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Government Brings Antitrust Actions Against Rambus, Micron
A Happy Plague writes "I work at a hedge fund and one of the nice ammenities are real time news tickers. At 11:34 EDT, a nice red line scrolled on my screen.."FTC Alleges Rambus Violates Antitrust Laws". The headlines followed..."...Anticompetitive Acts... Deceived standard setting organization...never acknowledged patents... deceptive conduct..."
Too bad it takes a long time fo bureacracies to work, but they usually come around. Yahoo News has the story." Of course all rambus has to do now is buy a president to get out from under this. In related news, Tricot writes "Over at Salon, there is a newswire article claiming that the justice department is investigating memory chip maker Micron for anti-competitive practices. Wow, if it's a monopoly, then it certainly hasn't hurt prices."
Wow, if it's a monopoly, then it certainly hasn't hurt prices.
How do you know this? You have no way of knowing what prices might be were this not a monopoly (if it is ruled a monoopoly). You might consider the prices "fair" now, but who's to say they couldn't be better with competition?
I think I speak for everyone when I say "fuck yeah!"
So, I rememebr hearing about all this what, two years ago? When Rambus was going to the "the" definitive memory solutions. While DDR is certainly very successful, Rambus is still the premier memory technology. Now, it's always been clear to me that they've done this illegally.
I wonder, if they persued this earlier if we wouldn't see Rambus out right now. DDR, IMHO, is the better, cheaper solution. A small push against Rambus two years ago might have been enough to force them from the market.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Well hot damn they're just on an anti-trust streak arent they.
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
Anyone who hides patents and patent applications in order to deceive their fellow members, "working" with them to create a new memory standard, just to throw their weight several years down the line claiming everybody is infringing on those patents, deserves such a huge fine that the only memory they will be able to afford will be Post-it notes stuck to their PCs.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
By allegedly concealing this information, in violation of JEDEC's operating rules and procedures, and through other alleged bad-faith, deceptive conduct, the complaint charges that Rambus snookered JEDEC into the "misleading impression that it had no relevant intellectual property rights."
Same old story of patents & intellectual property, monopolies, predatory business practices and crooks (dreaming of) pocketing everybody else money.
The good news in their case, is that the memory prices isn't so bad at the moment. _pfew_
In other news Rambus Inc. today quietly dropped it's line of Alzheimer SDRAM memory chips citing customer complaints that 256Meg acted like only 64Meg of memory.
Micron consistantly lobbies Congress to increase the tarriffs on foreign RAM memories makers. Do you know why?
Because Micron can't produce their ram as cheaply as their foreign competitors. So they get Congress to increase the tarriffs to a point where foreign produced ram costs about the same or slightly higher to purchase then Micron ram.
I say boo fucking hoo to Micron. If they can't produce it as cheap as everyone else then they should get out of the business.
How is this not a monopoly?
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
More editorial bullshit. What if this was about Chinese space technology? Would we see the same statement with a link to a negative Clinton story?
Sometimes slashdot.org is worse than the Yellow Times.
This is what they are saying Rambus's actions caused: (quoting the official FTC release) increases in the price - and/or reductions in the use or output - of SDRAM chips, as well as other products incorporating or using SDRAM technology
decreased incentives, on the part of memory manufacturers, to produce memory using SDRAM technology;
decreased incentives, on the part of memory manufacturers and others, to participate in JEDEC or other industry standard-setting organizations or activities;
and both within and outside the memory industry, decreased reliance, or willingness to rely, on standards established by industry standard- setting collaborations.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
but they grind to a fine dust.
:)
Thus, spammers should beware the FTC.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
I'll buy the Rambus claim, but what exactly would make Micron a monopoly? If Salon is correct and Micron is the only US based DRAM manufacturer, I guess by definition that's sort of a monopoly, but I've never seen Micron (well, Crucial) exploit that power in any way.
Does anyone have more solid information?
From the Salon article: Micron is the only DRAM manufacturer based in the United States.
Since when is the US government looking out to protect foreign companies? If the anticompetitive actions were in the DRAM market, then the other companies aren't subject to US trust laws. It sounds anticompetitive to me for Micron to have to play by one set of rules while the rest play by another.
"Oh no, 3 horny women and only 2 condoms...Thank god I read slashdot"
Micron sells great quality RAM directly to consumers at great prices. That is one monopoly I am willing to live with. Honestly, if they get fucked by this and they are unable to offer competitive RAM prices anymore... I'm gonna be pissed!
-ryan
Didn't know that. Thats certainly very interesting, and bad.
BTW, would you know why Micron wouldn't pull a Nike and just start purchasing ram from those foreign competitors, positioning itself as a memory brand rather than manufacturer? Or maybe their brand doesn't have enough value to allow them to compete in this fasion, as they'd just be middlemen? Or maybe there's very little value in brand in the memory market? That sounds plausible, but I'm curious to hear what you think.
"Old man yells at systemd"
However, as companies begin to lower their ethical standards and sink to the level of Enron, Anderson, and Rambus, the citizens of this fine nation need to stand up and demand accountability. Rambus should be a rallying cry, and it should be the pilot case for testing the resurrection of the corporate death penalty. Why?
- Rambus produces nothing. The Rambus technology was licensed
(albeit in a very unethical manner) from several other companies.
