FTC Sues Intel for 'Anticompetitive Tactics'

[nilepez]

They're talking about 2003-2006 when AMD had a superior product. The allegation is that Intel pressured OEMs into purchasing only Intel products.

I distinctly recall reading an article (on Anandtech, I believe) where Taiwan MB makers were unwilling to jump on A64s, because Intel had told them they would get fewer chipsets if they did.

For the period in question, I 100% believe was guilty of very shady practices that were similar to MS's practices in the 90's.

I like Intel's current CPU lineup, but that doesn't wash away their sins.

With that said, it's no clear that AMD would be in much better shape. I guess it'd really depend on whether or not they would have done a better job of transitioning off of A64.

 

[CopyCat]

I gotta say fellas. I am impressed how long you have tried to talk to this Lollipop guy Sure takes a lot of patience to write out multiple posts when someone is like that...kudos. HAHA

It sucks for AMD, even though I love my X4 955 More than that, it sucks for the industry in general I think. Things like this tend to slow innovation and competition which just means that we could be missing out on awesome stuff from both Intel and AMD but now that the damage is done even if everything changes it will be 10 years before the repairs are really made.

 

[Vaelin]

There are alot of comments along the lines that Intel was just doing what was expected by following profits.

Objectively, profit should not be viewed as the measure of company success -customer satisfaction should be. A certain level of profit needs to be maintained, but an environment that supports nothing but seeking profit is not a fun one to work/buy/live in. (Now that I read this paragraph in light of the fact that I work at a non-profit R&D/Consulting corp... it doesn't sound too objective)

Ex: You can make alot of money scamming people, that doesn't mean it is behavior you want to encourage. You can make alot of money using slave labor; again, not something we encourage.

I'm all for a free and open market, but in this case the actions of Intel stifled competition and innovation and ultimately customer satisfaction. The FTC is certainly standing on solid ground here.


I'll agree that large dominant corporations often find themselves in a position where stifling innovation and competition is good for their business -cheap and easy profit is a strong motivator. But again, the FTC is in the business of discouraging such behavior because socially/culturally we have deemed that behavior as Bad (well... at least I thought we did, both the current and last Federal Government has a poor record).

Methadras: Utilities are not monopolies everywhere in the US. Look at Texas (the country leader in 'green' power production) for example. There are certainly some municipal utilities that are run at a government level that are like monopolies but very few of those are actually profit driven (regulated power IS something that fits in this category and I assume that is what you allude to). Actually, a detailed look at the Texas power deregulation shows that consumer price over time, when normalized for the substantial increase in cost of coal/crude/natural gas, has resulted in a net savings for the power customers. But power/water/health care/schools are all largely subsidized by tax money, so it's really a different sort of game than Intel... well... unless the government decides to buy Intel too.

 

[srangara]

So Apple and Microsoft don't compete?

They compete fairly. Not nicely, but within the law. That's the part of the free market system you're missing. Marketing and Merit vs. Extortion.

In the natural scheme of things, yes, monopolies are okay. You deal with them everyday already? Utilities are monopolies, no? What is the point of being in business then? Do you think business is a charity? That it should extend a helping hand to it's competition? No. It's to crush competition, maximize profit, be #1 in your market, and capture the largest customer base possible. If you have a better idea of how to run a business I'd like to hear it. If you have a different business model I'd like to hear or see that too.

Monopolies are subject to regulation. Businesses don't need these laws. WE need them. To keep from getting screwed on price and innovation.

