First things first; I would like to raise a glass of Ice-Tea to Kelt Reeves (Kelt doesn't drink alcohol), president of Falcon Northwest, for speaking his mind at GD Hardware. Many say that Kyle Bennett from [H]ardOCP flew off the handle - but the majority of us hold him in high regard - because when he talks, people listen, and he's not afraid to take anyone to task.
I nabbed this graphic from ATi's website. I figured it was mildly ironic.
I am a reasonable person. I always look at new ideas and new products with an open mind. When a vendor makes a mistake, I will try to help overcome the issue - when a vendor continues to make mistakes that affect my business and my customers - then I'm going to call them on it. ATi has made plenty of mistakes - and up until now I've remained quiet trying to get things back in order.
Even though ATi quietly removed us as a launch partner for x1000 series, I am happy to say that this is actually a good thing, seeing as we never saw a card. We can choose to receive allocation from various board partners regardless, though no one has confirmed stock yet - it could be any day.
Regardless of this messed up situation, I am happy to report that ATi did call me yesterday, and I spoke with the director of channel sales. I wasn't sure what to make of the conversation because I'm still not sure what "working together" really means with ATi. Hopefully they will help re-define that again.
I also spoke with someone who I have always held in high regard no matter what the situation, Toshiyuki Okumura. This guy is fantastic, he truly is a diamond in the rough. I expressed my frustrations to Toshi and he handled it well. ATi is lucky to have him as an employee, I've always said this about him.
Will they come around? Will ATi change the way they do business? Who knows, but this industry needs the competition to keep everyone in check. It's never a good thing when a company pulls a "Paper Tiger" just before an earnings report - and at first glance it would seem that this happened, intentional or not. ATi you MUST change the way you do business - don't just ignore us - CHANGE - before it's too late!
I'm willing to start with a clean slate again, and I look forward to your follow-up call - you have my 411.
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7 blogger comments:
Well, I would have liked to have heard better news than that.
I believe it's very admirable of you to have kept this quiet so long, considering the anticipation that you must have seen all over the mutthaboards.
Now the question is: Is there any hope for a x1800XT X-Fire based system to launch by the holiday season? There's some great technology in that card, and it would be a great thing to keep ATI from folding on us.
I hated to see 3dfx get knocked out, as I always have believed that competition brings out the best in people. Hopefully ATI is not trotting down the same path.
Everyone is crying saying that ATI let them down, hell man they missed a deadline. Things like that happen in industry - it's what makes products better in the end. Now everone is swinging their hammer and saying ATI is dead, wounded perhaps but far from dead. It's the people that keep harping on the downside that could hurt a good company even more than it already is so I wish they would all just shutup.
I don't know too much concerning the specific functions of graphics cards, but [H]ardocp put up an interesting article concerning the lack of "Vertex texture fetch" in the X1000(+) series of graphics cards. Unfortunately, there is no real world application for this at the moment, but concern arises from the future use of this particular function. It may be a necessity to a variaty of programers and designers. Nvidia's 5200FX was the first graphics card I bought, and it was slightly dissapointing. The 9800 was my second and current graphics card, and I was highly satisfied by it. Now that we have a new generation, and an upgrade is required, ATI's paper releases and "Shader Model 3.0 Done Right" are not enough to turn me away from Nvidia's appealing lineup...available at stores with results.
Have fun Rahul, sounds like this is keeping you really busy at Voodoo. Maybe it's about time I bought a Voodoo...or the case :P
well normally I wouldn't comment but I remember ATi saying that shader 3 had no impact and was a waste of time, sli was a was waste of time, or when Nvidia added adtive shading you didn't even notice till people started taking screenies and blowing them up to 10x the size, really anytime Nvidia came out with something new and cool ATi had no idea how to add to their cards which they now do that they have figured ut how to do it, it is the beswt thing since sliced bread...
oh and ATi did not miss a deadline they did a paper launch, which means they said it is ready but no one has the cards, so either they are not ready and they should have moved the date back or they released a card that will never get into gamers hands because they are over clocked eng samples that would never make any direct profit as they cost too much to make but a marketing tool they an now say they support the nice effects and and sm3 as well claim they have a faster card becuse who is going to prove them wrong if there are no cards to test?
Well said, makes me wonder if ATI is in the business of selling stock or actual product, however it looks like you are trying to work things out and I think that's admirable considering the circumstances.
by the time you can easily purchase two X1800XTs and a Cross Fire motherboard(If ever)and I mean with no hassle,there would be ATi's next highend card just around the corner.X1800XT has good performance but it's too little (in quantity)too late.same applies to Xfire.
What the latter said. Perception is everthing. ATI did not project the right images to be perceived on this "launch."
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