Rambus has never employed a single engineer. They exist only to
facilitate the creation and maintenance of an artificial monopoly.
- Rambus is a threat to other businesses and consumers. Rambus
has attempted to assert patent rights on several key, widely deployed
technologies, such as SDRAM. This is a textbook example of extortion.
Rambus did not create these technologies; they manipulated the sale of them
so that they would be able to prosecute their competitors in court. An
individual would rot in jail for doing something similar.
- Rambus does not support alternative operating systems. Thus
far, Rambus has refused to cooperate with the Linux developers who are
trying to optimize performance on machines with RDRAM. This gives
Microsoft an unfair advantage and again hurts the consumer by inhibiting
choice.
The list goes on, but the point is clear: Rambus deserves to get the corporate death penalty.Micron Technology Inc., one of the nation's biggest maker of computer memory chips, said it, and other companies, are being investigated by the Department of Justice for alleged "anticompetitive practices."
the key part is "it, and other companies" I firmly belive that micron will not be involved as a defendant, but as a witness and support of the FTC seeing how they pretty much told RAMBUS to eat their shorts and got the FTC involved in the first place.
Lentium 4 (gave up good pricing for the rest of its life), I might actually care about Rambus. I say, screw them. They need to be seriously beaten for what they're trying to do to the memory industry. Long live DDR, and RAMBUS can suc^H^H^H, I mean die!!!
In other news, RAMBUS (RMBS (?)) sues Fisher Price for use of the color red and the word 'bus'.
More at 11.
Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
I am a fan of capitalism. Yet, it seems the folks in the wheelhouses of our fleet are lost at sea. Competition = capitalism. Squelching competition = fascism.
Suggestion to corporate officers who would listen: forget the quarter to quarter BS, figure out what your companies are in business to do, lay out a plan to do that well for no less than a couple of years, and do only that. In the end you may not be the titan you dreamed of, but you sure as hell won't be testifying before a Congressional committee or holding penny stocks either.
from the kursk-meets-rambus dept.
Anyone care to explain this?
Fabulous troll.
You are behind the times. Micron was using that tack a couple years ago, now their production costs are among the lowest in the industry and they are driving foreign competition out of the market, and some of them are crying to their governments about it, just like Micron in the past in the US.
Of course, if Micron drives enough other companies out of business (like Hynix, which is now in bankruptcy) they will be able to raise their prices since there won't be a surplus of DRAM as is currently the case. The weak PC market has hurt them all, but Micron's low production costs and low debt have them in a better position than some of the competition.
How does this affect my rights online? This is a business practices investigation, not an MP3-downloading court case.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
How is this not a monopoly?
:)
It's not a monopoly because there are still many competitors in the market. But yes, it is anti-competitive -- an unfair way to pursue an advantage over those competitors. I guess you could say they've been using unfair practices to keep their uncompetitive RAM manufacturing business afloat.
I'm still wondering why Microsoft's trick of forcing the PC manfacturers to collect the tarrif on non-MS operating systems instead of lobbying the govt. to do it was not anti-competitive, myself...
Taking the bait hook, line, and sinker, but here goes...
What you fail to mention is the price difference. Is spending the time to use Linux camera access software (SANE maybe, or just emulate a storage device) worth the $200 you'll save by not buying XP?
Better yet, just buy the mandrake box and install a pirated copy of 98se dual-booted on it. You'll have a fairly stable gaming OS (98) and a very stable everything-else OS (Mandrake). In the mean time, you won't have to pay the MSFT tax, thus saving you money. Just don't let the BSA (Boy Scouts of America or Business Software Association, , take your pick) come by.
Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
"512K ought to be enough for anyone." At the end of the day, the consumer isn't going to be able to change the relationship between mass manufacturing and over/under pricing unless he blows up a RAM factory, in which case we're all screwed. Not that I mean to tell everyone to just eat your peas, but A. pricing isn't going to change until rambus is ultra-commonplace, and B. patent mongers are patent mongers, they're all just trying to be the next gemstar.
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
Courtesy of the The Guardian
George Bush has phoned to congratulate the US
team after its unlikely 2-0 victory over Mexico, the Washington Post reports - on its front page, at that. His heart-stirring message: 'A lot of people who didn't even know anything about soccer, like me, are all excited and pulling for you.' According to the report, he also phoned the Mexican president from his ranch in Texas - the state which the US annexed from Mexico in 1845.
W should have said "A lot of people who didn't even know anything about soccer, like I,"
Thanks in advance,
Woot
Because Micron can't produce their ram as cheaply as their foreign competitors.
Not true, Micon can produce DRAM just as cheap if not cheaper than anyone else. The reason there are tarriffs is because of foreign companies dumping their products in the US way below cost to drive Micron out of business.
Of course all rambus has to do now is buy a president to get out from under this.
/. geek would prefer that he did?
Isn't it a tad irresponsible to accuse Bush of being "bought" by Microsoft because his administration is hesitant to interfere with market forces -- even when your typical
Republicans are normally slower to jump on the antitrust bandwagon. Accusations of impropriety are just way out of line, though.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
I see the slashdot editors are in true form, never missing the opportunity to show their anti-republican bias by suggesting that President Bush was "bought" by Microsoft.
A quick check of fecinfo.com's donor search shows that Bill Gates has donated generously to MANY democrats. In fact, in this 2002 election cycle, all of the donations shown are to democrats. But overall, Microsoft has given to both main parties and even some independent parties.
