ATi officially responds to the slides & my thoughts.

[RussSchultz]

I highly doubt ATI would put something that damning up for public consumption, meaning outside of the company.

But NVIDIA did (with their Kyro sales/marketting slides). Or should we assume that ATI didn't do this because they're a morally superior company because they don't do this? (I.e. depend on a circular argument to "disprove" that such things might happen)

Certainly it shouldn't be a shock that marketing departments have a goal to make their products look better and their competitors look worse.

 

[PaulS]

Wonder if nVidia would have commented on the slide?

Uhm, they did. I received an e-mail yesterday morning from an nVidia employee direct from nVidia with a third slide and about a page and a half dissertation about how ATi was an evil, monopolistic company out to discredit poor nVidia and how the most righteous nVidia interpretted the slide.

In the interests of fairness, shouldn't you have published that as well as the ATi response? Even if you believe it's all false, it seems a little "off" to only present one side of the story here. I, and probably others, would be interested in seeing what they had to say.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I highly doubt ATI would put something that damning up for public consumption, meaning outside of the company.

But NVIDIA did (with their Kyro sales/marketting slides). Or should we assume that ATI didn't do this because they're a morally superior company because they don't do this? (I.e. depend on a circular argument to "disprove" that such things might happen)

Certainly it shouldn't be a shock that marketing departments have a goal to make their products look better and their competitors look worse.

It is well known that such "negative marketing" can have bad effects. It's been well shown that if a political campaign slates the opponent, the mud also sticks to those that do the throwing.

It's quite possible that ATI have made a decision not to do negative marketing. It's often the case that if you are on top, you don't need to slate your opponent, because you can just point out your own advantages without having to denegrate your competition.

Nvidia have from day one shown that they consider negative marketing to be acceptable, and have proved once again that if you stoop to slinging mud against your opponents, it will also stick to you and you'll end up covered in crap yourself.

This recent escapade makes Nvidia look terrible. Can you image what it will look like if DW publishes the nonsensical rant from the Nvidia PR that mailed him after the fact? It will make Nvidia look like poor disgruntled losers who have completely lost the plot.

 

[Sxotty]

Except you dont know who mailed DW, it might be just some random guy...I mean there is no reason to attribute it to a larger group, whereas presentations are usually given for people to see and you get the idea.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Except you dont know who mailed DW, it might be just some random guy...I mean there is no reason to attribute it to a larger group, whereas presentations are usually given for people to see and you get the idea.

DW's already said the original ATI out-of-context slide leak came from Brian Burke, and the followup came from another Nvidia PR employee he won't name.

[He's said in in the forums referenced in this thread over at EB and NVnews]

 

[WaltC]

But NVIDIA did (with their Kyro sales/marketting slides). Or should we assume that ATI didn't do this because they're a morally superior company because they don't do this? (I.e. depend on a circular argument to "disprove" that such things might happen)

Certainly it shouldn't be a shock that marketing departments have a goal to make their products look better and their competitors look worse.

I don't recall nVidia doing any public marketing of those slides. I do recall a .pdf which was leaked, in its entirety, to the general public. I thought the .pdf was addressing nVidia's OEM customers as to why they shouldn't look at Kyro, but to nVidia, instead. It had some fairly faulty info in it, too, as I recall.

These were ATi slides from presentations given with speakers who elaborated on the bullet points in the slides. Not only did we not see all of the slides in the presentation, we didn't see any of the text from the talks that the ATi speakers made in conjunction with the presentation of those slides. The Kyro .pdf, however, was a complete document designed--not for a slide presentation with a speaker--but to be read on its own, and judged on its own words.

The major difference here, I think, was that because the ATi info was released in a very incomplete state certain *bullet points* were taken out of context, whereas with the Kyro .pdf there was nothing to take out of context as the document was complete.

I certainly agree with you though that nobody should be surprised to learn that ATi considers nVidia a competitor...

 

[RussSchultz]

Those are some pretty silly distinctions, Walt.

I mean, if you want to say "But NVIDIA lied in theirs, so they're much worse" that's competely understandable.

But to say one was a PDF that had all the slides so therefor it was a complete picture and the ATI one was only a few slides wasn't so we can't draw conclusions....

*boggle*

 

[3dilettante]

Isn't it interesting that a guy from Nvidia procured internal ATI slides? Perhaps ATI leaks like a seive, but one would think they would put a little effort into keeping Nvidia from getting their marketing strategies.

It kind of asks for an exciting conspiracy novel based on the behind the scenes maneuvering of hardware companies.

Lurking in the Stenciled Shadows: An Unfiltered Rendering of Graphics Espionage

 

[Pete]

In the interests of fairness, shouldn't you have published that as well as the ATi response? Even if you believe it's all false, it seems a little "off" to only present one side of the story here. I, and probably others, would be interested in seeing what they had to say.

Sure, I'd be interested in what that nV employee had to say to dw, but it was a private correspondence (unless the employee said her/his mail was fit to be published, which I doubt is the case if s/he wants to continue enjoying gainful employment). ATi's reply was PR, meant for public dissemination. There's a clear distinction, at least as far as I can infer.

