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Wireless Networking AMD Hardware

AMD Papers Over Free Wi-Fi Network Builders 221

Posted by timothy from the still-sounds-like-a-great-idea dept.
Glenn Fleishman writes "It's been widely reported in the last week that AMD, Intel's processor competitor, was launching a free hotspot network. It's come out, in reporting we just posted at Wi-Fi Networking News, that AMD has built this network by calling existing free hotspots and asking if they'd put stickers in their window. This might be fine: stickers and the label "AMD HotSpot" in exchange for promotion. However, in Austin several local wireless activists say that AMD has put their hotspot decals up in stores without the stores' permission, including at locations operated and supported by Austin Wireless City and Austin Unleashed. Guerrilla marketing gone overzealous? Or an attempt to seize the credit without paying for it?"
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AMD Papers Over Free Wi-Fi Network Builders More

AMD Papers Over Free Wi-Fi Network Builders

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  • Does this make them... (Score:4, Funny)

    by craenor ( 623901 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:14PM (#8640210) Homepage
    'Hot' Hotspots?

  • Hrm. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Swiping free advertising? Doesn't seem like something a major company would do, especially considering this must cost AMD peanuts ....

  • Did AMD reps put them up? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by filekutter ( 617285 ) <filekutter0&lycos,com> on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:16PM (#8640227) Journal
    Or does someone have the stickers? If you don't see them go up, you have no idea who actually is responsible.
    • Guerrilla marketing gone overzealous? Or an attempt to seize the credit without paying for it?

      Or just plain stupid old-style mistake?

      Not everything has to be a conspiracy...
    • "Or does someone have the stickers? If you don't see them go up, you have no idea who actually is responsible."

      If this story were about Microsoft, would this question be asked?
      • "Or does someone have the stickers? If you don't see them go up, you have no idea who actually is responsible."

        If this story were about Microsoft, would this question be asked?

        Nope, because it would be us evil Linux users who were abusing the stickers.

  • old news guys (Score:5, Informative)

    by ruiner5000 ( 241452 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:16PM (#8640228) Homepage
    Hey, didn't I post news about this at AMDZone [amdzone.com] a month ago? :) Here is an e-mail I got back on the list after making note of it. Our meeting is tonight. I contacted AMD, and have not heard more from them yet.

    If I catch em I will Hit em with whatever is handy or my fists which are
    deadly weepons.

    That just sucks.

    *******8 wrote:

    >It is a scam; the AMD guy has been going by my Hotspots and "dropping
    >off" or just sticking the stickers up. It really pisses me off. AFAIK
    >they have no hotspots of their own, they are just stealing others
    >thunder. If the person dropping off these stickers monitors this list,
    >I highly recommend you stop. If I catch you, I will sue you. I like
    >AMD, and I hope this is not a corporate policy, just a misguided
    >marketer.
    >
    >Z
    >
    >-----Original Message-----
    >From: Chris Tom [mailto:christomscrewyouspambots@screwyouspambotsa lumni.utexas.net]
    >Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 10:25 AM
    >To: austinwirelessscrewyouspambots@spamlists.marlabs.c om
    >Subject: [AWN] Free AMD WiFi?
    >
    >Hey guys,
    >
    >I ate at the Far West El Arroyo last night, and they now have AMD
    >branded WiFi. I've not heard of such a program from AMD before, and I
    >know that location has had WiFi in the past. Has anyone else seen
    >these around? There were a couple of official AMD signs posted up. I
    >was at the 5th Street location last week and I didn't see any
    >indication of AMD being involved with their connection.
    >
    >Thanks,
    >
    >Chris Tom
    >AMDZone.com
    >TXGF.com
    >Austinbands.net
    >
    >
    >
    >---
    >Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
    >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
    >Version: 6.0.594 / Virus Database: 377 - Release Date: 2/24/2004
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >

    • Re:old news guys (Score:5, Informative)

      by eggboard ( 315140 ) * on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:24PM (#8640315) Homepage
      I found your post in researching this story, and I give you full credit for having posted something about it so early. However, we talked to about 15 people for this article by phone and email, and made sure they were willing to go on the record with specific details.

