IBM backstabbing sony and neglected Apple ? (long read)

[London Geezer]

I'm not sure what's being argued here...

I mean, why would KK himself design a chip inside out?

His job is to give ideas about how something will work, and then have his army of engineers make the bloody thing! Why would HE sit at his desk going through transistors schemes and whatnot??

He will come up with an idea, a performance target, he will have an overview of how it would work (if "normal people" like us know a fair bit about different processors designs, you can rest assured he knows his fair bit too, to say the least!) he will have lots of engineers telling him if that idea is economically practical and how they could make it true, he says OK LET'S DO IT GIRLS!!

Thinking KK would sit down and actually design a processor is just... i don't even have an adjective for that.

 

[Carl B]

I think it's being disingenuous to imply that Kutaragi's skills and talents in the realm of electronics and their related componentry is confined to that in which he got his degree. This man, if nothing else, has taken a very hands on approach to all of his division's projects, and I have a feeling he's probably learned a thing or two along the way (to be *very* conservative in his knowledge estimates). I mean he headed up Sony's Semiconductor division for several years as well, right? Not to mention that originally (in terms of Playstation/SNES project), he was the man behind the design of the audio chip. Granted audio chips aren't the same as complex microprocessors, but I don't think there's too large a cross-over wall there in terms of getting acquainted should one wish to. Not to mention, a lot of Sony's top engineering talent in general back then was tied up in anolog and audio, so really his background is no surprise.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This is a PC-E special. Without any evidence he claims the Sony and Toshiba engineers involved in Cell contributed nothing. He asks for proof of other people's ideas but offers none himself. When confronted with taxing questions like why should Sony+Toshiba invent a new IPA he doesn't deign to answer as the logic of the answers disprove the basis of his theories. And when he can't prove his ideas he just takes to knocking Sony and ever.
'Sony and Toshiba contributed nothing' he says. The linked to Nikkei article suggests otherwise.
'CPU design isn't just circuits layouts,' I explain.
'Sony and Toshiba don't have their own IPA's' he responds to demonstrate Sony and Toshiba have no understanding of processor design.
' Why use a new IPA? Why's that so important when there's already valid IPA's that do the job with existing tools?' I ask.
'Toshiba only wanted SPEs,' PCE replies, as though that's somehow answering my question. 'Why would they need IBM if they were Uber CPU architects?' he mocks, though no-one said Sony and Toshiba were uber-architects, but contributed as part of a team effort despite PCEs claim they did absolutely nothing.
Then he mocks KK's Japanese attitude to design will making out the guy's incapable of contributing anything in design of modern appliances that aren;t based on a 1975 analogue technology degree.

PCE hasn't followed a cohesive argument throughout the entirity of this thread. Blakjedi's a good example of how to debate, taking points he doesn't agree with and explaining his POV. But PC-Engine is the most worthless character on this board, with an agenda solely to put down anything Sony related using the most convoluted and inane arguments. Most annoying is the way he asks questions to disprove a point and incite a response, but never actually enter intelligent debate by responding to other people's questions if the answers contradict himself. He contributes nothing of intellectual worth. He exists only to antagonise. I give up all hope.

 

[blakjedi]

Wasn t there mention in teh article about KK demotion that Sony's engineers didnt respect him beceause he wasnt one of them. I think KK is respected at Sony only because of the success of the product (PS). Other than that I think they would have forced him out (lower) a long time ago.

My recollection may be fuzzy. In any case why are trying KK here. The thread is about IBM right?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

My recollection may be fuzzy. In any case why are trying KK here. The thread is about IBM right?

PC-Engine presented that as evidence supporting his view Sony and Toshiba engineers contributed nothing to the design of Cell. KK can't design processors to any degree, ergo IBM had to do absolutely everything and Sony+Toshiba engineers sat around drinking coffee and making demands of their IBM underlings.

 

[Carl B]

Wasn t there mention in teh article about KK demotion that Sony's engineers didnt respect him beceause he wasnt one of them. I think KK is respected at Sony only because of the success of the product (PS). Other than that I think they would have forced him out (lower) a long time ago.

My recollection may be fuzzy. In any case why are trying KK here. The thread is about IBM right?

Actually my understanding of Kutaragi is that exactly because he is an engineer he was held up high by the old-guard, in this case Ohga in particular, who wanted him for the CEO-ship. He had clashes with several individuals over his abrasive non-conformist style within Sony; ie he didn't make many friends outside of his own division, but I think the man himself from a technical understanding standpoint was well respected.

Topics go off on tangents, you just gotta go with the flow.

 

[PC-Engine]

I'm not sure what's being argued here...

I mean, why would KK himself design a chip inside out?

His job is to give ideas about how something will work, and then have his army of engineers make the bloody thing! Why would HE sit at his desk going through transistors schemes and whatnot??

He will come up with an idea, a performance target, he will have an overview of how it would work (if "normal people" like us know a fair bit about different processors designs, you can rest assured he knows his fair bit too, to say the least!) he will have lots of engineers telling him if that idea is economically practical and how they could make it true, he says OK LET'S DO IT GIRLS!!

