Not another Intel vs. AMD Debate!? (This Time, It's About Video) - Being quick to sue does pay off

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1. Intel is very quick to defend it's technology and ensure that cheap components - like cheap unbranded motherboards for Intel CPUs - don't damage their reputation. Motherboard chipsets are crucial to the performance of a motherboard. For a long while Intel guarded this market jealously. They wouldn't allow other players to manufacture chipsets for motherboards that took Intel processors. While you could get motherboards for AMD processors that had AMD, SiS, Via or ALi chipsets the only motherboards you could get for Intel processors were ones with Intel chipsets on them. For the manufacturer of video editing products this does make life easier in that it has only one chipset to ensure compatibility with. But it wasn't just chipsets. For a while Intel went down the RDRAM (RIMMS) route. This special RAM was the only type of RAM you could use with their boards (not applicable anymore). This gave Intel a lot more control over the quality and compatibility of the P4 platform.
   
   By contrast any old RAM worked in AMD based machines. As stated above manufacturers of chipsets for AMD motherboards were a dime a dozen. It wasn't long before there were major problems in the AMD camp. Earlier Via chipset motherboards had problems with USB and many USB devices wouldn't work with them. Several SiS and ALi chipset motherboards had problems with graphics. There were numerous other problems including with mid range video editing cards and software.
   
   
2. Intel ran a tight ship as to what was authorized/licensed for use with their processors. That stability -- and reputation for stability -- served the company well, and consolidated its lead in the video editing market (while AMD was making roads in the cheap-but-cheerful and hard-core-gamer markets). Many card manufacturers had deals with Intel that allowed them advance access to new Intel technologies (so they could plan/build/test new products of their own).
   
   
3. Intel has the lion's share of the PC market. It has an even larger share of the video editing market. So if you are developing a new video editing card it's logical to design it with your main market in mind. That' why many video CODECs and editing software applications are optimized for Intel processors. This makes a dramatic difference to encoding speeds.
   
   Developing new video editing products is largely a numbers game. Were you a company, you'd have to invest a lot of time and money into R&D, and then have to get all of that back before you make any profit. Let's say that after several months of hard graft you designed a new video editing card. It works fine in your labs but it's got to do more than that, it's got to work with the myriad of weird and wonderful products out in the real world. Computer users -- those finicky and fickle folks -- want choice. They want to be able to upgrade their machines. So you need to do some extensive testing and validation in-house (which is an expensive affair). Assume you've got to test and tweak the product to work with both Intel and AMD based systems. That virtually doubles the development costs. And if AMD will then account for only a small fraction of your sales you will be losing money on the dev costs incurred in clearing it for use on that platform. Is it actually worth the effort? It's hard to blame manufacturers for taking the easy route out and posting their recommended specs as being "Intel only."

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