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Old 09-10-02, 08:00 AM   #26
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 6
Default in response to nihongaeri...

Thanks, nihongaeri, for your sober and informative post. No, I had not read your translation of the article - it is the first link I have seen. But I have read it now.

Yes, it is true that the translated text makes no claim to "insider information", and if that was what the Inquirer referred to, it would indeed be a fabrication. And fabrications, as opposed to rumours and unverified/unverifiable information, are worse than useless - they are misdirecting.

However, not all of the article has been translated, and the Inquirer has posted an at least partial reply to your mail here (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5327) where they point out that, (quote): "The information we referred to was in a graphic of a roadmap."

The graphic - including, I note, the comment box to the NV30 launch - is still untranslated, so I cannot verify the truth of this (and no, I do not read Japanese, unfortunately). But I would very much like to know what it says.

However, even with the untranslated graphic, I still think that the thrust of the article is correct. If you move back a step and just look at the Japanese article linked to in the Inquirer, it seems to me that the graphics (the time-table) is the actual item that the Inquirer refers to. At least that is how I understood the piece in the Inquirer when I read it first. The graphic table in the Japanese article contains verified and unverified nVidia GPU schedules, and the unverified bits could certainly be drawn from "insiders" - indeed, that would usually be the case with such. And the information it contains concerning the NV30 certainly does seem to indicate that the launch may - for all practical purposes (which is the purpose of actually getting it to the consumers in time) - miss the yule-tide. It is hovering right there at the very end of 2002, and that does makes it look improbable that we will be able to see it in actual graphics boards in time. So seen in this light, yes, then the Japanese article does indeed contain "insider information" that indicates that I may not be able to buy a graphics board with the new chip until january.

Personally I would have preferred the Inquirer to refer to a "late december" launch rather than a "first quarter 2003 launch". That bit I do find misleading - unless the note in the graphic clears this up. This could all very well depend on how you read and understand the schedule graphic however. There is a significant difference between launching a technology and launching finished board products. And they do state - in the very next paragraph - that (quote):

"But we still think the company is on target for the margins of Q4 and believe Nvidia will show off the NV30 at the Comdex jamboree in the US this year, to a massive roll of publicity."

Now, having said all that, I still think it is disappointing that they seem to have made no effort to point this out to you. I would have expected them to do that. So in this respect, yes, I agree with you. They did, however, respond to a correspondance they had with a Mr. Craig, saying that the information they referred to was in the graphics not in the text.
rmannstaedt is offline   Reply With Quote