How CPU makers handled Meltdown/Spectre & the consequential market implications

[ZapNZs]

So a lot of threads have discussed the technical implications, but what about the sales implications?

The way a company handles a problem can obviously increase public trust, not affect it, or decrease it. This increase in (or lack of) trust certainly has long-term sales implications with individual consumers, and it seems possible it could even affect which Makers choose what brand CPUs for their systems.

The ways that Intel, AMD, and ARM handled this was significantly different and Intel has been criticized for their choice in response. Some have argued that ARM's response was really the best approach, and I think the way that they are handling this could potentially encourage Makers to take a closer look at ARM CPUs for desktop computers. For companies debating the large R&D undertaking that would be involved in an architecture change, this might be the event that convinces them to take the plunge.

What do you think?

 

[jav6454]

All this shows is that it is never good to bet everything in a datacenter to one CPU lineup.

 

[Tech198]

Why would u look and see "who does it better" and switch to that ?

They have their own business. If makers keep changing what CPU's they use based on how responsive other makers are with issues like Spectre, they will only confuse everyone.

I think the word with ARM is 'They temporarily disable this branch"

Which mean they are just as bad as others since it's only temporarily.

The only way is patching it in software..

Or you could use "two branches" one more secure and release updates to OS to make use of this. It would be a translation so older software won't be affected.

 

[Flynnstone]

I think it will be a cash cow for Intel etc.
New i8s to replace those i7 etc

 

[maflynn]

All this shows is that it is never good to bet everything in a datacenter to one CPU lineup.

You mean you want a datacenter to house AMD, ARM, XEON and X86 CPUs?

I work on servers and that really doesn't make sense. Datacenters frequently have a business relationship with a single vendor, say Dell, or HP, and as such they purchase servers from them. Other then a few outlighter servers such as Sun running Solaris, most servers in a given datacenter are of the same platform and that makes a lot of sense, from a maintenance, support and efficiency perspective.

 

[jav6454]

You mean you want a datacenter to house AMD, ARM, XEON and X86 CPUs?

I work on servers and that really doesn't make sense. Datacenters frequently have a business relationship with a single vendor, say Dell, or HP, and as such they purchase servers from them. Other then a few outlighter servers such as Sun running Solaris, most servers in a given datacenter are of the same platform and that makes a lot of sense, from a maintenance, support and efficiency perspective.

Not exactly. As you said, having a data center with multiple CPUs is an issue. But, different datacenters in a same company on different tech does help.

Yes it helps maintenance and costs to adhere to one vendor. However, such adherence goes against the "all eggs in one basket"... something will break, and when it does, the whole system goes with it.

 

[lowendlinux]

As always when I read Linus' take I nod in agreement

https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/1/3/797

 

[Kawawolf]

Its a standard cat and mouse game. The hackers and scammers always try to stay one step ahead of the honest people before they catch on and find a way to combat the game. If another chip maker becomes popular, and the hardware is in a lot of machines, you can bet viruses/scams/backdoors will be found or created. Kind of the same reason Windows is a big target. Switching to a different chip doesn't guarantee safety of any future exploits.