Intel Head Recommends Apple

pboulang writes "noted in this article in the WSJ: Pressed about security by Mr. Mossberg, Mr. Otellini had a startling confession: He spends an hour a weekend removing spyware from his daughter's computer. And when further pressed about whether a mainstream computer user in search of immediate safety from security woes ought to buy Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh instead of a Wintel PC, he said, "If you want to fix it tomorrow, maybe you should buy something else.""

In other news...

[nek (534149)]

...the head of Intel visited by the Mafia, changes story next day. "I meant Windows! Windows!!" he bleats.

My Commodore 64 never got viruses

[by Anonymous Coward]

If it did, I just rebooted.

"startling confession" - Apple using Intel chips?

[guyfromindia (812078)]

I dont see this as 'startling'. It is a well know fact that Apple computers are safer than those that run Windows... The fact that Mr.Otellini said that is not 'startling' either. He is probably saying this because there are rumours that Apple may be using Intel chips... http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1819286,00.as p [eweek.com]

Re:"startling confession" - Apple using Intel chip

[RootsLINUX (854452)]

The "startling" part about it is that here we have a CEO who stated something that does nothing to help his business (on the contrary it actually hurts it) and it is the truth . Good lord, this is something to write home about folks! Mr. Gates and Mr. Balmer, are you taking notes?

Joking aside, I say more power to you Otellini. In the business world, truth is in a very short supply and it's good to see a business man who won't resort to lying, deceit, and FUD to try and boost his company's sales. *salutes*

Let's play the telephone game!

[philovivero (321158)]

Reporter: "Do you get viruses?"
Intel Guy: "Yes, yes."
Reporter: "If I want to solve the virus problem tomorrow, should I buy Apple?"
Intel Guy: "If you want to solve it tomorrow, you should buy something else."
Reporter: "Headline: Intel says to buy Apple!"
Intel Guy: "Uh. What part of 'buy something else' did you not understand?"

Slashdot guy: "Why RTFM? Making fun of the summary vs. the headline is more fun."

Maybe MS will spend their money on fighting malwar

[asscroft (610290)]

The real threat to MS is clearly malware/spyware/adware. the fact that everyone in my family who isn't a CS major has a ton of popup shit all over their computer, IE toolbars called seach assist and search buddy and bonzai search assist buddy and other such bullshit. The fact that Christmas is known as the "ad-aware, spybot S&D, Hijack This, Firefox, Thunderbird lecture circuit" time of year. The fact that people who have bought a mac are pleasantly using their computers while the rest of us are fixing, securing, patching, repairing, disinfecting and updating ours. All of these are what's killing windows. Not just nix, not just "free software" not just apple.

If MS could sick their policy people on making it fucking illegal to be a company that profits from secretly installing shit on people's computers then maybe they wouldn't have me and so many others saying " my next PC will be a mac, no question".

because it's true, my next pc will be a mac, no question.

The fact that the RIAA can get a 12 year old locked up for downloading 3 megs of a nelly song, and yet cool web search is legally allowed to fuck up every computer on the internet is sickening. And if MS wants to stay in business they have two choices.
1) hire cool web search programmers to infect the OSX
2) take a page out of the RIAA book and purchase some congressscritters and make this spyware/malware shit illegal as fuck. then find and prosecute the perps.

Something has to be done, even if that something means buying a mac (and enjoying computing once again).

Re:Linux?

[iswm (727826)]

Maybe he just prefers Apple?

We should just be glad his advocating the use of something that ISN'T Windows, not upset that he isn't advocating the use of Linux.

Re:Linux?

[vettemph (540399)]

>he needs to slap his daughter and tell her to quit.

He can slap his daughter till she falls over and the root cause of the problem will still have a blue screen. Someone should slap bill gates. That dickwad could actually fix the problem (unlike that little girl you want to slap). She is a victim in a world thats so insane but you don't see it because you are numbed up to the spyware shuffle.

Re:Linux?

[arminw (717974)]

... if she doesn't have a firewall and a virus scanner, then she needs to be slapped and told to stop doing whatever she's doing...