As for only presenting one side of the story, I believe whoever specifically leaked that first slide thought the side it presented was self-evident ("Influence benchmarks in ATi's favor," as a clear counterpart to nV's cries of PS1.4 not being in their favor). ATi's PR was the other side, IMO. Going from the position that nV didn't release the slides themselves, as they did not do so publicly, I can only consider an nV employee's opinion as a spectator's side, not necessarily the appropriate "other," or opposite, side.

*yahtzee*

 

[digitalwanderer]

Wonder if nVidia would have commented on the slide?

Uhm, they did. I received an e-mail yesterday morning from an nVidia employee direct from nVidia with a third slide and about a page and a half dissertation about how ATi was an evil, monopolistic company out to discredit poor nVidia and how the most righteous nVidia interpretted the slide.

In the interests of fairness, shouldn't you have published that as well as the ATi response? Even if you believe it's all false, it seems a little "off" to only present one side of the story here. I, and probably others, would be interested in seeing what they had to say.

Mebbe it would, but I received a follow-up e-mail from them asking me not to publish their e-mail and not identify them and I decided to respect their request.

I did contact Brian Burke yesterday though and asked him if he or nVidia had any comments they'd like to add about it since I hadn't asked before and it seemed only fair and right, but he politely declined.

 

[PaulS]

Ah, right. I didn't realise they'd specifically asked you not to publish the information. Thanks for clearing it up

 

[digitalwanderer]

Ah, right. I didn't realise they'd specifically asked you not to publish the information. Thanks for clearing it up

No problem. I figure the person was pretty straight up with me and identifying 'em could cost them their job and they did ask me nicely.

 

[WaltC]

Those are some pretty silly distinctions, Walt.

I mean, if you want to say "But NVIDIA lied in theirs, so they're much worse" that's competely understandable.

But to say one was a PDF that had all the slides so therefor it was a complete picture and the ATI one was only a few slides wasn't so we can't draw conclusions....

*boggle*

Russ...the difference is one of context. With the nVidia .pdf we had all of the text--not just part of it--so there was no room for misinterpretation. With these slides we had about 10% of the text (we didn't have the other slides that accompied it in the presentation, nor did we have the text of the speaker's remarks which accompanied the slides during the presentation.) Therefore, the probablity of misinterpretation goes through the roof. It's not a difficult distinction at all, IMO. You can draw conclusions about the Kyro .pdf because you had the complete text--the selectively published ATi slides were such a small part of the complete presentation that no conclusion is possible.

Besides, if you're saying that nVidia lied in its presentation but ATi did not, why did you think to compare them in the first place?....

On an entirely different note, these slides--indeed, the whole presentation--was meant for internal ATi employee consumption only. The nVidia .pdf was a sales document directed towards OEMs and produced for that purpose.

 

[parhelia]

[conspiracy mode on]
Anyone noticed that despite all the discussion about these slides, we've never actually seen the whole slide, so we still cannot comment if they're really out of context or not? We only saw what ATI claimed to be in the presentation, but we've never actually seen what was in it : no screenshot or any such things were given. It's just their words against NV's words. It could actually be yet another huge coverup operation.
The truth is elsewhere.
[/conspiracy mode off]

 

[Dave Baumann]

I've got all the slides (as do a few others outside of the IHV's in question). ATI were incorrect when they said what was in the next slide, it was actually the slide after that...!

 

[nelg]

I've got all the slides (as do a few others outside of the IHV's in question). ATI were incorrect when they said what was in the next slide, it was actually the slide after that...!

Those untrustworthy bast#@$%# .

 

[WaltC]

[conspiracy mode on]
Anyone noticed that despite all the discussion about these slides, we've never actually seen the whole slide, so we still cannot comment if they're really out of context or not? We only saw what ATI claimed to be in the presentation, but we've never actually seen what was in it : no screenshot or any such things were given. It's just their words against NV's words. It could actually be yet another huge coverup operation.
The truth is elsewhere.
[/conspiracy mode off]

Heh... What is it that might require covering up?...Oh, I know...

I've got all the slides (as do a few others outside of the IHV's in question). ATI were incorrect when they said what was in the next slide, it was actually the slide after that...!

Ah, Ha! We got 'em now! "Next slide", indeed! Hmmmmph....

 

[CorwinB]

I've got all the slides (as do a few others outside of the IHV's in question). ATI were incorrect when they said what was in the next slide, it was actually the slide after that...!

Of course, all the dirty tactics of those cheating, lying bastitchs was on the slide in between... But they couldn't foil our super-senses.

 

[3dilettante]

Ooh, can I try on the conspiracy cap?

What if the slightly off slide number indicates that there were a few hasty "additions" to the original set of slides? With the amount of crud flying around, one can't be too paranoid.

What if the explanitory slides were provided by the mole who managed to get ATI's marketing plans to Nvidia in the first place? Has there been a critical failure in ATI's counterintelligence?