Any idiot should be able to figure out that a republican president will be "pro business". Note that microsoft didn't buy a pardon, like some common criminals did from Clinton.....
Oh, I forgot, this is slashdot, so microsoft and republicans are always evil.....
...thier pride lies in thier stock price. Which used to be over $120/share, is now a mere $4/share.
Someone high up has to make a state of the organization address to some REALLY unhappy investors that were hoping that the $120-$16 run would come bouncing back.
Too many falls like this may prove fatal.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Rambus has been pulling some rather blatant violations of anti trust laws especially with the whole JDEC thing... doesn't their upper management see that? It just seems so silly of them to pull this kind of stuff when they could continue their revenue growth based on the strength of legitimate business practices. Ethics issues aside, doesn't it make more sense to play right rather than take the risk of losing your Intellectual property and losing your money in court? They took a significant risk and lost with their legal strategy starting to crack.
Is it a sign of a greater ethics issue in the industry or is it high level management who can't figure out how to solve a problem other than to pursue a costly and risky legal battle? I think its both, and investors should be wary about putting any more money into this company.
You do know that Al Gore was the one visiting the Microsoft campus during the campaign. And that Bill Gates stayed at the White House during the Clinton administration. And that Microsoft donated more to Democrats than Republicans in 2000.
Not that Bush wasn't bought, too. He just won, and was cheaper.
Kernel level VB my a$$.
There are tens of thousands of homeless people in America, a health care system that is bleeding money (pardon the pun) and a Cabinet that has NO problem overspending for things they hardly need (ie. ground-based antimissile lasers).
If anything, it's likely that the millions of dollars in fines that will be garnered from hundreds of anti-trust suits will be used for nothing more than to line the pockets of those in the government that keep the focus away from the serious issues.
I work in marketing and I feel that there is nothing wrong with a pure monopoly within a category, provided that the company is producing high-quality goods that satisfies the customers. If you allow every Tom, Dick and Harry to pump out inferior products in order to prevent a monopoly, all you will do is create a bad image for the product and everyone will lose.
Granted, Microsoft engineers write bad code that is rife with bugs, but their products still sell -- because they're useful and allow for productivity. Remember all those pathetic side-scroller games that were pushed based on movie licenses? Same issue, different color.
Just my 2 cents.
Anyone can walk on water....think WINTERTIME.
Of course all rambus has to do now is buy a president
What is that supposed to mean? Gates gave tons of money to Gore but not Bush. Every time Bush does something that helps a company you all act like he was paid off. Here is the truth. He is a republican and as one believes that companies should be left alone by the government. A good republican, and libertarians to, shoul alway fight for the repel of laws that inhibit fair business. Most non-techies don't understand that M$ is evil they just see another business.
Thus Republican + Nontechie = doesn't worry about M$. For better or worse that is the way it is.
Capitalism: unequal distribution of wealth
Socialism: equal distribution of poverty
Isn't it pretty bad, that a comment like this can be made and many people, myself included, would agree to how right it is? If you calculate how much money is given to PAC's etc., than you might be able to argue that the United States has one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Depending on who you paid and how much you paid, you do or don't get attention for your problems and a listening ear for your ideas. Now, Western countries (yes, other democratic countries also have this problem) might say to third world countries that they need to do something about corruption, and rightfully so, but the democratic West needs to watch out they don't fall into the same pitfalls.
A government shouldn't let its policies to be determined by the amount of money that has been given to them. But hey, you may say that I'm a dreamer
Use Adsense for Charity
Windows XP once again much easier to use than Linux.
Funny, I thought the same thing about your mom!
Slashdot has hired elementary school children
to type bogus submissions that we are witnessing with ACs as authors and no Slashdot user IDs.
Slashdot will be out of business by Jan. 19, 2003.
Perhaps instead of the CDP, the proper punishment would be to let Rambus continue as a corporation, but revoke all their patents and declare the intellectual property to be now in the public domain.
You've included SOCIALISTS in the same list as Murders and Drug-Dealers???
Yeah. Whatever.
Cry me a river. Most companies do lobby congress. It doesn't mean that they are evil monopolies or that they can't produce things as cheaply- its just another tool to try to adjust the supply and demand into their favor.
Lobbying congress does not make a company a monopoly.
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
I'm a card-carrying Libertarian and pretty much despise Bush as much as I despised Clinton, but even that "buy the President" crack was a little much for me. As if Microsoft was ever in any danger whatsoever from any government agency or lawsuit. Even if they could "buy themselves a President", they wouldn't have to.
Some people just need a soapbox to stand on I guess. I'm betting we'll hear whining about the Bush/Gore election for many years to come... -B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
As some have already pointed out, Gates donations to Dems outpaces donations to Republicans. Why? He's betting that Democrats will sell out their stated principles for money, whereas Republicans already want to leave business alone. If you want to see Republicans selling out, look at the American steel industry. Nothing to see here in antitrust; move along.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
I work as some consultant fo' several fortune 500 companies, and Ah dink Ah kin shed some little light on de climate o' de jimmy source community at de damn moment. Ah reckon dat part o' de reason dat jimmy source based startups be failin' left and right be not an issue o' marketin' as it's commonly believed but more o' an issue o' de underlyin' technology. Ya' know?
