Hell has frozen over

While it may not be nearly as exciting as when the Berlin Wall fell, it is a pretty historic day for AMD. Dell has finally crumbled under the pressure and will adopt AMD processors for its high end 4 socket servers. As you all know, Dell has been historically an all Intel shop, and really only in its first years of existence did it ever use AMD chips as a second source. Since that time Intel has offered Dell outstanding deals to stay all Intel, as well as basically handle all of the processor inventory needs of Dell. This was obviously a very good deal for Dell, as they got matching marketing dollars, first pick of new processors, and outstanding support from Intel. It hasn't always been easy for the two of them, and times have been strained before. The last time there was any significant break between the two was when AMD had first introduced their 1 GHz Athlon processor, and for the next six months supplied 90% of the 1 GHz+ market. Dell was in negotiations to create a product line based on the original Athlon, since it was beating the Coppermine based Pentium !!!'s at the time. They even went so far as to enter into negotiations with MSI to provide the motherboard that would be used. Intel gave Dell a lot of concessions at that time, and they promised that the low quantities of 1 GHz P3's would eventually end. They also promised Dell that they would get first pick of the Pentium 4's that would be showing up in the Fall of that year. So, Dell dropped the idea of an AMD based line, and kept chugging along with Intel only solutions.

Now that we are in 2006, Dell has started to see their server shares erode due to increased competition from guys like HP and Sun. Both of those manufacturers feature a wide selection of AMD server parts, and the four socket variants are selling very well in that space. There are several reasons why the Opterons are really popular there, and mainly it revolves around price, lower power requirements, non-uniform memory architecture (NUMA), native 64 bit support, and the glueless MP that HyperTransport enables. While Intel and AMD are about on even footing in many ways when considering 2 socket architectures (AMD uses HT, while Intel features a dual FSB, so neither really have a bandwidth advantage when it comes to communication between processors and the memory subsystem), the situation is drastically changed when dealing with 4 socket and 8 socket products. Scalability on the Intel side takes a pretty dramatic hit once we go beyond 2S/4P products. Things get pretty bad for Intel once 4S/8P gets thrown into the ring. A lot of the bandwidth between processors and main memory is taken up by the cache coherency protocols, while AMD does not suffer as much due to their more comprehensive MOESI protocol, as well as the three HT links that each processor features.

Dell, throughout the years, has claimed availability as a negative for adopting AMD products, and they were very right in saying so. Until this Spring, AMD only had one Fab producing CPU's, and at the beginning of this year they were selling nearly every good die that came off the line. They simply didn't have the production capacity to fulfill orders from a company the size of Dell. Now that Fab 36 is ramping up, AMD now has a lot more manufacturing flexibility. While Dell will not officially release a AMD product until late this year, they will start stocking up on processors and enable the line to become functional so Dell can have a full blown release. This should mean some nice extra income for the next two quarters until Dell officially unveils the line and starts selling product.

It is interesting that Dell jumped in now, and I think another enabling factor is that Dell is pretty much all DDR-2 now. While current Opterons are all DDR-1, this July we are supposed to see the introduction of the Socket F Opterons. These will be 1207 pin Revision F chips, and it seems very likely that the extra pins could mean expanded HyperTransport links between the processors (16/16 links moving up to 32/32 links). This will give the Opterons a lot more bandwidth to communicate with each other (if in fact true). These chips will also support DDR-2 for server configurations, which will be a definite plus for Dell. AMD is not shirking away from Woodcrest this Summer, and I think that the answers that AMD will provide to this new architecture will be interesting to say the least. Dell is a big win for AMD and their server level aspirations. While Dell will not likely release lower level products anytime soon, AMD could win Dell over as a customer by continuing to support the company well, and produce quality processors that can address multiple markets.

“Thank you fans” – NHL Propaganda

Toronto Sun's Al Strachan recently reported of several teams that have shown their appreciation to their fans for their support following the lockout:

- In Ottawa, management booked a children's show that evicted the Senators from the Scotiabank Place last weekend.Senators-haters, who are numerous, laughed at this, suggesting that the team didn't even have enough confidence in its ability to expect to advance to the second round.Of course it did. But Dora the Explorer is a high-revenue production, and kids can hardly be expected to come out on a school day.

So the Senators were shunted aside. After last Friday's debacle they wanted nothing more than to get back on the ice as soon as possible. But because of Dora, they had to wait until Monday. When they lost again.

- In Carolina, the Hurricanes have instituted a process that in a less fan-friendly league, might be characterized as gouging. According to the News Observer, fans are infuriated. Seats that cost $85 this round will cost $125 next round and $180 should the team get to the Stanley Cup final. That's a 47% increase in one round and a further 44% in the next.

The newspaper quotes one season-ticket holder since 1999 as saying, "It's clearly a case of let's grab the money while it's there and next year be damned."

- According to Sports Business Journal, the Montreal Canadiens are about to close a blockbuster $240 million financing. As part of the deal, Canadiens owner George Gillett will pay himself a $72 million dividend.

- In San Jose the Sharks started their playoff series after the Colorado Avalanche had already played two games. The arena had booked wrestling and indoor-football events.