The Intel guy is right. I don't have a firewall other than what comes with my Mac and I have NEVER spent a nickel on anti-malware programs of any kind. A good consumer computer should be secure out of the box, like a Mac generally is. Every car comes with good locks and other anti-theft systems. Should a consumer have those install those themselves? Why can't the richest man on Earth deliver a safe, secure computing experience to people like Mr. Otellini's daughter?

If she had a Mac and did not know the admin password, she could not screw up the entire computer even if her life depended on in short, of hitting it with a hammer or throwing it out of a third floor window, ie. physically assaulting it. She might manage to mess up some of her files, but the system itself would keep running just fine.

If MS and all the other computer makers were held liable in court for their crapware, the way car makers and makers of most other CONSUMER goods are, the security problem would have been solved long ago. Of course so far, a BSOD has not resulted in the death or injury of anyone AFIK, except possibly to a few computers bashed in by irate users that just lost large amounts of hard work to a crash.

Re:Linux?

[demigod (20497)]

Why can't the richest man on Earth deliver a safe, secure computing experience to people like Mr. Otellini's daughter?

You don't get to be the richest man on Earth by giving people more for thier money.

Re:Linux?

[mrchaotica (681592)]

But you shouldn't have to install crap yourself just to keep your computer from getting owned. Especially when it's marketed to normal people, rather than IT workers!

Re:Linux?

[lukewarmfusion (726141)]

Because unless you're a reasonably tech-minded person, Linux is too hard.

My wife's grandparents have Windows XP. They called recently to ask if they should buy this new "Tiger OS" they saw on the news.

They get confused when AOL moves the "Email Photos" icon around.

They'd be fine on an Apple machine, because it's hard to screw things up. With Linux, you're automatically at a disadvantage - it's hard to NOT screw things up.

Nowadays, when they have problems I tell them to call Gateway support.

Linux is a great choice for lots of people and for lots of situations. But not for everyone.
Consider the guy's daughter in the story - he cleans spyware from her computer on a regular basis. Will she be smart enough to handle anything but the most idiot-proof OS?

Re:Linux?

[nukem996 (624036)]

Funny, my grandparents had tons of problems with Win 98 and Win XP so I put Fedora Core 3 on their computer, they havnt had a problem since. They were already using Firefox and Thunderbird so for them there really was no difference. I havnt had to come over for an emergency fix since.

Re:Linux?

[Rinikusu (28164)]

I did the same thing, except I took my parent's computer home with me to "fix" it and have yet to return it. They don't call me with computer problems anymore.

Re:Oh Reginald.... I DISAGREE!!!

[supabeast! (84658)]

That's why OS X gives those files to the root account, and will only delete them if the user has administrative access and provides a password to do it.

Re:Linux?

[Junior J. Junior III (192702)]

Mac OS X = more elegant, easier, but much more expensive.

Windows = virus and malware magnet, IP-encumbered, $$.

Linux = harder to set up, free, Free.

Doesn't establish Linux as the clear winner, but it has it's place at the table.

Re:Linux?

[John Harrison (223649)]

Did you read the article? He didn't mention Apple by name. In fact though the question was about Apple he was careful to answer in a more generic manner. It isn't clear if the question is about the OS or the hardware. Basically this is a non-story. It certainly wasn't the endorsement of Apple that the /. article makes it out to be.

No, correct

[Savage-Rabbit (308260)]

Let me see... You give the user the choice between:

1) Downloading a .dmg image that gets automounted, copying the Application to the applications folder, entering a password. Presto the Application is ready to use.
2) Weeding his/her way throught this [gentoo-wiki.com] before he/she can update/install their Applications. ...and you really think that the average user will have trouble choosing? I like LINUX as much as the next guy and I use both LINUX and OS.X alot but let me tell you that LINUX isn't ready for Joe/Jane user by a long shot. In the ease-of-use department OS.X is still lightyears ahead.

Re:Why not Linux?

[Moofie (22272)]

Wow, with users like you, it's hard to imagine how Linux got the reputation of being pretty unfriendly to work with.

Your post just makes it feel like you're giving me a big, warm hug...

Re:Linux..

[by Anonymous Coward]

Linux would be better. They get educated, participate in an open source community

Not everybody who wants a car also wants to learn to be a mechanic. Maybe they just want a car that's reliable transportation out of the box.

Re:More like this...