      You get credit for the scoop!

      • Re:old news guys (Score:3, Informative)

        by ruiner5000 ( 241452 )
        You should have called me. Not only am I from Austin, I live in Austin, I've been in the wireless group for coming up on two years, and I've run AMDZone for almost 6. Put me on the contact list next time. No one else can get info from the group, AMD, and the locations face to face.
      • I was unable to find the orginal (~ feb 22) post on amdzone, so I was unable to judge how relevant or professional it was. Can anyone post a link to it?
        • Chris said in email that he's been migrating servers so that content is offline at the moment. I have no doubt that he did break the story--it's too bad it didn't get picked up then. I wound up reporting about it in part because I was contacted by some folks in Austin (quoted in the story) who were concerned that AMD hadn't responded to them. Chris is part of the Austin Wireless group.
    • >---
      >Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
      >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
      >Version: 6.0.594 / Virus Database: 377 - Release Date: 2/24/2004

      Whoa. I haven't seen that in any emails before. Unless I misunderstand completely, that's really dumb. Why can't that "certification" be forged? Why would you want to create a brand that would be used to brand viruses?

      • Re:old news guys [OT] (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Cecil ( 37810 )
        You misunderstand completely. The only reason for that tagline is to advertise the anti-virus software. It would be retarded to filter your mail on such a silly criteria, and everyone knows it. It's an advertisement, just as much as the hotmail advertisement in my sig. No different.

        Why would a virus BOTHER to forge the certification? Do you see many spammers forging hotmail advertisements at the bottom of their messages when they have hotmail return addresses (but are clearly spamming through an open relay

  • Kinda reminds me of... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:17PM (#8640239) Journal

    This kind of reminds me of the Microsoft butterfly campaign [nydailynews.com] in NYC. How much do you wanna bet this was the clueful idea of some champ in marketing? When will they learn?

  • Talk about... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ironclad2 ( 697456 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:18PM (#8640245)
    ...sticking it to the competition.

  • Hmmm.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by talieos ( 673224 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:18PM (#8640247)
    Better than seeing Intel(r) Inside on every business.
    • On the other hand, Intel actually *is* inside most businesses, however fortunately or unfortunately.

      I'm still trying to figure out what AMD has to do with Wifi.
    • Heh.... That reminds me of something. Years ago, I worked at a small computer store that received a bunch of free Intel marketing material. We were all given "Intel Inside" tie-tacks and rectangular buttons that said "Intel Inside - Ask me about it!"

      I never did wear them while I worked there, but I hung onto them. Later, I got a job working at a shop that refurbished older Macs - so I took out the buttons and occasionally wore them there. People would give me strange looks, and say "Intel Inside? But

  • Stickers? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by writermike ( 57327 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:18PM (#8640255)
    Guerilla marketing and stickers?

    It's better with the butterfly. [siliconvalley.com]
  • AMD and Intel are both trying to claim credit for other people's hotspots? Sounds like a good deal for either of them...nice work if you can get it.

  • Guerrilla marketing is hard to control (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:19PM (#8640266)
    One of the biggest problems with "guerrilla marketing" organizations is that they're basically made up of college students working in sitations where it's hard to veryify what they actually did. I remember in 1999 walking accross the Syracuse University campus seeing several .com's URLs written on the sidewalks on the Quad. That's a no-no according to the University rules, but the .com's blamed students who had been told to put the chalk writing in high-traffic public sidewalk locations, not on private property. Students were just too dense to understand that the Quad belongs to the University, not the government, but the company wasn't helping them any by pointing that out.
  • "Guerrilla marketing gone overzealous? Or an attempt to seize the credit without paying for it?"

