENT FW: Intel/Microsoft; MarkettingKeith – with BillWo out of town and BillHE in Australia, can you provide SteveB an update on this? I am happy to review prior to you sending.
Thanks
—Original Message—
From: Steve Ballmer
sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 1O:48 AM
To: Bill Gates; Bob Herbold; Shannon Perdue
Cc: Mike porter(Exchange);Marshall Brumer(Exchange);Charles Stevens;Dave Derry;
Subject:Subject: RE: URGENT FW: Intel/Microsoft; MarkettingCharles stevens and dave derry please advise.
—-Original Message–
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 10:33 AM
To: Steve Ballmer, Bob Herbold; Shannon Perdue
Co: Mike Porter (Exchange); Marshall Brumer (Exchange)
Subject: RE: Intel/Microsoft MarketingAt the workstation leadership forum they reiterated their commitment to move all their stuff to Windows 2000.
I asked our people many times if there is any backsliding on their not using Linux for this.
If this has changed I wasn’t informed. I knew I would get a chance to talk to Barrett and the question I asked was whether I needed to bring this up or not.
If we are not in good shape on this I need to know.
—-Original Message–
From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 9:48 AM
To: Bob Herbold; Shannon Perdue
Cc: Mike Porter (Exchange); Marshall Brumer (Exchange); Bill Gates
Subject: RE: Intel/Microsoft MarketingWe cannot let intel do chip design on Linux ever what do we need to do to change the decision who do we need to call we will put whatever w skin to the game they need.
—Original Message—
From: Bob Herbold
Sent: Monday, July 05, 1999 8:58 AM
To: Shannon Perdue
Cc: Mike Porter (Exchange); Marshall Brumer (Exchange); Bill Gates; Steve Ballmer
Subject:Intel/Microsoft MarketingWe had the marketing coordination conference call last week, and Jami Dover and her people feel very good about the relationship with the Microsoft marketing folks at this point In time. She and Dennis Carter( who is working 2 days a week at this time, phasing into retirement) can’t remember when things have been so active and so clearcut with Microsoft. Jami’s assessment with things was very similar to yours, Shannon. By the way, she was very high on the Office 2000 event. Naturally, they were also very pleased with the Workstation Leadership Forum featuring billg and craig, which generated a lot of positive pr. They didnt have any issues to bring up.
Mike, we didn’t get into a lot of the specifics of the hardware issues, but she did say that the Win64/IA-64 work seems to be moving along fine. i did stress that we need early, stable hardware asap. She did cite that they were pleased that we have finally reached a NDA that allows us to work security issues together; a big step forward.
—Original Message—
From: shannon perdue
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 1999 6:58 PM
To: Bob Herbold
Cc: Mike Porter (Exchange): Marhall Brumer (Exchange)Subject: RE: Intel
On the OS marketing front things are straightforward & busy.
What’s going well
Windows 2000 Launch & Partner Participation
Intel wants to play a key role in the Windows 2000 launch. We agree on this point and are in the planning process to define what this means.OS Strategy & Product Information
We continue to share information regularly via bi-weekly conference calls. Includes strategy and specifics such as product milestones and delivery dates; key product features and directions. We have mutually acceptable joint messaging for upcoming technologies such as Geyserville (Intel’s next generation mobile tech; basic but important that our OEMs understand our collaboration) for both MS and Intel field forces.Other items coming up Include performance testing & subsequent massaging.we’ve also had in success in putting out PR fires and obtaining positive press coverage around the Pentium Ill and MS OS/apps.Intel is sponsoring a Pentium III evaluation program in conjunction with the Windows 2000 RDPconference coming up July 6-8. Intel will participate in the conference to kick off.this program and participate as a sponsor.
Please let me know if you have any questions
Shannon Perdue
Product Manager, Windows 2000 Client Marketing
Business Enterprise Division
Microsoft Corporation
425.936 9934—Original Message—
From: Mike Porter(Exchange)
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 1999 12:25 PM
To: Bob Herbold;Shannon Perdue; Marshall Brumer (Exchange)
Subject:RE: IntelBob,
I am the owner of the Intel relationship, in conjunction with Marshall, who ts on sabbatical. I have putted this broad overview together rather quickly. It would be worth our time to ask about the “New Business Group” at Intel (on the org chart I’ve included) and see what their plans are there. In general, the consumer space is going well, but there are a few road bumps in Miner’s Server org. Intel’s predilection for Linux and their NGIO efforts (which are failing) have been a long, slow burning set of frustrations for us. We do however seem to be making positive progress on all fronts of the relationship, If there are any specifics or drill down you’d Like, please Let me know.
