Intel Kills IDF, Will Shift To More Focused Events

[scolaner]

Farewell, IDF. Hello...a bunch of smaller and more focused events, probably.


Intel Kills IDF, Will Shift To More Focused Events : Read more

 

[bit_user]

semiaccurate has a far less charitable take on this decision:

http://semiaccurate.com/2017/04/17/intel-mercy-kills-idf/

I know Tom's has to toe the line or risk being blacklisted by Intel, but I think SA's interpretation much more closely matches the squeeze that Intel has clearly been putting on all sorts of technical details for both press and developers.

 

[scolaner]

semiaccurate has a far less charitable take on this decision:

http://semiaccurate.com/2017/04/17/intel-mercy-kills-idf/

I know Tom's has to toe the line or risk being blacklisted by Intel, but I think SA's interpretation much more closely matches the squeeze that Intel has clearly been putting on all sorts of technical details for both press and developers.

Wait what? Who says we need to toe any lines with anyone? I don't understand that part of your comment.

In any case, I thoroughly enjoy Charlie in person and in print. And I'm not disputing anything he said, but he leveled some pretty severe accusations there. I'm sure he can back some or most of it up at least anecdotally, but...jeepers.

Also, Intel is by no means alone in withholding important information at briefings. For that matter, we increasingly see the same problem in press releases. Anymore, we're always bugging companies for information they used to readily include--specs (or full specs), pricing, availability, etc. It's kind of an industry-wide problem, frankly. (Personally, I'm on at least a couple of "that guy is annoying" lists for...asking questions about products I'm being shown or briefed on.)

 

[tomsyopmail]

As bad a microsoft was (they are a predator, make no mistake) whenever in the past they didn't feel threatened by anyone, they did the right thing. Now the right thing doesn't even enter into the thought process of this inhuman corporation regardless of the good will they might endear otherwise.

 

[bit_user]

Wait what? Who says we need to toe any lines with anyone? I don't understand that part of your comment.

Look at SA's article and then read yours. You guys mentioned none of the grievances cited by SA (whom I recognize is quite biased, FWIW, but I still think they're citing real issues). Your article seems to completely accept Intel PR's spin around this. Is SA even correct about attendance dropping? That would be a pretty noteworthy & telling detail. You could also try interviewing a few former attendees. I'm just saying it'd be possible to at least look at this from their angle and see whether it's supportable.

So, while I do apologize for being quite so nakedly cynical, perhaps you can at least see my reasoning.

(Personally, I'm on at least a couple of "that guy is annoying" lists for...asking questions about products I'm being shown or briefed on.)

And I thank you for your efforts. Even assuming you did have to temper your criticism of certain industry behemoths, I wouldn't consider it an unreasonable tradeoff for the reporting it enables you to do.

I also appreciate the quality of editing & authorship you guys put into your articles. Sometimes, SA gets on quite a screed and I basically end up skimming huge chunks. And that's just of what I can see on this side of their pay wall.

 

[bit_user]

As bad a microsoft was (they are a predator, make no mistake) whenever in the past they didn't feel threatened by anyone, they did the right thing.

You mean in terms of developer communications? If so, I won't try to dispute that, but they've had a long history of anti-competitive practices that flourished even during their boom years.

As far as it concerns developers, I don't know if the term "embrace and extend" was actually coined by Microsoft, but that's sure the context in which I learned about it.

 

[scolaner]

Wait what? Who says we need to toe any lines with anyone? I don't understand that part of your comment.

Look at SA's article and then read yours. You guys mentioned none of the grievances cited by SA (whom I recognize is quite biased, FWIW, but I still think they're citing real issues). Your article seems to completely accept Intel PR's spin around this. Is SA even correct about attendance dropping? That would be a pretty noteworthy & telling detail. You could also try interviewing a few former attendees. I'm just saying it'd be possible to at least look at this from their angle and see whether it's supportable.

So, while I do apologize for being quite so nakedly cynical, perhaps you can at least see my reasoning.

(Personally, I'm on at least a couple of "that guy is annoying" lists for...asking questions about products I'm being shown or briefed on.)

And I thank you for your efforts. Even assuming you did have to temper your criticism of certain industry behemoths, I wouldn't consider it an unreasonable tradeoff for the reporting it enables you to do.

I also appreciate the quality of editing & authorship you guys put into your articles. Sometimes, SA gets on quite a screed and I basically end up skimming huge chunks. And that's just of what I can see on this side of their pay wall.

No apologies necessary, of course.

I'm not sure that those grievances are pertinent to this piece of news. Not everything has to be a big conspiracy. Was attendance dropping? Maybe. So what? If I was running a tradeshow and attendance was dropping, I would change tactics. Which is what Intel is doing. That's just common sense. And as I mentioned, I think it makes sense to change things up regarding IDF. I wrote: "Simply put, the three-day IDF event has become simultaneously too unwieldy and too unfocused to properly serve its role."

It seems his primary complaint is the poor communication and lack of details. But that's entirely an institutional problem that won't be solved by keeping IDF or not keeping IDF. So...I fail to see how it's pertinent to this piece of news?

Charlie is right, though, that there has been a dearth of details at many of these events. In fact, if I'm remembering the year correctly, it was indeed 2015 when he and I (and an Intel rep) ended up talking about that very thing at IDF that he seems most angry about, after a briefing that didn't have a lot of details.

But that's not exclusively an Intel problem, that's an industry-wide problem. So, again...I'm not sure how his complaints have all that much to do with Intel or IDF, specifically. (Further, airing grievances is just not our editorial style. I don't think it serves readers very well, generally speaking.)

Also--WE are former attendees.

 

[scolaner]

I know Tom's has to toe the line or risk being blacklisted by Intel, but I think SA's interpretation much more closely matches the squeeze that Intel has clearly been putting on all sorts of technical details for both press and developers.

Just want to quickly address this separately and be SUUUUPER clear: As editors and writers, we don't need to toe any lines for any company, ever. Our job is to serve the readers, period.

 

[scolaner]

[/quotemsg]And I thank you for your efforts. Even assuming you did have to temper your criticism of certain industry behemoths, I wouldn't consider it an unreasonable tradeoff for the reporting it enables you to do.

I also appreciate the quality of editing & authorship you guys put into your articles.[/quotemsg]

Thanks for saying that--we work very hard at producing quality content. It's not a tradeoff, though--we criticize where we feel it's appropriate and fair and beneficial to readers.

Thanks for your always insightful and expert comments!

 

[SockPuppet]

I'm just wondering when the hell Charlie Demerjian earned any sort of credibility? He's been widely regarded as a joke for as long as I can remember. It seems half the time he's playing some "AMD fanboy turned reporter" character kind of like Steven Colbert and politics.

 

[bit_user]

I'm just wondering when the hell Charlie Demerjian earned any sort of credibility? He's been widely regarded as a joke for as long as I can remember. It seems half the time he's playing some "AMD fanboy turned reporter" character kind of like Steven Colbert and politics.

Well, it's all down to the information he outs that nobody else seems to get, in quite the depth or detail.

Before they put up the paywall, it was a place developers and engineers could get a level of in-depth technical details you wouldn't find on other tech news websites. Combine that with the access they have to truly insider information, and you get a result that makes it worth putting up with all the opinion, lack of disciplined authorship, hit-or-miss humor (usually miss), and poor/non-existent editing.

I see it a bit like a blog, and a bit like talking to your uncle. In part, the bias feels like less of an issue, because it's so obvious. Even so, I think they pay credit to Intel and Nvidia when it's truly due.