    Must these be mutually exclusive?
  • If you let just anyone in and put up decals, where does the blame lie?
    "We'd like you to display our logo."
    "Um, no."
    "Ok, we'll just put them in that window over there."
    "Um, ok."

  • Are they all *FREE* hotspots? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EvilStein ( 414640 ) <.ten.pbp. .ta. .maps.> on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:27PM (#8640348)
    I get really tired of trying to find a hotspot on one of several hotspot maps only to find them all cluttered with Starbucks (TWELVE within one mile of my office) and McDonalds.

    The only free hotspot I know of in the area is a coffee shop on Bush & Kearny, and I patronize the shop over others because of the free 802.11 access.
    It's nice to have, and it does bring in the business.

  • Incompatible with the open standard (Score:4, Informative)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:29PM (#8640365)
    Warchalking [warchalking.org] already exists... AMD's just a bit late attaching their logo to it.
    • I don't get it - when some 1337 h@xx0r does it its warchalking and applauded, when a company does it's somehow corporate piracy?

      How does this hurt anybody - I can see that putting the stickers up without persmission is a bad idea, but only if the business doesn't allow people to post any kind of advertising in the store. Most of the free hot spots I've been too have free weekly papers, a bulletin board with local businesses to post business cards or people to lost their lost cat posters, all sorts of free

  • Excellent (Score:5, Funny)

    by jostern ( 592519 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:31PM (#8640376) Homepage Journal
    More opportunities for me to download copyrighted music with impunity!!

  • It just goes to show guerilla marketing is bad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Travoltus ( 110240 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:31PM (#8640377) Journal
    If you want quality, reputable marketing, you don't ask people to do it for free. You need paid, trained professionals who respect the law and who know good advertising etiquette (such that it is).

  • kids (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Guerrilla marketing gone overzealous? Or an attempt to seize the credit without paying for it?" ... or some bored kids with AMD stickers

  • Hey, at least the AMD hotspots exist... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cbreaker ( 561297 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:45PM (#8640464) Journal
    Even if they are just dealing with locals to use their wifi setups, it's better then the non-existant Intel "wireless world of centrino."

    As far as I can tell, all "centrino" is is a lower speed CPU notebook with a built in 802.11 board built in.
    • I recently attended a presentation at U of I by an AMD Senior VP who, when asked, said that all that centrino was was an expensive advertising campaign. Manufacturers/Assemblers got to put the "Centrino" sticker on their product if they buy both a CPU and 802.11 chip from Intel and therefore benefit from tv ads of people setting up desks in medows. Of course, this was an AMD VP talking....
    • > As far as I can tell, all "centrino" is is a lower speed CPU notebook with a built in 802.11 board built in.

      Nonononono. Centrino gooooooooood.

      Yes, it's a lower mhz, but we all know about the mhz myth, right? What it is is a very efficient chip (much like an AMD one. Imagine that.) that runs very cool and with low power draw. (Unlike, say, a desktop P4 3.06ghz HT chip stuffed into a laptop; if you don't know why that's the dumbest idea since invading Russia in winter, you're beyond help.)

      I just got m
  • "AMD, Intel's processor competitor, was launching a free hotspot network."

    Does this mean that AMD is launching a 811.3200+ series protocol to compete with Intel?

  • Payback Time! (Score:5, Funny)

    by divide overflow ( 599608 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @08:56PM (#8640528)
    >...stickers and the label "AMD HotSpot" in exchange for promotion.

    Ok gang, it's payback time! Here's how it goes down:
    • get a bunch of those "AMD HotSpot" stickers (unused or by removing them from the windows of premises)
    • strategically stick them on your pants right over your privates
    • display them proudly like a Ralph Lauren runway model.
    That will get them the kind of publicity they don't need.