 

[blitzkommando]

It's not so much that AMD may or may not be better off today had Intel not pulled the rug out from under everyone, it's that due to that AMD didn't even have the opportunity to mess up, let alone succeed. There's no question AMD had superior architecture starting with the Athlon and ending when the Core 2s came around. That's a period of around six years of being the better choice for performance and costs yet their market share never went above 15%. Other x86 companies didn't even make it that far, such as Cyrix and Via is relegated to the, "Wait, what's that?" crowd even though their latest parts make Atom chips look just plain awful. The facts are that Intel squelched competition by paying off manufacturers for not using competing components which is more than just AMD, they are just the largest x86 CPU manufacturer involved. This isn't something that just cropped up overnight and slapped us all in the face. This is an investigation that could potentially lead back to as far as the I386 days, it just depends on what information is further found. At the very least it covers the period from 1999 to 2006 where, until 2005, Dell (and several other manufacturers) would refuse to touch AMD chips even after half a decade of superiority. I mean, really, did nobody find it strange that the first manufacturer to use Athlon 64s was... eMachines? Really? Most advanced CPUs on the planet at the time and they're first provided through a budget manufacturer? That seriously didn't come off as strange to people? Meanwhile all of the big names in computers brag about being 'first' with Intel's latest offerings. Quite the divergence there.

 

[Spectrum17]

In the natural scheme of things, yes, monopolies are okay. You deal with them everyday already? Utilities are monopolies, no? What is the point of being in business then? Do you think business is a charity? That it should extend a helping hand to it's competition? No. It's to crush competition, maximize profit, be #1 in your market, and capture the largest customer base possible. If you have a better idea of how to run a business I'd like to hear it. If you have a different business model I'd like to hear or see that too.

+1

A bunch of bleeding-heart liberal Polyannas here in this thread. What is the point of being in business if not to make boatloads of cash and crush the competition? Are all of you seriously naive enough not to think that every other large corporation is behaving exactly the same way? Companies already avoid paying taxes. Why shouldn't they ignore anti-monopoly laws as well?

Intel is an huge, easy target for some bureaucrats trying to make a name for themselves and advance their career, is all. Think about it: Intel already settled with AMD. Will Intel paying the US government really do anything except line the pockets of the lawyers and fat cats in Washington and hurt the computing industry in general, including consumers?

 

[Machupo]

This isn't about the current CPU environment - this case is related to the late 90's early 2000's when AMD had the superior CPU architecture, and the business practices Intel employed to keep AMD from gaining marketshare with their superior product(s).

didn't AMD and Intel just swap billions of $ to settle all oustanding suits?

actual lawyers in here, isn't this double jeopardy? Or does that only apply to cases which ended in a ruling?

 

[GishForever]

Obviously the solution is to pass more laws and enforce more regulations and spend more tax-payer money. Heck, that's the solution to all our problems!

 

[BinarySynapse]

didn't AMD and Intel just swap billions of $ to settle all oustanding suits?

actual lawyers in here, isn't this double jeopardy? Or does that only apply to cases which ended in a ruling?

double jeopardy only applies to criminal cases. What was going on between Intel and AMD is a civil case for financial restitution. The FTC (I believe) is now filing criminal charges against Intel for breaking the law.

 

[Nemesis999]

didn't AMD and Intel just swap billions of $ to settle all oustanding suits?

actual lawyers in here, isn't this double jeopardy? Or does that only apply to cases which ended in a ruling?

Private settlements don't protect you from the government. They still broke a whole bunch of laws, not to mention other victims such as Via and... uh... everyone that would have wanted a more powerful processor for a lower price?

 

[HOCP4ME]

They're talking about 2003-2006 when AMD had a superior product. The allegation is that Intel pressured OEMs into purchasing only Intel products.

I'm pretty certain Intel was, in fact, doing this. AMD had a superior product in many categories and yet very few OEMs used them.

Now, after the antitrust crap has hit the fan, many OEMs are using AMD in their budget lines, the price of low-end computers has gone down, and Intel (forced to compete fairly) has made some awesome strides in processor development. Competition FTW.

 

[srangara]

+1

A bunch of bleeding-heart liberal Polyannas here in this thread. What is the point of being in business if not to make boatloads of cash and crush the competition? Are all of you seriously naive enough not to think that every other large corporation is behaving exactly the same way? Companies already avoid paying taxes. Why shouldn't they ignore anti-monopoly laws as well?