Ah know dat dat's some strong statement t' make, but Ah gots evidence t' back it up. Right On! At one o' de majo' corps(5000+ employees) dat Ah consult fo', we wanted t' integrate Linux into our serva' pool. What it is, Mama! De allure o' not havin' t' pay any restrictive licensin' fees wuz too great t' ignore. Sheeeiit. Ah reccomended de damn installashun o' several boxes runnin' de new 2.4.9 kernel, and mah hopes wuz high dat it would perform up t' snuff wid de Windows 2k boxes which wuz(and still be!) doin' an AMAZING job at deir respective tasks o' servin' HTTP requests, DNS, and fileservin'.
Ah consida' myself t' be real technically inclined havin' programmed in VB fo' de last 8 years doin' kernel level programmin'. Ah duzn't reckon in C programmin' a'cuz contrary t' popular belief, VB kin go plum as low level as C and de damn newest VB compila' generates code dat's every bit as fast. Ah took it upon myself t' configure de damn system fum scratch and even used an optimised version o' gcc 3.1 t' increase de damn 'secushun speed o' de binaries. Ah integrated de damn 3 machines Ah had configured into de serva' pool, and I'd gots t' say de results wuz less dan impressive. Sheeeiit... We all know dat linux isn't even close t' bein' ready fo' de desktop, but Ah had heard dat it wuz supposed t' perform decently as some "server" based operatin' system. What it is, Mama! De 3 machines all went into swap immediately, and it wuz obvious dat dey weren't goin' t' be able t' handle de damn load in dis "enterprise" environment. Afta' runnin' fo' less dan 24 hours, 2 o' dem had 'sperienced kernel panics caused by Bind and Apache crashin'! Granted, Apache be some voluntea' based project written by weekend hackers in deir spare time while Microsft's IIS gots'ta an actual professional full fledged development team devoted t' it. Not t' menshun de fact dat de damn Linux kernel itself lacks any support fo' any type o' journaled filesystem, memory protecshun, SMP support, etc, but Ah dought dat since Linux be based on such "old" technology dat it would run wid some level o' stability. Ya' know? Afta' several days o' dis type o' behaviour, we decided t' reinstall windows 2k on de boxes t' make sho' it wasn't some hardware problem dat wuz causin' dings t' go wrong. What it is, Mama! De machines instantly shaped up and wuz seamlessly reintegrated into de serva' pool wid plum one Win2K machine doin' more work dan all 3 o' de Linux boxes.
Needless t' say, Ah won't be reccomendin' Linux/FSF t' anymore o' mah clients. I'm dissappointed dat dey won't be able t' leverege de damn free cost o' Linux t' deir advantage, but in dis case Ah suppose de damn old adage stands true dat, "you git whut ya' pay fo'." Ah would gots also liked t' gots access t' de source code o' de applications dat we're runnin' on our mission critical systems; howeva', fum de looks o' it, de Microsoft "shared source" honky code seems t' offa' all o' de same freedoms as de GPL.
As dings stand now, Ah kin dig usin' Linux in academia t' compile simple "Hello World" style programs and learn C programmin', but I'm afraid dat fo' anythin' more dan some hobby OS, Windows 98/NT/2K be yo' only choices.
dank ya'.
You can find the actual FTC Administrative Complaint here.
1) Tarrifs are supposed to protect our buisnesses. 2) The US is not a good environment for a manufacturor. If there aren't tarrifs our manufacturors are fucked b/c of the governments laws. Employee benifits, minimum wage, etc. Why do you think so many companies go overseas for manufacturing? Even 'american' comapnies do much manufacturing in other countreis. (Ford in Mexico, etc.) If American companies want to be competitive we need tarriffs.
"Wow, if it's a monopoly, then it certainly hasn't hurt prices."
Not only monopolies are guilty of anticompetive acts. Basically, any action that is "in restraint of trade" or "deceptive" by businesses are illegal.
There is nothig in US law that says a monopoly is illegal. What is illegal is to use the advantage of a monopoly harm other businesses.
If you make a great product and everyone only buys that, there's nothing illegal about it.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
>>Because Micron can't produce their ram as cheaply as their foreign competitors. I say boo fucking hoo to Micron. If they can't produce it as cheap as everyone else then they should get out of the business
Yes there is a minimum wage here in the US, in addition to insurance, taxes, safety, and other concerns that you ob. I am happy that they actually do make some of their RAM here in the states, instead of offloading it to China of Tiawan where they can pay someone 1/3 as much and work them so much harder.
>> So they get Congress to increase the tarriffs to a point where foreign produced ram costs about the same or slightly higher to purchase then Micron ram.
You really want to say Boo-Hoo to Micron... And while you say that your employer will be outsourcing your Perl hacking job to 3 people in India who he can get for half the salary that he is paying you with. So Boo-Hoo to you. That is what Tarriffs are for. It isn't what it is always used for, but this is actual intent of having them. It is protectionary.
At least they still make some microprocessors here. Not to say that AMD hasn't made factory's in Ireland simply because the Tax write-offs and other benifits outweigh dealing with OSHA and other parts of the federal government.
Basically, Take Buisness 101, since is painfully obvious you haven't taken it.
Blah Blah Blah.