Thinking KK would sit down and actually design a processor is just... i don't even have an adjective for that.

He hasn't designed any part of a microprocessor in his entire career so of course he cannot be head engineer of a microprocessor project. That would be suicide.

This is a PC-E special. Without any evidence he claims the Sony and Toshiba engineers involved in Cell contributed nothing. He asks for proof of other people's ideas but offers none himself. When confronted with taxing questions like why should Sony+Toshiba invent a new IPA he doesn't deign to answer as the logic of the answers disprove the basis of his theories. And when he can't prove his ideas he just takes to knocking Sony and ever.
'Sony and Toshiba contributed nothing' he says. The linked to Nikkei article suggests otherwise.
'CPU design isn't just circuits layouts,' I explain.
'Sony and Toshiba don't have their own IPA's' he responds to demonstrate Sony and Toshiba have no understanding of processor design.
' Why use a new IPA? Why's that so important when there's already valid IPA's that do the job with existing tools?' I ask.
'Toshiba only wanted SPEs,' PCE replies, as though that's somehow answering my question. 'Why would they need IBM if they were Uber CPU architects?' he mocks, though no-one said Sony and Toshiba were uber-architects, but contributed as part of a team effort despite PCEs claim they did absolutely nothing.
Then he mocks KK's Japanese attitude to design will making out the guy's incapable of contributing anything in design of modern appliances that aren;t based on a 1975 analogue technology degree.

PCE hasn't followed a cohesive argument throughout the entirity of this thread. Blakjedi's a good example of how to debate, taking points he doesn't agree with and explaining his POV. But PC-Engine is the most worthless character on this board, with an agenda solely to put down anything Sony related using the most convoluted and inane arguments. Most annoying is the way he asks questions to disprove a point and incite a response, but never actually enter intelligent debate by responding to other people's questions if the answers contradict himself. He contributes nothing of intellectual worth. He exists only to antagonise. I give up all hope.

Superfluous and verbose, but not much else. IBM did the bulk of the actual design work. Toshiba/SONY had unproven concepts. End of discussion.

 

[blakjedi]

Actually my understanding of Kutaragi is that exactly because he is an engineer he was held up high by the old-guard, in this case Ohga in particular, who wanted him for the CEO-ship. He had clashes with several individuals over his abrasive non-conformist style within Sony; ie he didn't make many friends outside of his own division, but I think the man himself from a technical understanding standpoint was well respected.

Topics go off on tangents, you just gotta go with the flow.

Ok maybe I'll dig up the article and re-read for myself. im off today!

.. too... many... threads.... same.... topic.....
...too... many... threads... no.... topic... LOL

 

[mckmas8808]

Wasn t there mention in teh article about KK demotion that Sony's engineers didnt respect him beceause he wasnt one of them. I think KK is respected at Sony only because of the success of the product (PS). Other than that I think they would have forced him out (lower) a long time ago.

My recollection may be fuzzy. In any case why are trying KK here. The thread is about IBM right?

And is it not some of those same engineers and Sony heads that messed up the Betamax, Minidisc, and past on MP3 and let Steve Jobs litterly take a multi-million dollar busniess to the bank?

You ever heard of the saying, "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"? My point is what Ken is involved in has been a remarkable success and can argubly be better than what Myimoto did with Nintendo. If those Sony engineers really did say that, they should just shut their damn mouths quick.

 

[Carl B]

Ok maybe I'll dig up the article and re-read for myself. im off today!

.. too... many... threads.... same.... topic.....
...too... many... threads... no.... topic... LOL

Hey sounds good to me.

By the way for anyone interested, this is a link to a post of mine from April post Sony shake-up, it gives a very good synopsis of the situation as it is basically an edited down Fortune article on the matter, with interview contributions from Idei and a number of others. It's actually very interesting on a number of other levels, as it talks about how Sony almost bought Apple and Palm back in the day as well.

Stringer over Kutaragi - why it happened

In it you'll read awesome excerpts like:

...All along, Idei found himself second-guessed by Ohga, who despite nagging health problems stepped in occasionally to thwart or even sabotage his successor's initiatives. Ohga seemed especially chary of acquisitions and divestitures, shooting down Idei's plans in the 1990s to try to buy Apple Computer and later Palm Computing. Insiders say that during Idei's early years, Ohga seemed jealous of his protégé's success in turning around movies and of his ability to strike a higher profile in world business circles. (Ohga declined to be interviewed for this story.)...

and

...Even after retiring from the board in 2003 and taking the ceremonial title "honorary chairman," Ohga made his presence felt. In particular, he was a big promoter of Ken Kutaragi, the founder and head of Sony Computer Entertainment, maker of the Play-Station. Kutaragi, a brilliant but obstreperous engineer, was presumed by many to be Idei's heir apparent. Ohga put him on the board of directors in 2000...