Intel is an huge, easy target for some bureaucrats trying to make a name for themselves and advance their career, is all. Think about it: Intel already settled with AMD. Will Intel paying the US government really do anything except line the pockets of the lawyers and fat cats in Washington and hurt the computing industry in general, including consumers?

I am a capitalist. Deregulation leading to monopoly is functionally no different than communism. The only difference is in who enforces the monopoly (business or government). Neither system lets you vote on the outcome - with money or otherwise.

 

[ikarinokami]

i said earlier that denying nvidia the naphelm license was going to come back to bite them in the butt. other than market share protection, intel did not have a good reason for denying nvida a license save for not having any competition. Such a rookie mistake.

 

[F.E.A.R.]

I don't know why, but reading this pisses me off. I feel somehow "robbed". I can't imagine how those poor AMD engineers and executives felt.

 

[[RCKY] Thor]

This isn't just about AMD, but also things like denying nVidia the Nehalem license and charging more for an Atom processor when it was bought without intel's chipset so it could be used with Ion.

 

[BinarySynapse]

I'm pretty certain Intel was, in fact, doing this. AMD had a superior product in many categories and yet very few OEMs used them.

Now, after the antitrust crap has hit the fan, many OEMs are using AMD in their budget lines, the price of low-end computers has gone down, and Intel (forced to compete fairly) has made some awesome strides in processor development. Competition FTW.

Bullshit, all the OEMs (except for Dell) have had products built around a large range of AMD's products for at least a decade and a half.

Processor development takes entirely too long to be swayed by a rapidly fluctuating market.

 

[RumpleForeSkin]

I must be a "bleeding-heart liberal Polyanna" but it sure looks like Intel broke the law of the land, plain and simple.

Regardless of ones views on how the greedy profiteers in big business handle themselves, a company broke laws that were put into place to protect CONSUMERS and their right to choose with their dollar. Nobody can say whether AMD could have or have not used that extra revenue to make the "next killer CPU" but they never got the chance.

I for one am a little pleased that something is finally being done with this case, I remember reading about this back when it was first happening and was actually in the market for a dozen workstations, then it was just swept under the rug along with the M$ antitrust case ( which conveniently dissolved right when the military signed a sweeeeet deal for the use of M$ products btw)

Down with big business!

Go Little guy!

/I own and intel CPU
//I also own an AMD
///I have to say that i've always been more impressed with that AMD given how much i paid for it
////Slashies rock!

 

[finalgt]

+1

A bunch of bleeding-heart liberal Polyannas here in this thread. What is the point of being in business if not to make boatloads of cash and crush the competition? Are all of you seriously naive enough not to think that every other large corporation is behaving exactly the same way? Companies already avoid paying taxes. Why shouldn't they ignore anti-monopoly laws as well?

Intel is an huge, easy target for some bureaucrats trying to make a name for themselves and advance their career, is all. Think about it: Intel already settled with AMD. Will Intel paying the US government really do anything except line the pockets of the lawyers and fat cats in Washington and hurt the computing industry in general, including consumers?

lol..."What's done is done, so let's just move on"? Sorry, but that old adage - competition breeds innovation - is absolutely true. The Core 2 was (and still is) a beast of a processor sold at very reasonable pricepoints, and the reason it was necessary was...because Athlon 64 was kicking the living shit out of Intel for years in every conceivable performance metric: energy efficiency, power, cost/power ratio, oftentimes even in just cost alone, despite being vastly better than the Pentium 4 (and that abortion Pentium D).

If Intel actually had a better product, they wouldn't need to pay/bully retailers and chipset designers into not carrying the competition (that "word of mouth" argument I saw earlier in the thread works both ways). Monopolies thrive on stagnation, and even if that sounds super for you, it doesn't to me. I support the FTC on this one, even if it's way too little, way too late.

 

[Unperson]

Bullshit, all the OEMs (except for Dell) have had products built around a large range of AMD's products for at least a decade and a half.

Processor development takes entirely too long to be swayed by a rapidly fluctuating market.

