News relating to the merger of AMD and ATI Technologies spread like wildfire on Monday, but it seems that, amid the facts, lies were also being disseminated...
It seems some, er, 'journos' were messaged that ATI's chipset-licence had been pulled by Intel. However, the individuals(s) who first received this spin appear to have failed to verify this with ATI - or decided not to - and instead seem to have steamed ahead and published editorial stating that the license had been pulled.
Last night, HEXUS was in telephone and email contact with Phil Eisler, ATI's Senior Vice President and General Manager, Chipset and Notebook Business Unit (currently the head of ATI’s chipset business) who confirmed that the story is categorically wrong.
Indeed, here's the official line:
There is no truth to the rumor that Intel has pulled ATI's chipset licence. We continue to ship Intel chipsets under licence.
Phil Eisler, SVP & GM, ATI Technologies Inc.
During the course of our telephone conversation with Phil Eisler he also confirmed that there was no change, or planned change, in the status of ATI’s licence with Intel.
It looks, then, like the rumours of the licence-pull came from an unverified source, were quite possibly pushed towards certain people by ATI's competition, and that those people - perhaps chasing the money and keen to please - abandoned all sense of journalistic integrity and professionalism, instead opted to disseminate misinformation.
So right now, ATI states that nothing has changed between Intel and ATI in terms of chipset licensing, and following word directly from the horse's mouth, we can only surmise that any news stating otherwise is either a lie, or is being reported by those mislead by such lies.
While we pride ourselves on our integrity here at HEXUS, striving only to make claims that we can verify, reliably, it's clear that some 'publications' make no such effort.
It intrigued us recently to see a rather odd editorial exercise surface on the net in the form of a multi-part ATI CrossFire v. NVIDIA SLI collaborative 'review' involving nine websites. While some of those sites were no doubt delighted at the opportunity, perhaps not all was above board... The Inquirer said it best:
Let's hope that this wasn't one of the graphic chip vendors' smart marketing ideas to shepherd - read control - the little hardware sites.
We certainly don't think that all the historical or future editorial content of all nine of the publications involved should not be trusted, but it's interesting that it appears at least one of the sites involved in that collaboration looks to have had a hand in the initial spread of mistruths perpetrated against ATI...
The obvious moral of the story: be careful what you read, and where.
Some interesting linkage:
ATI and Intel Sign Cross-Licensing Agreement. We wonder what this, the last sentence on that document, refers to: “This agreement also settles pending litigation between the two companies.”