Mike Porter
Processor/platform/MS operating system/tools releases
IA-64/Win64 The Win64 effort has made some pretty fantastic progress. Particularly since this was all done while trying to ship Win2K, It’s an impressive effort. Steve Ballmer did the first public 64bitdemo as part of his WinHFC ’99 keynote. The messages for Win64 are simple and clear:Support Alpha & Merced
Single source code for 64-bit and 32-bit version of Windows 2000
Huge virtual memory support
SQL64
This is REAL
It should be noted that the Merced demo was done on a simulator, and we worked hard to ensure that a
software emulated version of Merced looked decent next to Alpha systems. Were come a Long way.
Below shows Win64 achievements for the past 16 months. We have done this with very Limited
resources and during with Win2K, IE5, and other key deliverables.
10/97, started the project, designed, prototyped, talked to customers
12/97, Microsoft Internal presentation
01198, Design Preview with 170. external developers. Re|eased the first Win64 “SDK”.
03/98, Kernel boot
04/98, WinHEC, Released the first Win64 “SDK” and second Win64 “SDK”
08/98, HT Beta 2 release. Delivered COM/OLE,MFC, NOTEPAD.EXE, CMD.EXE,CALC.EXE,SQL.EXE
10/98, Delivered networking, sandbox, Limited WOW64
11/98, SQL64 is Limping along
4/7/99, First Win64 public demo, WinHEC99
Only feedback from Intel to you that I anticipate here is that our schedules are currently mis-aligned by 2-3 months (Intel being earlier with their ship dates than our OS dates). We believe that Intel will hit some delays and are being overly optimistic about what they can achieve by when. We, believe and have repeatedly stated that we can deliver the OS 12 months after receiving a Large volume of systems sufficient to self-host our Win64 focused developers on. At present, Intel would Like us to make that 9 months, while the NT group ha m s been very dear that we need 12.Key message, to Intel: get us early, state hardware ASAP.
Consumer Space (Appliance Devices/Internet PC/Other alternatives) Intel sees Microsoft doing (or at least talking) more in this space on Low-end, “non PC” devices. Intel is very interested in making sure that we keep the PC #1 on the net. They are concerned about where we are heading in the low-end space, and fear that WinCE and non-X86 processors might play a larger role here for Microsoft than they’d like. Intel now considers it Important to be seen as a Leader in the “appliance” space as they see a threat if they aren’t dear Leaders in this space. They believe Strong ARM has a rote to play in very Low-end “fixed-function” devices, but not in any space that could threaten the PC. Intel sees three areas that need to be addressed to create x86-based “appliances’:Develop appropriate OS feature subsets and UI (that don’t: undermine the main PC role) Eliminate “clunkiness” [David Cote’s "It Just Works" message] (Boot Time, “Known Good” boot images, etc)
Lower OS Royalties
The lower OS royalties is a message I’d expect Andy to drive hard as it’s the one area he doesn’t feel he’s made any progress on with Microsoft. We both seem to agree that there are different potential devices in this space: an Internet terminal, a gaming console with web connectivity, a DVD, DVCR console with web access, etc). We seem to disagree on the relative priority of these devices. We sees the “game system” (PlayStation 2) as a threat growing upward Into the PC space. Inter is presently focused on “Portal PCs” mainly because that’s what they think OF.Ms want. You sent: a great piece of email about the Playstation threat and the need for killer graphics. This meeting would be a great opportunity to make that case to Intel, as they don’t Bet it yet.Intel is looking for ways to engage Microsoft in these devices. David Cole and Pat Gelsinger have been working together, and we have set up a “Concept Platform Project” announced at WinHEC by Ballmer and Gelsinger (GeorgeM is leading this under DavidCol). Our first “kick-off’ meeting tomorrow, we will cover fast-boot enhancements and legacy hardware reduction In the short term of the we plan to do together, with more to be investigated in this meeting. We have given Intel the Feedback that there are several areas here that Intel is deficient in to competing in this space:
Integrated CPU/Graphics/Chipset solution (Timna) is a very poor solution for the graphics component.
