Monopoly and legalities

a3venom

Gawd
Joined
Mar 3, 2015
Messages
695
So,
I read somewhere that since it is illegal for a company to exist as a monopoly,
  • Intel can't price their SKUs lower than AMD even if they want to?
  • Intel can't release something 50% more powerful than their last gen (instead have to do mild improvements so AMD can still be somewhat tiny viable) - even if they could?
  • AMD can't go bankrupt, the govt will give them money to sustain?

Just want to know how true this stuff is?
 
Monopolies can exist in a limited fashion.

Intel can price their goods as they see fit. ...but no companies wants to lose money.
Intel isn't prohibited from releasing a processor 50% more powerful than their last generation.
AMD can go bankrupt. If the .gov wants to bale them out - that is up to the government.

It is pretty much all bunk.
 
No, there are no regulations mandating that any company must hand-hold their comptetitors.


intel-amd_zpstshq0cgs.jpg
 
Intel isn't prohibited from releasing a processor 50% more powerful than their last generation.

They are not but they clearly hit a wall in what improvements can be made using silicon. Unless some breakthrough in materials happens do not expect a 50% improvement any time soon.
 
They are not but they clearly hit a wall in what improvements can be made using silicon. Unless some breakthrough in materials happens do not expect a 50% improvement any time soon.

I think that comment was way along the lines of figurative, not literal.
 
So,
I read somewhere that since it is illegal for a company to exist as a monopoly,
  • Intel can't price their SKUs lower than AMD even if they want to?
  • Intel can't release something 50% more powerful than their last gen (instead have to do mild improvements so AMD can still be somewhat tiny viable) - even if they could?
  • AMD can't go bankrupt, the govt will give them money to sustain?

Just want to know how true this stuff is?

That whole list is bunk. Monopoly is not illegal, abuse of monopoly is.

Intel can price their SKUs lower than AMD, but not if the price is considered predatory pricing, ie selling at a loss with the intent of requiring AMD to also sell at an unsustainable price. OTOH, if Intel can make processors for significantly cheaper than AMD, and sells them for lower, that's fair game.

Intel has no obligations to anyone (except shareholders, maybe) re production improvement. If they can release something that's significantly more powerful, they probably will; expect to see that at the low end (mobile) where they're trying to break into the market.

The government is not likely to take an interest in sustaining AMDs continued existence; they are not 'too big to fail', they're not a detroit auto maker, and they're not a significant player in the US economy. We will feel their loss, but many people wouldn't.
 
So,
I read somewhere that since it is illegal for a company to exist as a monopoly,
You heard wrong.

Monopolies are legal, but are bound by special rules. None of the things on the list are true:

Intel sells, and has sold, some parts cheaper than AMD does (low end Atoms for phones and tablets subsidized are cheaper than AMD parts in the same segment).

What's limiting Intel in performance is the move to frequent generation updates. It's complex, but the changes are incremental and pretty much every drop has been squeezed from legacy software performance (eDRAM gives boosts due to memory subsystem performance improvements). Newer software optimized for new CPUs will get boosts, but legacy software often has more limited improvements. If you know of a way to get 50% performance improvements per generation on legacy x86 software, you will be a very rich person and probably rival Einstein in intelligence. :p

The government isn't going to bail out AMD. There are companies salivating at the thought of picking through AMD's ashes to buy IP for cheap. But AMD seems to be somewhere in the process of spinning off profitable segments as a new company. Whether it (can) happen or not is unknown. AMD had large debts coming due, and it worth basically $0 between assets and liabilities, once worthless things like goodwill for a defunct company vanish.
 
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