- The Nashville Predators threatened to black out Game 5 of their playoff series against the San Jose Sharks if fans didn't buy more seats. A deadline of two days prior to the game was imposed.

The backlash was considerable (or as considerable as a hockey backlash could be expected to be in Nashville), and the team relented after fans coughed up for most of the seats, leaving about 1,100 empty.

- The Minnesota Wild has never had an unsold seat in its existence and consistently has one of the league's lowest payrolls. It has made the playoffs once. Yet the Wild announced that it will be raising prices on every ticket next season.

- In Florida, where the Panthers didn't make the playoffs, the team had to be a bit more creative. It normally charges $15 for parking ($10 for season-ticket holders). As a result, fans took to parking across the street at a large shopping mall which encouraged the practice, and walking to the games.

The Panthers announced that they intend to build a fence around their facility so that fans who walk onto the premises can be charged $5 (for starters).

There are many other examples of the manner in which the NHL is proving that the lockout was "for the fans."

Forgive me while I feign surprise.
So much for the NHL being "all for fans", and "reduced ticket prices permanently"…. Bettman and the owners lied.
Somehow people are acting shocked by this, after the bought into Gary Bettman's claims during the lockout.

Remember how those owners blamed the players for all their woes? How they insisted it was the players high salaries that were the reason ticket prices kept going up?
A like of course.
Ask the fans of the Hurricanes, Predators, Panthers and Wild if they're feeling the love from their team's ownership.

Do you think those owners who own their arenas (which would be almost all of them) really put their hockey teams ahead of other, potentially more lucrative, revenue generators?
For that matter, how long do you think those reduced ticket prices many NHL teams introduced for this season will stay that way?
Oh, but the owners need to recoup those losses from missing the season because of those mean greedy players, right?
Wrong!
The NHL and the team owners sold the lockout to hockey fans as the only way to save the NHL product. Same with the CBA. Fans were promised a more affordable product because salaries were capped.

What Strachan noted above is only the beginning, NHL fans. Get used to more gouging when it comes to tickets, concessions, parking or anything else that can be squeezed out of you.
The NHL had "Thank You, Fans!" painted on the ice surfaces of the arenas, and rightfully so, after all, without the hockey-starved NHL fans turning out in record numbers (especially in Canada), the NHL wouldn't have seen its revenues for this season bounce up to close to $2.1 billion, slightly below pre-lockout levels.

You should be thanked, NHL fans. You came out to support a product that was taken away from you by greedy men who only care about you when you pass through the turnstiles of their arenas.
Most of you bought into what the NHL front office and the team owners told you about the lockout being the players fault. You honestly believed the cost of attending an NHL game would be more affordable with a salary cap.
Your money is what makes the players millionaires and the owners billionaires. You could've told these guys to go pound sand after the lockout, but you didn't, you came back, willingly and excitedly.

You did that out of blind, passionate love for your favourite professional sport, not out of stupidity.
But your love is unrequited.
The owners may be saying, "Thank you, fans", but most of them are really thinking, "Thank you, suckers".

And for those that bought into the NHL's propaganda about the cap being so friendly to low revenue teams…. guess again.
The cap is going up, way up, and it will continue to do so. It looks like it'll be roughly 45-48M next season, and I wouldn't bet on it staying at that level for long.
Some have already begun to complain, only a year after they were saying they "won it for the fans". It is actually worse for them this time as the salary floor is also going to continue to go up as well. And at least under the old CBA they could hold on to their stars until they were 31, now they are going to be gone at 25 with the lowered age for free agency.

The experts believed the league won the CBA battles in 1995 just like they thought they won them in 2005, but history has shown the players ran right over the owners a decade ago and history will prove the players won this round too.

In the battle of millionares versus billionares, did anybody really think the fans were truly being considered? The only thing the NHL has done "for the fans" is give them a middle finger, laughing as they do so.

Calgary- More on their early exit

Calgary's problem was identified months ago: They didn't replace Craig Conroy. And in the playoffs, nobody in the middle ranks turned into Marty Gelinas at a key moment.
Calgary's problem is that their offence was complete and utter garbage. A joke, almost on par with the horror that was the Oilers goaltending. Of course, Edmonton has a GM who went out and fixed that at the deadline. (Albeit by massively and ridiculously overpaying for average goaltending)

The Conroy thing: Unless Craig Conroy was the risen Christ, it's more than that. Jarome Iginla posted less points in a season when scoring jumped significantly, everyone else saw their numbers rise quite a bit. Iginla didn't even manage the same point totals which would have been disappointing in itself.

Sutter's mantra was that as long as the Flames scored one more goal they were ok.

His failure was to recognize that the Flames truly captured lightning in a bottle in 2004 – they regularly got that extra goal but when your offence is spread so very very thin (and it was moreso this year) then at some point you're just not going to get it. All it takes is a few bad bounces in a game.

Bizarre sandels

Exactly why would someone buy those?
I'm sorry, but that's just bizarre. I cannot even begin to comprehend what was going though the head of the designer of those.