Enabling high-value digital content won’t be possible without solving content protection issues
(See Security section below)
Intel’s primary feedback to us has been:
We don’t have a “low-cost” OS solution
Fear of cannibalizing PC sales
Investigating ways to Improve 3D performance into their low-end CPUs
Intel decision to deploy Linux for EDA (chip design )
Intel plans to deploy Linux to run their internal EDA (chip design) applications, due largely to NT stability issues. Andy, Craig, and Albert have all committed to maintain their long-term strategy on NT, and work closely with us on messaging for Workstation Leadership Forum. Intel has been trying to move it’s internal chip design applications from AIX to NT for ~3 years. There are two key apps; desktop (interactive design toots) and server (C-Sym, a batch processing app). The server application has been ported, but Intel cannot get close to the 99% availability target required for production use – they claim ~96%. They have frequent system hangs and “blue screens’. We offered support thru local MCS, but Intel (Albert Yu) rejected our bid. They wanted more MS skin in the game. Albert and Louis Burns (VP IS) share the decision. Because of project deadlines, and their desire to design on Intelbased systems, Intel did a quick port of C-Sym to Linux. The Linux version ls ’more robust than the AIX version’. Stephanie Boesh has put together a SWAT team and she has been working to pull multiple group together within Microsoft to improve this relationship and get the project back on track. Last week, we re-secrued Albert Yu’s committment to make this work.Networking
In general, networking has become something Intel is quite serious about. Apparently they’ve made over 15 investments in this space last year, and are approaching $1.5 billion in sales here. The primary concerns that Intel is expressing in the networking space are
Networking business is strategically important to Intel
Intel has a perception that Microsoft is favoring one IHV (3com)
Desire to grow NCG-MS strategic relationshipJim Allchin heard a part of this message, quite by surprise, during a security update conference call several weeks ago. Since then, Jawad and his team have engaged Intel heavily, and we’ve had several meetings. We are investigating ways to work together. Intel has particularly been Interested in Microsoft’s participation in Open Networking, and we are Investigating that now.
Security
While we have both invested a ton of energy here, and have made some very real progress. We have finally reached agreement on an NDA that allows Microsoft and Intel to work together in the security space. There have been numerous technical meeting and we are Investigating to bottom out on a digital content security architecture that could be assisted in hardware for very advanced levels of security.Most Recent Org Chart for Key iris Executive contact at Intel
These people are all members of Inters executive staff.
(ESM) Executive Office = Andy Grove, Craig Barrett, Gordon Moore
Intels Architecture Business Group = Paul Otellini
Pat Getsinger – Desktop Products Group
John Miner – Enterprise Server Group
Bob Jecman – Mobile and Handheld Products Group
Home Products Group – Claude Leglise
Reseller Products Group – Jim Yasso
Platform Launch Operation – Jana Greer (Acting)
New Business Group – Gerry Parker
Craig Kinnie – Intel Architecture Labs
Ron Whittier – Content Group
Mike Aymar – Internet Services
Computer Enhancement Group – Ron Smith
Microprocessor Products Group – Albert Yu
Network Communications Group – Mark Christensen
Sales and Marketing – Jami Dover (Marketing) Sean Maloney (Sates)
Strategic Marketing – Dennis Carter
Information Technology – Louis Burns
Corporate Business Development – Steve Nachtsheim/Les Vadasz
Legal – Tom Dunlap—Original Message—
From: Shannon perdue
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 1999 12:04 PM
To: Bob Herbold; Marhall Brumer (Exchange);Mike Porter(Exchange)
Subject:RE: IntelYes although Marshall is OOF on sabbatical Mike – can you please provide high-level tech overview? Jami is the Intel Marketing VP.I’ll send an overview later this afternoon.
—Original Message—
From: Bob Herbold;
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 1999 11:42 PM
To: Shannon perdue;Marhall Brumer (Exchange);
Subject:RE: IntelI assume that you two are still Intel brian trust.If not let me know.I am going to have a call with jami Dover from Intel tomorrow, and would be interested in what is going well, and what isn’t.I don’t need anything fancy;just sketch what you see going on.
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Paulo Cesar said,
February 9, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Maybe that’s why Intel and other big vendors are investing on Linux now, it’s scary to depend on those ms guys
NotZed said,
February 9, 2009 at 8:37 pm
It must hurt, that they ended up losing this battle completely.
And so much for ‘TCO’. One of the most technically advanced companies couldn’t get their code to even work after 3 years of trying.
They did it in no time on GNU/Linux, and it worked better than it had on proprietary unix!