One of Intel's tactics was to set very strict limits on which product lines could contain AMD chips, and how many chips they could sell as a % of their total sales. For instance Intel would not now allow most of the major server manufacturers to sell AMD-based servers. The AMD Opteron chips were arguably superior to Intel's Xeon chips at the time (NUMA memory architecture, HT bus, etc.) and drastically less expensive.

Because of this, the few AMD systems that appeared on the market were generally low-end low-volume machines, even while AMD had the superior product.

Here is a page with some of the reasons for the NY AG lawsuit against Intel:
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2009/nov/nov4a_09.html

 

[Unperson]

Excerpt from the page above (emphasis added):

Dell

• In 2006, Intel paid Dell almost $2 billion in “rebates,” and in two quarters of that year, rebate payments exceeded Dell’s reported net income
• From 2001 to 2006, Intel granted Dell a privileged position vis-à-vis other computer makers in return for Dell’s agreement not to market any products from Advanced Micro Devices (“AMD”) (NYSE: AMD), Intel’s major competitor
• Intel and Dell collaborated to market microprocessors and servers at prices below cost in order to deprive AMD of strategically important competitive successes

HP

• Intel threatened HP that it would derail development of a server technology on which HP’s future business depended if HP promoted products from AMD
• Intel paid HP hundreds of millions of dollars in rebates in return for HP’s agreement to cap HP’s sales of AMD-based products at 5% of its business desktop PCs
• In 2006, Intel and HP entered into an broader, company-wide agreement to pay HP $925 million to increase Intel’s shares of HP’s sales at AMD’s expense

IBM

• Intel paid IBM $130 million not to launch an AMD-based server product
• Intel threatened to pull funding for joint projects that benefited IBM if IBM marketed AMD-based server products
• Intel pressured IBM to launch another AMD-based server only on an “unbranded” basis

 

[BinarySynapse]

One of Intel's tactics was to set very strict limits on which product lines could contain AMD chips, and how many chips they could sell as a % of their total sales. For instance Intel would not now allow most of the major server manufacturers to sell AMD-based servers. The AMD Opteron chips were arguably superior to Intel's Xeon chips at the time (NUMA memory architecture, HT bus, etc.) and drastically less expensive.

Because of this, the few AMD systems that appeared on the market were generally low-end low-volume machines, even while AMD had the superior product.

Here is a page with some of the reasons for the NY AG lawsuit against Intel:
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2009/nov/nov4a_09.html

I'm not saying Intel didn't do anything wrong. I'm just saying all the "There weren't any AMD systems from OEMs" and "the only AMD systems were low end budget machiens" are bullshit. There were AMD servers, and there were AMD performance systems from these OEMs. Maybe not in the quantities that they could have been, but they did exist.


As for AMD being cheaper than Intel... I rmember paying top dollar for AMD's lowest model X2 when they came out. And those prices stayed inflated until Core 2 hit the market.

 

[SixtyWattMan]

This has been a long time coming. Hopefully Intel gets what they have coming.

 

[Void]

Intel already settled with AMD, so what business is it to anyone else now? As long as AMD settled then all these other lawsuits should just be dropped.
It was AMD that Intel wronged, everyone else is just jumping on the bandwagon.

I agree that Intel did do wrong, but they already made an agreement with AMD that AMD accepted, end of story.

 

[BinarySynapse]

Intel already settled with AMD, so what business is it to anyone else now? As long as AMD settled then all these other lawsuits should just be dropped.
It was AMD that Intel wronged, everyone else is just jumping on the bandwagon.

I agree that Intel did do wrong, but they already made an agreement with AMD that AMD accepted, end of story.

Intel still broke the law. If this were a murder case, the family of the victim can sue the person that committed the crime and later settle the case, but that doesn't get them off the hook for having killed someone.

 

[RumpleForeSkin]

unless the glove doesn't fit.....

 

[Void]

Intel still broke the law. If this were a murder case, the family of the victim can sue the person that committed the crime and later settle the case, but that doesn't get them off the hook for having killed someone.

