Huang's Harangue
In a Q&A session at Nvidia's GTC event this week, Jen-Hsun Huang stopped just short of directly accusing Intel of illegal business practices and iterated his belief that "you have to be the world's largest computer company" to bring ION to market.
Jen-Hsun, who has previously been very vocal about the unfairness of Intel's Atom chip pricing, claiming it was freezing ION out of the market, said nothing had really changed and the only reason HP had managed to get an ION system to market was that "they just found a way." "You need to be HP," he said, shaking his head.
Singing the HP Mini 311's praises, Huang posited there was "nothing not to love about the HP Mini," adding, "it's small, it's fabulous, it does all that stuff and it's pretty inexpensive."
Jen-Hsun said he strongly believed ION would continue to force its way into the market "through the desire of the market to differentiate."
"If you look at the netbook market right now, it's one size fits all. It's exactly the same chip, exactly the same system, everybody has exactly the same."
Claiming that not a single OEM aims to build systems exactly the same as every other, Jen-Hsun said he believed ION was "one way to differentiate" and that firms that were "smart and willful and determined" would find a way to bring it to market.
"ION stands for differentiation," he repeated, whispering "It almost stands for rebellion."
Citing "enormous willpower to suffocate it" Huang claimed ION would win out, despite the competition's best efforts.
"Intel is a formidable company of extraordinary capabilities," he told his audience. "They can beat you with semiconductor technology, they can beat you with marketing, they can beat you with bundling..." he trailed off, only to be interrupted by a hack piping up "I thought bundling was illegal".
Jen-Hsun, not missing a beat, continued "they can beat you with bundling.."
"They can beat you with the extraordinary influence they have on customers," he continued, explaining that when a customer buys 90 per cent of its goods from one place, they can be easily influenced.
"And if all that doesn't work, they can beat me with a stick!" he concluded.
If Jen-Hsun thinks matters are difficult now, they will only become more laboured as Intel transitions its Atom platform from a three-chip solution to a two-chip, amalgamating graphics on the same package as the CPU for Pine Trail.
Do you agree with the NVIDIA's boss' sentiments? Feel free to pipe up in the HEXUS.community.
