Why does Intel support Linux?

On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 08:48, Chris Gehlker wrote:
> On Jan 13, 2004, at 12:13 AM, Joe Toon wrote:
>
> >
> > I honestly don't see how supporting Linux will be a bad thing for
> > Intel. It will provide a vehicle for Intel to gain market share for
> > servers.
>
> But they loose their near monopoly on the desktop and they actually
> have to compete for the server space on the technical merit of their
> processor.
>
---
they have a near monopoly in the server market and less so in the
desktop market. Price has been more of a factor in the desktop market
than in the server market. They ALWAYS have to compete for server space
(as you call it) on the technical merit of their processor (and chip
sets since there's more to the server market than just the processor).
---
> > The long term, with companies such as IBM (and most likely Novell)
> > porting their entire company infrastructure over to Linux could easily
> > provide the case studies necessary for other companies and individuals
> > to use Linux as their primary desktops (not to mention the catalyst to
> > get commercial software ported to Linux). Given the fact Linux CAN run
> > on different processors, I think Intel would be crazy not to ensure
> > that Linux runs BEST on their own processors (or at least very
> > competitive with other processors).
>
> I think that's going to be hard for them. The competition has a simpler
> instruction set and smaller, cooler, less power hungry chips. Spark may
> be faltering under Sun's care but Hitachi seems to be picking up the
> slack. Then there's PPC. And any new architecture that comes out of the
> woodwork. Linux doesn't care.
---
What? Microsoft can compile their code for most any processor that they
choose too. The trend is towards the new 64 bit processors and they are
feverishly working for a release.

Craig