  • ridiculous. (Score:4, Informative)

    by rajmobile ( 734113 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @09:07PM (#8640592)
    I bought an Apple Airport Extreme basestation as a gift for a cafe that opened around the corner from my house last year. They had three iMacs, but no wireless, so I thought that it might help bring in some laptop-wielding customers. Went in a month ago and saw that the cafe, full of white Apple iMacs, had been branded an AMD hotspot. heh..

    • Re:ridiculous. (Score:5, Informative)

      by ruiner5000 ( 241452 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @09:22PM (#8640715) Homepage
      Even funnier is the AMD PCI-X HyperTransport bridge chip inside the PowerMac G5s, and that 802.11 wireless chip from AMD inside the Airport. Don't Apple users actually open what they buy to see what chips are in it?
      • Actually, the AMD chip is only in the Graphite base station, and it's a 486 clone hooked up to a standard Lucent WaveLAN Silver PCMCIA card. The extreme uses no such AMD chip. ;)
        • I don't know if you're talking about a different base station, but there was a story here on slashdot last year about a guy who pulled his apart. It had an AMD Au1500 [amd.com] CPU, a MIPS-compatible processor. Not x86 compatible by any stretch of the imagination :)
          • The original Apple Airport basestation was essentially the guts of a Lucent rg-1000 (which was designed by Karlnet, IIRC). This included an AMD 486 CPU, a PCMCIA bridge chip of some sort, and a Lucent/Orinoco Wavelan Silver.

            Since they were the same hardware, we had no problems running Karlnet Turbocell RG1000 firmware on them.

            The RG1000s were also a lot cheaper, but looked like arse.
    • Which cafe was this? I'd like to do some follow up (I wrote the story linked to this).
  • don't get me wrong, I love my local free hotspots,
    but I wonder if these whiny coffeeshops are paying for a 'business grade' internet connection licenced for bandwidth sharing...

  • IBM. AMD. Three letters. Any relationship? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @10:57PM (#8641344)
    Guerrilla marketing gone overzealous?

    Three words: PEACE, LOVE, and LINUX.

    Ok, that's four words. :-)

  • Employees (Score:2, Insightful)

    by baudbarf ( 451398 )
    I think an AMD rep walked into a store, and asked the guy at the counter if he could put a sticker up. The guy said yes. But the guy was just an employee, and the owner knew nothing about it.

    Later, the owner found the sticker, got mad, and complained without first asking his employees if they'd permitted the decal's application. Or, alternatively, the employee responsible decided not to fess up in order to better his chances at continued employment.

    In any case, I can't imagine an AMD guy walking into a
    • agreed.

      employees are the weakest link in a situation like this.

      i remember working for a radio station here in sri lanka [tnlradio.com] and we used to go on a "sticker jam" where we would stop vehicles on the road, or go into shops or wherever and paste promotional stickers.

      its amazing what happens when you walk in with a bag full of swag (nothing major, just a few plastic keytags, some notepads etc etc) and you spread some of it around and the emplyees would not only let you paste your stickers, but would actually h
    • Other than this being /. and all, why would a low life marketer for AMD be any different than a low life marketer for Microsoft or Apple. Marketers are asshats. They know that there's money in your pocket that rightfully belongs in theirs, and all means are valid for eliciting a transfer. Who the client is matters not.

  • So, who subsidizes hotspots? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jarich ( 733129 ) on Monday March 22, 2004 @11:52PM (#8641632) Homepage Journal
    Is AMD seriously considering subsidizing the bandwidth or just trying to build their brand?

    Did the Intel Centrino marketing push put any $$ into these spots?

    In short, can I talk my local coffee shop into making their WiFi free with either of these ploys?

  • Am I misreading this? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ahkitj ( 237143 )
    Before I start, I don't mean to start some flamebait here. To me I just get the impression that AMD are desperately trying to play catch-up with Intel's Centrino campaign, and on the cheap. (Then again, despite an official list of 'certified' hotspots [jiwire.com] on their website, Intel aren't promoting it much.) And, alas, doing it wrong.

    Again, please tell me if I've read this wrong.

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