Hell maybe we should all sue them as individuals then, cause you know, they hurt us too as consumers . I want 1.5 million cause i could have been using a better product .
Yea they broke the law, but I'm sorry it just sounds like others are just jumping on the money wagon here.

unless the glove doesn't fit.....

hahahaha, nice one.

 

[jwalk6]

This smacks of the same BS that Caldera and it's then new acquisition of DR-DOS pulled in their lawsuit against Microsoft.

It seems if you can't innovate, you sue and if the current politicos get enough campaign contributions you can even get the federal government to sue for you!

Oh, Intel threatened higher prices to OEM's if they offered AMD processors, So what, all the OEM's had to do was say screw off. Oh Intel offered cash incentives to not sell competing products. How is that any different from owner loyalty rebates when you buy a new car. Should Ford sue GM because GM offers a few grand to a lifelong Buick brand loyalist? It's really not that much of a stretch and the one's on the receiving end of such an incentive again have the power to say NO.

Software purposely biased against AMD? So go use a different compiler. For years you couldn't install a Microsoft suite without a visual basic DLL to run it. So make better software, compile it with something else and get over it.

I just see a whole lot of sour grapes and you can bet if the situation was reversed in AMD's favor you'd still see similar BS going on. I guess Intel should have sued AMD for kicking the P4's rear end along with all the magazines and blogs that lauded AMD's better product because it hurt their market share.

AMD got itself into dire straits because of bad business practices and incompetent leadership even when it's products were superior but then we live in a society where the worst and dimmest are still called "winners" Look at all those multi-million dollar bank CEO's who couldn't balance a checkbook being called "The Best and Brightest"

 

[kllrnohj]

Hell maybe we should all sue them as individuals then, cause you know, they hurt us too as consumers . I want 1.5 million cause i could have been using a better product .
Yea they broke the law, but I'm sorry it just sounds like others are just jumping on the money wagon here.

Uh, no, just no. AMD filled a civil suit against Intel and they settled. That doesn't prevent the government from prosecuting criminal charges. Just because AMD and Intel settled their civil dispute doesn't absolve Intel of criminal wrongdoings. I applaud the FTC (and the EU, etc..) for enforcing the rules. I don't care if the FTC and EU were just in it for the money - that doesn't mean Intel shouldn't be punished to the full extent of the law.

 

[snowden]

In the natural scheme of things, yes, monopolies are okay. You deal with them everyday already? Utilities are monopolies, no? What is the point of being in business then? Do you think business is a charity? That it should extend a helping hand to it's competition? No. It's to crush competition, maximize profit, be #1 in your market, and capture the largest customer base possible. If you have a better idea of how to run a business I'd like to hear it. If you have a different business model I'd like to hear or see that too.

There are many different kinds of monopolies. You are thinking of "natural monopolies" and then somehow assuming that Intel counts. They don't. It's sad how many folks (including the previous poster) think they know something about economics when they don't know shit. Everyone has an opinion, but you should realize that your opinion doesn't equal knowledge and you should be able to accept that you are wrong.

Monopolies have to be controlled otherwise the free market is destroyed. It's very strange how many posters in this thread want to destroy the free market and capitalism along with it. Capitalism is a fragile thing and monopolies (and externalities) are huge threats. Why so many stupid people think they need to come in here and dirty up the discussion with fact-less opinions is beyond me.

 

[kac77]

I'm not saying Intel didn't do anything wrong. I'm just saying all the "There weren't any AMD systems from OEMs" and "the only AMD systems were low end budget machiens" are bullshit. There were AMD servers, and there were AMD performance systems from these OEMs. Maybe not in the quantities that they could have been, but they did exist.


As for AMD being cheaper than Intel... I rmember paying top dollar for AMD's lowest model X2 when they came out. And those prices stayed inflated until Core 2 hit the market.