FormerIntel said,
February 9, 2009 at 11:21 pm
As a former Intel employee and one of many employees that were involved in the IT end of the project to get NT deployed, I think it’s safe to say that there are still deficiencies in the OS that prevent Windows from being viable for EDA design.
Back in 1999, we struggled with trying to keep systems as consistent as possible, installing and running apps from a server based location and trying to manage DLL-hell. Our UNIX machines were very cookie-cutter, allowing us to deploy thousands of machines with identical images and the efficiency and consistency that came with it. There have been many improvements in this space, so perhaps today this wouldn’t be an issue, but back then it caused a great deal of strife.
Application installs were still largely GUI based, with no means of a scripted install, and of course every app needed to be installed as an administrator. For desktop systems, we were forced to come up with ways of installing software in a consistent and controlled manner without giving the user admin rights. Current technology is better now than it was back then, but poorly designed apps and installers are still around.
On top of that, the need to run systems for days/weeks at a time without interruption was critical, yet simple updates to apps always required a reboot. It is rare to have to update GLIBC to install an app and thereby force a reboot on a LINUX system, but the myriad of DLLs used by each app, all of which were stored in system32 almost guaranteed a reboot. Our efforts to manage DLL-hell reduced the number of reboots, but they couldn’t be avoided to the extent necessary. Today it’s still probable that an application install will require a reboot, but admittedly it’s a lot better than 1999.
Finally there was OS efficiency. They need to run millions of batch jobs on the systems, and do so as quickly as possible. The OS overhead needed to be low in order to maximize CPU cycles available to the apps. Heck, we even removed all of the OpenGL screen savers and only allowed the blank screen saver on the system in order to maximize CPU availability. However, the apps that ran on both NT and Linux simply weren’t as efficient when ran on NT due to the OS and it’s architecture. We had very competent windows developers who simply could not get the apps to run as well as the Linux developers could get them to run on Linux. Perhaps things would be different now with an XP based platform, but Windows OS overhead is generally still higher than a Linux based kernel, so that ever present need for low OS overhead has not been addressed.
When I left Intel, EDA on Linux based OS was pretty firmly cemented, I can’t imagine it ever changing. The old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes to mind.
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 9, 2009 at 11:39 pm
My brother in law works at Intel and yes… he showed me that they use GNU/Linux internally.
Matt said,
February 10, 2009 at 12:35 am
I work in chip design, never had to use NT though. Old machines used to be sun’s or hpux, then around 2001 cheap rack mount PC’s started to replace them running linux. All the EDA companies quickly ported their tools to x86 and soon after x86_64.
Pulling up the GUI for an application running remotely is a really cool feature of X. Windows doesn’t support that natively.
Today with multicore machines, multiple people can run different jobs. They all don’t have physical access to the machine, hence the need for a remote shell like what ssh provides.
Scripts designed by someone else will mostly run on other unix boxes. Windows would likely require more changes
Windows has good USB support. In the FPGA field it’s the way to go for ISE or Quartus, the USB programmers don’t work very easily under linux.
It’s only a matter of time before the FPGA vendors start to support linux more directly instead of just porting their windows applications to linux.
wow said,
February 10, 2009 at 12:38 am
I love these blogs on digg.com.
I find it hilarious how ten years later you say that MS screwed Intel w/Linux when it’s MS that fuels Intel. Aside from that, the fact that 10 yrs later this is all you have to support Linux and MS trying to kill them is well, lets say hilarious. It is called business and if you can’t stand the heat in the kitchen leave it.
Ten years later Linux has made inroads to many markets. Coming close to the market share of MS is laughable at best despite blogs like this.
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 10, 2009 at 7:54 am
“wow”,
Don’t be so sure.
“Forty percent of servers run Windows, 60 percent run Linux…”
–Steve Ballmer (September 2008)
pcolon said,
February 11, 2009 at 4:00 pm
“It is called business and if you can’t stand the heat in the kitchen leave it.”
I hate to see the legacy “like minds” will leave behind.
John Doe said,
February 18, 2009 at 5:39 pm
I work at a big international semiconductor company (not Intel), and our team of designers use GNU/Linux (RHEL) for most of their EDA tools.
So I don’t think Windows is gaining any momentum here (not even with fancy Vista or 7 or whatever).
But we have to cope with a dual-OS system, as we’re enforced to use MS Office for writing specs, docs etc, and our mail system is still Exchange-based so most people prefer Outlook for getting the meeting calendar right. (hopefully that dependency is about to change, there are other good non-Windows alternatives).