Uh, excuse me? What does President George W. Bush have to with RAMBUS much less the Microsoft case from this link? President Bush appointed the first African American, Charles James, to head the antitrust division of the Justice Department. Assistant Attorney General Charles James never has said that Microsoft should get away scott free, he just disagrees with breaking up Microsoft into two monopolies from one. His solution is to penalize Microsoft and force them to adopt different business practices that would remove barriers to competition from outside companies on their operating system.
There is no need for these sort of comments on Slashdot story briefs. AAG Charles James has a long history of serving this country through its court system and to have a partisan sniper misrepresent his opinion in such a blatant fashion is repugnant. I don't know if its racism or just pure hatred towards the current administration that would allow this sort of misrepresentation to be published. It would be nice if Slashdot editors would review these submissions before they are posted and depolitise them.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Were not any more coprrupt that other countries. We're just more expensive then the 3rd world.
Extreme Patents Bad
MPAA Bad
RIAA Bad
EFF Good
Free Speech Good
Video Games Good
Open Source Good
I am completely okay with you disagreeing with my analysis of the purchasability of George Bush, but to say that /. should be unbiased in it's coverage is to ignore the history and goals of slashdot. And to assume a default democratic bias is in my opinion unfounded, I mean, look at our criticism of Idiot Senator Hollings a senator so completely purchased that he must have a barcode tattooed on his forehead.
chrisd
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Oh yeah GOOO USA, fuck the niggers and the spics and all the dirty foreigners.
People like you are why we have terrorism. Jingoistic bastard.
Maybe you should take Business 101, so you could learn about something called "economic inefficiencies" and how they hurt everyone in the long run.
You and your protectionist bullshit are no different from the RIAA and the MPAA trying to protect their industry from a cheaper alternative.
Quit your union labor protectionism and join the real world.
No Bush is following his principles.
Free Markets.
The market will punish those who misbehave.
Isn't it a tad irresponsible to accuse Bush of being "bought" by Microsoft because his administration is hesitant to interfere with market forces
... the demopublicans have their hand out as much as the republicrats, but in this case the DOJ is deliberately throwing the sentencing phase after having won a conviction, and having that conviction upheld on appeal. They are deliberately snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in what is very transparently a sweetheart deal, and records of campaign contributions by Microsoft (which you can look up online if you're so inclinded) bear this out.
No, it isn't irresponsible to accuse Bush of exactly that, when all of the available information appears to indicate that that is precisely what happened.
Usually this sort of sleaze is party-neutral
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Both believed it was an impediment to innovation.
Some facts:
1. Rambus was part of the JEDEC.
2. JEDEC rules require disclosure of patents.
3. Rambus declosed no patents.
4. (while part of JEDEC) Rambus suggested certain methods employed in SDRAM and DDR (that they had patents on).
5. Now that SDR/DDR is well-entrenched, Rambus is suing for royalties.
The obvious (to me) solution is to take a closer look at numbers 2 and 3. Rambus was required to declare their patents. They did not do so. Thus, they have no patents on the technology incorporated into JEDEC standards. Don't mess around with antitrust laws, just invalidate the patents in question and let them try to make a living on the technology they've got legitimate claims to.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
If there's one company that has no chance of going under, it's Micron. Look into their backers.
I bet this trial ends before the m$ trial does
why use win98 for games when you can just use winex?
Slahsdot has really gone downhill. It used to be news for nerds, now its all pro-left political whine. If the current increase in bias continues, I don't think I'll be around here for much longer... I can't take much more of this constant "Big corporations suck I want to sit on my ass all day and get spoon fed by the government" mentality.
It isn't what it is always used for, but this is actual intent of having them. It is protectionary. Look at that grammar! We now know Dubbya's /. handle!
Yep, according to their stock chart, 11:34 looks right. 36% decline in one day? Yikes! Well, it couldn't have happened to a more arrogant group of SOBs.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
because his administration is hesitant to interfere with market forces
;)
Firstly, may I point out that the Bush administration's stance on steel tariffs and agricultural subsidies shows that it has no problem with interfering with market forces.
Secondly, may I point out that Microsoft has been found by the courts to be a Monopoly. This means that it has substantial market power and that "market forces"="Microsoft's will" in this particular market.
So what you are really saying is that the Bush administration is hesitant to interfere with Microsoft's will.
Well, I suppose that's accurate.
How many times do we have to see he truth before it becomes crystal clear. Companies pull this stuff because they know they can get away with it. White colloar criminals know that the worst they have to face is a slap on the wrist and maybe a little bad PR down the road. Even Milkin walked away a millionaire with boku job offers.
Most of the time the ringleaders are long-gone or retired before the dust even begins to leave the ground.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
It's interesting that when Clinton was in office, some people clapped, cheered, etc. The JD goes after MS. Bush wins office (and yes, he won--look up electoral college please). /. news submitters cry that there goes the case--Bush is pro business, will not go after monopoly cases, blah blah. Well, MS still is having problems, although mainly from the states (thankfully). And now there are 2 new companies being looked into.
And ChrisD still managed to bitch. If Bush was that demonstrably pro big business (and I think he can definitely do better in many areas), this seems a rather odd tact for him to take. Interestly, Linux was talked up on CNBC today--I mean, Bush sucks, so shouldn't Linux be dead in the business channels, esp. a mainstream one?
Don't like the guy, although I guess I should since I guess I classify as a moderate Republican, but amazing how nasty politics is.