That's not bullshit at all. Your being intentionally deceptive. Yes X2's were more expensive than a P4's, mainly because the performance delta was HUGE. Unless you were encoding video, Athlon X2's were giving you nearly 25% more performance than a P4 did. Why wouldn't they price those more?

What people are talking about were the first Opterons and first Athlon 64's and the first Athlon's (Slot - A). Those products spanked the crap out of what Intel was offering at the time. You could not buy the first Opteron at Dell. You could not buy a Athlon (Slot A) at Dell. When Dell finally started to release products by AMD they were in the budget consumer, or budget server workspace and these were for Athlon 64's. A place that unless it's a college computer for a kid your unlikely to buy for family use. In terms of server, who the hell is going to intentionally buy a 2-U rack with one socket and no room for expansion? No one. But that what Dell was offering when Opteron's released and nothing over two sockets, which was odd considering only AMD was offering a CPU that could scale all the way to eight sockets without the need for expensive north-bridges or exotic motherboard solutions.

As for your comment on quantities, just because they made one or two models does not mean that they actually sold those systems on equal footing, hell it wasn't even semi-equal. If we had a pot luck and everyone made cakes and cookies, and your contribution was a peanut, that doesn't mean you actually contributed anything worthy of acknowledgement.

 

[AVT]

Make a better product and the masses will buy it. Don't and you lose.

Prevent everyone else from ever making a better product than you, and you will never need to have a "better product" to begin with.

 

[Void]

Uh, no, just no. AMD filled a civil suit against Intel and they settled. That doesn't prevent the government from prosecuting criminal charges. Just because AMD and Intel settled their civil dispute doesn't absolve Intel of criminal wrongdoings. I applaud the FTC (and the EU, etc..) for enforcing the rules. I don't care if the FTC and EU were just in it for the money - that doesn't mean Intel shouldn't be punished to the full extent of the law.

But does that mean every countries government? Seriously this, lets sue this company and that company mentality is getting out of hand.
As i said before, i agree that they broke the law and should be punished for it, but they already have been punished for it time and time again. When does it end? Maybe after Intel has to file bankruptcy and then we are only stuck with AMD? Yea i know they have lots of money, but it will only last so long with every country jumping on the money wagon.

 

[Nemesis999]

But does that mean every countries government? Seriously this, lets sue this company and that company mentality is getting out of hand.
As i said before, i agree that they broke the law and should be punished for it, but they already have been punished for it time and time again. When does it end? Maybe after Intel has to file bankruptcy and then we are only stuck with AMD? Yea i know they have lots of money, but it will only last so long with every country jumping on the money wagon.

Intel's net worth is over $100B and it's yearly profit is well over $5B. They're hardly threatened by a few billion in settlements.

 

[Nemesis999]

*Edit*

That being said, Intel is subject to punishment in each and every country in which they violated laws, and should be.

 

[alexthebored]

I find it hilarious when people argue about it being the nature of the business when we are the ones who get hurt. It's fine and dandy if you want to defend the most capable of exploitation, but don't run crying when you receive more than a trickle down effect.

 

[kllrnohj]

But does that mean every countries government? Seriously this, lets sue this company and that company mentality is getting out of hand.
As i said before, i agree that they broke the law and should be punished for it, but they already have been punished for it time and time again. When does it end? Maybe after Intel has to file bankruptcy and then we are only stuck with AMD? Yea i know they have lots of money, but it will only last so long with every country jumping on the money wagon.

Every country where Intel competes and whose laws Intel broke, yes, absolutely. That is the nature of international companies, they have to follow local laws. Intel isn't an innocent victim of the system, they *knew* what they were doing, they *knew* it was illegal, they *willfully* violated the laws (assuming the charges are true, of course).

 

[Azhar]

I find it hilarious when people argue about it being the nature of the business when we are the ones who get hurt. It's fine and dandy if you want to defend the most capable of exploitation, but don't run crying when you receive more than a trickle down effect.

But in the long run we benefit from it. AMD would be able to sell more chips to OEM, earn more money for R&D, and produce better products. Intel would once again have a tight race with AMD and prices all around will come down. It'll stop only being a battle of speed, but a battle of speed and price.