[nagora (177841)]

Pressed about security rackham had a startling confession: I think it's perfectly reasonable for a 20 year old platform to still be a constant battle for security and that computers should be dangerous for children to use. Gives them moral backbone or something. Also, selling lots of shitty tat means that it's magically transformed into non-shitty non-tat.

TWW

Re:hmmm!

[MrAnnoyanceToYou (654053)]

M$ deserts Intel w/ Xbox 360,

Intel deserts M$ w/ Apple processors.

Seems fair to me.

Re:Just use common sense.

[Nutria (679911)]

It doesn't matter what operating system you have. If people didn't click on random links in spam and download the latest new files without thinking, we'd have far less spyware.

That's just wrong.

"Secure" OSs just won't/can't get viruses & spyware.

Of course, that's not to say that real OSs are perfect. Worms, rootkits and trojans still must be guarded against, but it's pretty easy for a "desktop user" to do.

Re:Just use common sense.

[IntergalacticWalrus (720648)]

Unfortunately asking most non-geek people to "use common sense" does not do much. I have enough trouble explaining my family why an ad that disguises itself as a dialog box is NOT a dialog box and that they should not click them.

Re:big mistake for intel

[megalomang (217790)]

That is incredibly difficult to believe for many reasons. Let me count the ways....

1) 99% of today's software runs on x86. Nobody wants to dump all of their software and migrate to a new ISA. Why else would CPU manufacturers continue to support legacy x86 even at the cost of up to 10% of their area and power budget just to decode x86 CISC instructions to RISC u-ops
2) There is an enormous business infrastructure built around this. It would all but KILL microsoft's reputation in the business world
3) The vast majority of Microsoft's revenue is on x86 software. It would be suicide for them to "theoretically begin to endorse" a new PC architecture that a) does not have the capacity and credibility to supply the world with enough PCs (ever wondered why Dell doesn't source from AMD???), b) does not have enough software to satisfy the demand, c) doesn't even have an owner stepping up to the plate (didn't IBM just sell off its PC business to Lenovo), d) can't provide the lowest prices
4) Nature abhores a vacuum. Any number of software vendors would love to get a crack at the x86 market that Microsoft vacated. Again, this would be suicide for Microsoft.
5) Intel has plenty of internal software, drivers, development tools, etc, not to mention an absolutely enormous amount of open-source win32 software and linux software
6) Every consumer service provider and hardware vendor in the world supports WIN32 on x86. Microsoft would be starting a platform from scratch that nobody would buy because the market does not sell anything for it: a) IO devices, b) broadband/VoIP/VPN, c) all the software and games they are used to
7) Even IBM would be a fool to think they could survive without x86 platforms to install their software and services onto
8) Not to mention that what you are saying is far from original -- the market has been saying for YEARS and YEARS that Intel is doomed due to a narrow focus. And yet just last quarter, Intel reported record revenue and profit. Their stock is taking off as investors expect great future growth. More than ever before, even more than during the dot.com hayday. The continue to beat down AMD to lower market share. They have pommelled TMTA and Via into oblivion. Please tell me how lack of diversity has been hurting them. Their margins are still in the 60% range, they went through the entire dot-bomb without posting a single quarterly loss (unlike ANY other large tech company I can think of), they are the first to 30cm wafer production, first to 65nm geometry in volume
9) And they do diversify. They have revolutionized the laptop platform, all but taken over the high-performance (i.e. high-margin) PDA and portable computing marketplace. They are a market leader in NOR flash (again beating out AMD to the point where they must sell their flash devision, not the same definition of "do very well" you must be thinking of). http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20 050302net_a.htm [intel.com]
http://news.com.com/AMD+expects+flash+memory+to+hu rt+revenue/2100-1006_3-5521587.html [com.com]
They are pushing WiMAX to the market as a viable competitor to both cellular technology and cable/dsl broadband, and they are the first to bring wimax silicon to the market http://www.intel.com/ca/pressroom/2005/0418.htm [intel.com] They have a single-chip cellular GPRS baseband and high-performance application processor for entering the phone/PDA market. http://www.intel.com/design/pca/prodbref/252336.ht m [intel.com]
10) Time and time again, Intel has proven its marketing and execution genious, bringing to market products that are not necessarily the most academically superior, but certainly

AMD made a great presentation for WinHEC ex