EDIT: From later in the thread, an answer to a question some people here sometimes ask.

What I don't get is... Why did the board decide to kick them off the board :??

Good question. This WAS addressed in the article, it's just one of the things I cut out.

The situation was that along with nominating Stringer for the CEO position, Idei decided, and got approval for, the majority of the board being more or less dissolved and filled with outsiders similar to Stringer. His idea was that this would make it easier for Stringer to push forward with the changes he felt had to be made; he basically wants to make it so that Stringer is free to operate without many of the constraints under which Idei himself worked under.

 

[mckmas8808]

PCE hasn't followed a cohesive argument throughout the entirity of this thread. Blakjedi's a good example of how to debate, taking points he doesn't agree with and explaining his POV. But PC-Engine is the most worthless character on this board, with an agenda solely to put down anything Sony related using the most convoluted and inane arguments. Most annoying is the way he asks questions to disprove a point and incite a response, but never actually enter intelligent debate by responding to other people's questions if the answers contradict himself. He contributes nothing of intellectual worth. He exists only to antagonise. I give up all hope.

And it makes me mad that I conduct in reasonable debates, yet I'm here with a red square while he's here with a green one.

Edited: Ok it's green now, but it was red earlier I swear.

 

[blakjedi]

And it makes me mad that I conduct in reasonable debates, yet I'm here with a red square while he's here with a green one.

Edited: Ok it's green now, but it was red earlier I swear.

Dude... its been green for almost 24 hrs... pay attention dammit!

 

[Ragemare]

So basically, according to the article, the the Xbox360 CPU is a derivative of the Cell power core?

 

[dukmahsik]

So basically, according to the article, the the Xbox360 CPU is a derivative of the Cell power core?

would make sense since the too look really similar at least the PPE side

 

[blakjedi]

So basically, according to the article, the the Xbox360 CPU is a derivative of the Cell power core?

and maybe vice versa... essentially STI and eventually MS and Nintendo CPU development funds, pay for broader application use, diversification and streamlining of the PPC ISA. Since IBM owned the core technology, it was essentially R&D for free... to the point where IBM didnt need Apple's market to be the base market for their chips. By volume the sales of PS3, X360 and hopefully Revolution will tally in the hundreds of millions over the next six years... something Apple could only dream about.

In the end IBM above all wins, cause their core IP gets used, paid for, and re-engineered to suit the markets they always wanted to tap anyway. Everyone gets snookered and IBM is a rose and a windfall.

 

[Ragemare]

would make sense since the too look really similar at least the PPE side

I can see why Sony execs might not like this, it gives IBM more leverage haveing multiple customers for the same product. The fact that two of IBM's other customers are MS and Nintendo, who are in competition with Sony makes it worse.

Sony would like it if IBM had to rely on them to get money out of this new technology, that way they could put more pressure on IBM in future deals. It may also annoy Sony that MS and Nintendo, relatively speaking, simply had to pick a gameing CPU core of the shelf instead of getting IBM into a deal to develop one, Sony won't like makeing the development process for it's competitors easier. Also it may be that if Xbox360 had a core not from IBM or one that was more like past PowerPC cores, that it would have stolen/will steal less of Cell's thunder.

I think that if this is indeed true, Sony can't be happy with it and would rather have the Cell and all it's components that arn't common to older PowerPC cores to itself. I don't think they want MS using a derivative of Cells PPC core, but I'm not sure they are that bothered either. I also think the idea that the Xbox360 CPU and the Cell PPC core are very similiar or the same will be played down by all those involved.

 

[Ragemare]

and maybe vice versa... essentially STI and eventually MS and Nintendo CPU development funds, pay for broader application use, diversification and streamlining of the PPC ISA. Since IBM owned the core technology, it was essentially R&D for free... to the point where IBM didnt need Apple's market to be the base market for their chips. By volume the sales of PS3, X360 and hopefully Revolution will tally in the hundreds of millions over the next six years... something Apple could only dream about.

In the end IBM above all wins, cause their core IP gets used, paid for, and re-engineered to suit the markets they always wanted to tap anyway. Everyone gets snookered and IBM is a rose and a windfall.

Yes I guess Microsoft and Nintendo would probably like to have the PPC game Core all to themselves as well. On the other hand it costs less to contribute to the creation of a core than pretty much create it yourself. The alternative for MS would have probably been to buy a small CPU development company and get them to do it or to invest alot of money in one.

 

[SedentaryJourney]

You've completely missed the point. Taking a licensed MIPS core and tacking on VUs and making it work isn't rocket science.

No, it's the mindnumbingly simple work of oafs. Is that what you want to hear?

Heck even SEGA's engineering department could take a CPU and tack on a coprocessor.

Good for them. Your point?

 

[PC-Engine]

No, it's the mindnumbingly simple work of oafs. Is that what you want to hear?
Good for them. Your point?

Read point #1.

 

[SedentaryJourney]

Actually your point would be more akin to: If Sega can do it, it can't be that hard.