Wine and the various spinoff projects like winex have made great advances the past few years and bringing a functional win32 api to linux. However, I still find it almost impossible to run certain games under linux -- so I'm not going to be ditching my W2K installation anytime soon.
Believe it or not, workers who are allowed to lead a decent life are more productive. Once people figure this out, sweatshops will be a thing of the past.
yo, bro.. I kinz ree-late. why doncha try one of dem new style like low rider fine ride fruity osx servahs instid? Jiss 1 fer shits n grinz, and B reportin back right quick, ya'hear?
Dey allus been de other 1 what don't need no lotsa babysittin ner smartz to run, and dey don get no h7033d all d time, neether, day B s3ku53 'n stuff, heck, even D lame azz bozz kin set 1 up and run it, heck2, even D SALEZ weazles kin set 1 up!
BTW, would you know why Micron wouldn't pull a Nike and just start purchasing ram from those foreign competitors, positioning itself as a memory brand rather than manufacturer?
' s a little hard to make out as it's a bit blurry, but that's definitely a samsung logo on the sticker on the left and the chips say SAMSUNG.
A 256MB stick of of ECC 2100 DDR that I bought from crucial.com (a division of Micron) actually had Samsung chips on a Samsung PCB. This is quite odd as every single other one I've gotten had Micron chips (as you would expect.)
I took a quick digital snap:
http://polpo.org/tmp/micronsamsung.jpg
It
Ian
...it takes a long time fo[r] bureacracies to work, but they usually come around.
They do?
Buying a president sure did a lot for Arthur Anderson and Enron. Maybe every corporation in the world should take slashdotters advice. Then eveyone can be unemployed or work for the post office, like good Democrats.
Crude, but true..
Well, it is not. It is called a protection of domestic industries. And though it may not seem fair from the RAM consumer point of view there are quite a bit of good reasons to justify such actions. Whether all of those are applicable to this particular case is a matter of a debate. And taking into account govenment actions, someone somewhere probably jumped over the head trying to protect them.
Call me crazy, but I find it kind of funny that 4 of the largest RAM players are being accused of anti-competition. Competitive anti-competition?
Yes, it's called "price-fixing", and it may even be the most common sort of anti-competitive behavior. Fortunately, it's also the least stable, as a single defector in an oligarchy can trigger a compensatory price-war. But a monopoly by a small group is no less dangerous in general than a monopoly by a single player.
Micron is one of the giants involved in several Linux projects together with IBM and Intel, as I recall. Instigating factor: not even Senator Disney, rather one of Gates' cronies. I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be a big fluke - and I hope the guy behind the court demand finds him/herself dangerously overextended.
Jynx
Jesse Helms should probably be shot, too.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
Read the article at Salon. Micron is being investigated for anticompetitive practices. You don't have to be a monopoly to engage in those kinds of tactics. Coke can engage in anticompetitive practices against Pepsi.
BTW: Antitrust laws don't apply just to monopolies. They apply to any businesses that attempt to control markets in illegal ways. Oligopolies can violate antitrust laws just as well as monopolies. Specifically, they can do so by colluding to artificially raise prices or by agreeing not to compete in specific areas.
Car manufacturers represent an oligopoly. There are relatively few competitors in an industry with a high barrier to entry. If car manufacturers all agree to make some option standard on all cars and raise prices accordingly, that's a violation of antitrust laws. The same thing applies if they all agree to stop offering some feature or option at all.
The Micron story: First, the DOJ did not bring an action against Micron today. Rather, they sent a subpoena to Micron, seeking information for an investigation into possible anti-competitive behavior in the DRAM market.
/. posts make it out to be. For one thing, Rambus claims that they didn't run afoul of the JEDEC policy requiring attendees to disclose relevant patents, because they did not yet have the patents which they later accused everyone of infringing. What makes the whole thing really complicated is that these "SDRAM patents" were not new patents either, but rather extensions of a previous Rambus patent on RDRAM, which Rambus did have at the time. Basically, patent law definitely allows you to file an extension of an old patent which makes clear that a new product infringes your original invention even if it may not infringe the original patent. How this intersects with the requirement to disclose patents to standards bodies is rather cloudy. As we know, Rambus got convicted of fraud for this--probably helped by documents at trial which pretty much proved Rambus had this plan in mind all along. However the issue is currently on appeal. IMO the Appeals Court's decision on this issue will determine what happens with this FTC claim filed today.
This has nothing to do with Micron (with global DRAM marketshare of ~18%) having a "monopoly" in the DRAM market; indeed, in addition to Micron, Infineon and Samsung (and probably others) recieved subpoenas today as well. While the DOJ has not made any public statements about this (that I've seen), it is extraordinarily obvious to anyone who has followed the DRAM industry over the past year or so that they are investigating allegations of dumping on the DRAM spot market. In particular, the spot price for DRAM (128 Mbit SDRAM chips in particular) declined by something like 75% last fall, in the absence of major new supply or significant shortfalls in demand. The resulting price was well below even the marginal cost of producing these chips.
When the price suddenly shot back up a few months ago with the announcement that Micron had reached a tentative deal to buy the already-bankrupt Hynix, it became quite clear that the spot market price was being kept artificially low in order to try to force the ailing Hynix out of business. (The Micron-Hynix deal was later rejected by Hynix's board, causing--wouldn't you know it--another DRAM price war.) The whole thing was made even more fishy by the fact that DRAM contract prices (that is, the DRAM sold in monthly contracts to OEMs like Dell, HP, etc.) stayed way way higher than the spot prices; Hynix was mostly limited to the spot market in its attempts to desperately sell off excess inventory to try to raise cash to pay off their creditors (after all, who wants to sign a contract with a company on the verge of bankruptcy??).