 

[alexthebored]

But in the long run we benefit from it. AMD would be able to sell more chips to OEM, earn more money for R&D, and produce better products. Intel would once again have a tight race with AMD and prices all around will come down. It'll stop only being a battle of speed, but a battle of speed and price.

I think you misinterpreted my post? I'm also stating that Intel's actions have had negative effects for consumers.

 

[Lollipop]

So what! Where is it written that the consumer is entitled to a mythical product? You get what is available or build something better yourself. In an effort to be an objective observer, I have watched to see if someone would come up with something I missed, but instead all I have seen is a bunch of arrogant, self righteous, impetuous propaganda spewed as Capitalism. Only a handful of you like Methadras even remotely have a clue as to the inner workings of how "real" freedom operates and look how the angry sheeple attacked him. Remember “buyer beware”. It’s a sad day when socialism is confused with freedom. Stop selling Marx as a capitalist and pay attention to Milton Freedman. Free markets are not fragile either until they become micromanaged and overregulated, in which case they cease to be “free”. And no, because a handful of nations thought that Intel was in the wrong does not make it so. These are the same people that censor their own people, think the fairness doctrine is a just media practice and that dodge ball is too harsh for kids. In capitalism the spoils go to the victor, and even then nothing lasts that they don’t have to constantly strive to hold on to. Maybe that’s why we are called capitalist dogs… it’s a dog eat dog system. Socialism is where everyone needs to play nice and ethics should fit nicely in a cute, little box with a pink bow on it. What do you kids think corporate espionage is, which is the norm unless you live in lala-land. I prefer the phrase “it pays to be a winner”. Maybe it’s because I love the challenge of being the underdog and giving more to rise above. I’m not afraid of adversity…I thrive on it!
Intel’s great crime was telling companies that in order to do business with them they couldn’t sell AMD, right? This is NOT extortion, blackmail, or murder, or any other over reactive tendency. These companies were free to say no and spend their dollars on whatever products they saw fit. Hundreds of fledgling ideas are never seen in the market place every year do to bad business practices, lack of funds and just plain old bad luck. It’s the nature of the beast. The assumption that better products would be available is absurd. It would be lovely to think so, but it’s not a given. Look at Windows, how many years have they put out less than perfect products and they had Linux and the Apple as competition. AMD had the same opportunity if the products were that desired to market better and advertise more creatively. Neither consumers nor companies were ever without the choice to say no with their dollars. How about the fact that it took years for ATI to beat Nvidia? Just theorizing here, but could that have anything to do with AMD leveraging itself to acquire ATI and build that brand simultaneously? I honestly do not know? Just hypothesizing. And if AMD had no resources to create better products, how are they leading the field in gaming video cards today? That is all. Carry on.

 

[Void]

Every country where Intel competes and whose laws Intel broke, yes, absolutely. That is the nature of international companies, they have to follow local laws. Intel isn't an innocent victim of the system, they *knew* what they were doing, they *knew* it was illegal, they *willfully* violated the laws (assuming the charges are true, of course).

I agree with you to a point. I only agree with whatever country the OEM main offices are in that Intel strong armed into using there chip over AMD, not every frigging country on the face of the planet(as it seems to be now).

...AMD would be able to sell more chips to OEM, earn more money for R&D, and produce better products....

Funny how AMD wasn't worried about this when they decided to acquire ATI, at a time when they supposedly didnt even have money for R&D .

Intel's net worth is over $100B and it's yearly profit is well over $5B. They're hardly threatened by a few billion in settlements.

A few billion times how many countries before it's all over? I'm not aying they arent guilty, but come on this shit is getting out of control.

Kinda reminds me of some of the piracy suits i hear about. You know, the ones where people get fined thousands of dollars for 1 song and yet people here complain that it's to much to pay. But yet it's OK that Intel has to keep paying BILLIONS to all these countries to which none of that money will help AMD nor consumers?