Poor Choice of Name

La Barfumeria heads for NYC
Spanish niche perfumery La Barfumeria hopes to open a branch in New York City, US by the end of the year, its founder Giselle Richardson, who is herself American, has revealed. The store, opened in 2003 in the basement of fashion store La Rosa Que No Muere in Madrid, is intended to be a meeting place for amateurs of fragrance. The store has Spanish exclusivity for the Escentric Molecules brand and the Fracas de Robert Piguet fragrance. It also offers scents from some 20 other niche brands.

What were they thinking? Sounds like a normal enough store, but can you imagine calling a friend and saying "Meet me at La Barfumeria?" They'd probably think you were using some new code for the bathroom.

Calgary… Defence is NOT the problem.

Bob McKenzie might want to expand on his reasons as to why he's not a GM (Re: a Discussion with regards to it on HockeysFuture). He looks at the Flames game from Wednesday, pays lip service to the fact that this was an abysmal offensive team and then concludes that it's the defence at fault. Bob? Calgary scored all of one goal in their last two games in that series. They scored six in the last four. I'm not sure why TSN has such trouble calibrating their instruments when it comes to the grading of Flames defencemen-if you listen to Pierre McGuire (who I'd really like to start referring to as "Molly Johnston"…too obscure?), you'd think that Dion Phaneuf is Bobby Orr when he's actually a 3/4 defenceman and PP specialist. Calgary's problem was not the play of their depth defencemen.

It's easy to point to the red numbers posted by Phaneuf and Hamrlik and conclude that they were at fault in the series. It seems a bit unfair to me though. The Flames forwards scored exactly…1 goals when Phaneuf was on the ice in this series, a total that Phaneuf was able to match on his own. Don't blame Phaneuf and Hamrlik-look at the Flames embarassing offence.Phaneuf/Hamrlik may have had a relatively poor series but they were not horrible.

Calgary's problem was one thing-they have no offence.
If not for a horrible start from Zherdev, and Nash being injured they would have been 28th in the NHL in offence.
Yes, 28th.

No team in the entire history of the NHL has made it to the playoffs with an offence ranked 28th or worse in the NHL before Calgary this season.
And you want to blame their DEFENCE?

Their stacked on defence.
An excellent if inconsistent young rookie in Phaneuf, one of the best defensive D-Man in the NHL in Regehr, a very good top 4 defensive D-Man in Warrener, a physically imposing #6-7 guy in Marchment, a horendously over-rated Ference but one who had a career year and looked like a top 4 guy, a #2-3 D-Man in Leopold, a #2 D-Man in Hamrlik who also had arguably the best season of his career, and a #5-6 guy in Hulse.

Add one of the top 5 goalies in the NHL in Kipper to that… and he wants to blame their DEFENCE?

Has he looked at their offence lately?
You've heard of a one line team before? Well Calgary is a one-person team.
They have a franchise forward in Iginla but he had a horrible season by his standards. He posted only 67Pts in a full 82 game schedule and this in a year when scoring jumped by almost 1.4Goals/game across the league.
After that they have…. a ton of defence first grinders.
Langkow a #2-3 Center that had poor chemistry with Iginla, a rapidly aging Tony Amonte whose little more then a an adequate 3rd liner Winger at this point, an extremely talented but incredible inconsistent and Huselius with his usual dubious work ethic and a decent young player in Kobasew who has an off-chance of becoming a 2nd liner in a few years.
This is their offence.

When you have the worst offence of any playoff team in NHL history, one of the 3 best Defence's in the NHL and a top tier goaltender as well as one of the better Coaches in the NHL your problem isn't defence.

Calgary basically has to win every game 1-0 or 2-1 in order to win. When your winning every game by 1 goal, then an off night by one of your D-Man or goalie, or a top forward can kill you. A few bad bounces and you've lost.
Calgary outperformed their pythagorean record by a huge margin (the 2nd most in the NHL), their GF/GA over the season was wholly unspectacular.

Calgar has one problem.
Offence.

I ranted about the stupidity of their adding more defence during the off-season and largely neglecting the offence… and it's come back to haunt them.
Anaheim is no elite team, their lucky to be in the playoffs.
Right now they should be kissing Beauchemin, Neidermayer, and Selanne as well as being thankful Calgary apparently belives that you can win in hockey without actually scoring any goals.

Really… how can anyone think defence is the problem?
Their only top tier forward was getting routinely ripped apart for his performance the majority of the season whilst they have a Vezina nominee goalie and a Defence everyone on the planet admires.

I don't care how good you are at preventing goals, you can't win if you don't score any.
Add a good Center and a decent secondary forward or two, plus a rebound season from Iginla and the Flames are one of the top Cup Contenders.
Anything else and they'll need a perfect performace from Kipper and an already elite defence to largely over-perform again for them to have any hope of making a long playoff run.

Calgary is two parts fantastic, and one part abysmal.
Thankfully it's much easier to improve a team that's great in one area and poor in another then it is to improve a team that's good in both respects.
Their right on the verge of being one of the top 2-3 teams in the NHL…. all they need in some offensive help.
Now if only the management will realize that adding more defence probably isn't going to help.