The obvious conclusion is that the other memory makers (Samsung and Micron are #1 and 2 in marketshare) dumped excess inventory on the spot market or even purposely sold at worse prices than they could otherwise get, in an effort to drive Hynix out of business sooner and thus reduce supply and cause prices to be higher than before. By itself, this is probably not illegal, because none of them has a monopoly. What would be illegal is if any of them colluded to keep the spot price artificially low. If they did that, they would be guilty of forming an illegal trust (that's why it's called anti-trust law, not "anti-monopoly") and engaging in illegal dumping or even price-fixing. Personally I would be surprised if this did not occur, but we'll see if the DOJ can find enough concrete evidence to bring a claim.
[For those wondering how the DRAM market turned out--spot prices are way down again across the board, although 128Mbit SDRAM is not nearly as low as it got last fall. (256Mbit and DDR chips are close to record lows, though.) The difference now is that contract prices have finally come down to near-spot levels (in a normal market, contract prices are lower than spot levels), and, considering the recent warnings by Intel and AMD, it looks as if low demand may actually be to blame, not price-fixing.]
The Rambus story: The short version of events posted here is more or less right: Rambus was a member of JEDEC while the SDRAM standard was being worked on; Rambus did not disclose any patents they had which read on the SDRAM design being discussed, nor did they disclose any intent to seek royalties on the standard; later, after SDRAM was standardized and became the mainstream DRAM type, Rambus sought royalties from anyone producing SDRAM or an SDRAM memory controller, which is to say almost the entire worldwide electronics industry. (Also DDR, which according to Rambus not only infringes their SDRAM patents but also a couple others on double-clocked operation in a DRAM.)
Some memory producers (including Samsung and Elpida) agreed; others (specifically Micron, Infineon and Hynix) refused and were taken to court. (The threatened legal action regarding SDRAM controllers never really happened because Rambus was focusing on memory producers first.) In the first such case to come to trial, in which Rambus sued Infineon in Virginia, not only did the judge rule that Rambus' patents don't actually cover SDRAM/DDR, but the jury found Rambus guilty of fraud for sitting on JEDEC and failing to disclose their intent to seek royalties on SDRAM--which is essentially what the FTC claim charges. (Unlike the DOJ investigation I talked about above, the FTC is past the investigating stage and today actually filed a claim against Rambus.)
However, it's not quite as simple as other
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Allowing those artificial legal entities known as corporations is interference with market forces right from the get go. Income taxes are interference with market forces. Planning and zoning are interference.
Is it ok to interfere with the steel and farming industry market forces?
Get your prejudices lined up on the same side of the fence, you'll have less stress.
Infuriate left and right
Not that I read the article, that would be un-/.-like, but everyone who kick RAMBUS where it hurts has my fullest support. Those guys deserve to be driven out of business and hung from the highest tree.
The basis of the media reports I have seen on Micron et al are that they are being investigated for trying to lower prices in order to force out a competitor. This presumably relates to the Hynix situation last year. It is not about raising prices, but coordinated lowering. Specific allegatins will probably not be clear until any charges or suits are filed.
Hmm, looks like you're having a lot of fun creating straw men over there. When you're ready to discuss what I actually said, re-read my post and feel free to try again -- otherwise, I'll just assume you're off ranting on your own tangent.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
How is this not a monopoly?
How about "How *IS* this a monopoly?"
Micron is the 2nd-largest DRAM manufacturer. Thus, they don't monopolize the market. They are physically incapable of producing that much DRAM, even if they had bought Nanya's guts once the banks finish with them. If Micron lowered prices, they would gain a bit of market share but would lose money. If they raise prices, module makers will ignore them. They have no control over the DRAM market. By definition, a monopolist does. I don't understand what part of that is confusing to you.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
> Maybe you should take Business 101, so you could learn about something called "economic inefficiencies" and how they hurt everyone in the long run.
Yea, maybe you should. But this time, take the time to learn a bit more than a single buzz phrase.
The parent post is absolutely correct. Micron is not in control of any number of social costs that the US system imposes on them, and their employee's. Costs that are not imposed elsewhere in the world. Those cost must be reflected in their prices, and for such an investment to happen at all, the US must protect that effort long term.
Tarriffs work in the short term too. Any number of transient market forces, such as exchange rates, local equity market conditions, or interest rates will affect the cost of Micron's product and are beyond it's control. To allow their investment to be wiped out because of such an event is beyond the pale.
> If they can't produce it as cheap as everyone else then they should get out of the business.
In a perfect, fully efficient world you might be right. But, start with "domestic security" and you find at least some industries/players must be protected as domestic efforts. And, directly from there, your entire "perfet, fully efficient" world falls to sh*t.
Here is what I think should be done to companies that would stop more companies from abusing the patent system. If a company obtains (a) patent(s) fraudulently, tries to enforce the illegal patent, and the defendant(s) in the resulting lawsuit proves that the patent(s) was/were fraudulently obtained, the defendant(s) should be allowed to place in the public domain any one of the plaintiff's other patents per bad patent the plaintiff tried to enfoce in addition to the bad patent(s) as punishment.
Such a law would do wonders for the Rambus case. The technology for the best RAM would be in the public domain, so that people would be able to use the best technology without paying corrupt corporations.
You said: his administration is hesitant to interfere with market forces, which is patently false. The Bush administration, as was shown by example, has no problem with "interfering with market forces". If you think pointing this out is attacking a straw man, I suggest you stop building your arguments out of straw.
If the DOJ is just going to roll over and play dead in the penalty phase of the trial after spending large quantities of taxpayer money to get a conviction (like they've done in another recent anti-trust case), then the only ones who come out ahead are the abusive monopolists and the lawyers.
In file CLIT.c: Cannot find "int", no such file or directory.
Lawsuits poppin' up all over! The justice department (you know, the one that's supposed to catch all those terrorists) must be getting bored.
I think you've been trolled by the editor.
Remember when RAM prices nearly doubled? When 128MB of RAM went from $100 to like $185? Here's what happened, as I understand it.
;)
Micron is the only American memory maker. The rest are concentrated in southeast Asia. The governments of the countries those companies are in subsidize them like crazy. Our cheap RAM comes at the expense of Malaysian et al. taxpayers. Anyway, Micron, having to pay overpriced American labor and lacking any equivalent corporate welfare, was having trouble competing. So what else, they whined to the FTC. BAM! Gigantic punitive tariff slapped on RAM imports. And now they're being pursued for "anti-competitive" practices?
Of course, using the violence of government to support your inefficient uncompetitive business certainly *is* anti-competitive, but you wouldn't think the US government would be ready to admit that
"hesitant" != "does not"
In most cases, Republicans are considered to be more hesitant to interfere with market forces than Democrats. This is a generally accepted political party distinction. The onus would be upon you to prove it wrong. However, you didn't even attempt to do that, you still continue to ignore my actual argument so that you can make your own irrelevant points.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Well, you forgot to append IANAHB/IAAWTSEAILAOL (I am not a human being, I am a walking, talking, shit encrusted, AIDS infected, lobotomized asshole on legs), so deal.
I believe that quote was written with this little thing called sarcasm.
[insert witty comment here]
Enron and M$ are latecomers to the time-share President. The oil industry leads Bush firmly by the nose. Not only do they get all the environmental legislation they want struck down but get cushy jobs and $60,000 bungs. Read more here. Anyway, that's getting off-topic. It was hardly a secret that M$ was paying off Bush not to break them up, and if a President can be bought with no obvious repercussions then you cannot expect M$ not to play the system within which they exist. For them it's just a cost of doing business. If you don't like it then it's up to you to talk to your representative and get them to put rules in to make your polititians more accountable.
In this case, the FCC have stood up and put the public first. For this the FCC are to be commended. It's not the first case I've noticed either where the FCC have got it spot on. They appear to be fairly well insulated from the polititians which may explain their consistency (though I am quite ignorant about the inner workings of the FCC).
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Sorry to reply to my own post, but some additional news on the DOJ DRAM-industry investigation. First, since yesterday it's been announced that many other memory makers have recieved DOJ subpoenas, including Elpida, Toshiba, Nanya, Hynix, and even little Winbond. It's quite clear now that this has nothing to do with Micron in particular but rather the DRAM industry as a whole.
Second, it's been noted that, sad to say, the DOJ generally only undertakes antitrust investigations in response to a complaint by a US interest claiming to be hurt by the alleged anti-competitive behavior. Since the only major party (that I can think of) hurt by the DRAM price war was Hynix, a South Korean company, it's difficult to imagine on whose behalf the DOJ would be investigating.
Thus it has been suggested that instead the DOJ is investigating the jump in DRAM prices following the end of the price war (i.e. when the Hynix takeover was announced); Michael Dell in particular has publicly complained about high DRAM prices, so some have suggested Dell is behind the complaint.
IMO, if the investigation is focusing on the SDRAM spot prices which shot up after the price war ended, it's misguided. That jump in prices was, IMO, the natural consequence of both the end of an artificial price war and uncertainty on the demand side as Intel introduced its first DDR motherboards and the market had to be sure to have adequate inventory of both SDRAM and DDR to cover for the possibility of either a very successful DDR ramp or a slow one.
Now, if the complaint focuses on the rather outrageous gap between spot and contract prices which existed until it finally close in the last couple weeks, then it might get somewhere. On the one hand it's pretty clear that the pricing anomaly was that the spot price was artificially low, not that contract was artificially high. On the other, there was apparently good evidence that the major memory makers were indeed colluding to keep contract prices that high, so the DOJ might indeed find something to complain about...
It might be an ideological claim, but it's not a party distinction. Republicans consistently aid those corporate entities that they are attached to, provided it's in their best-interest. You must not have a degree in History or perhaps even taken classes on U.S. political history if you don't understand that.
However it's much easier to attack the other person's credibility based upon stated ideological principles. It will be akin to someone stating trite Libertarians positions to ignore the constant illegal and unethical fraudulant wastes of money that Browne partakes in.
yea, the /. lameness filter removed the header. this should work:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
printf("FP for the CLIT\n"); return 0;
}
vodka, straight up, thank you!
yea. the /. lameness filter pulled out the header. this will work:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
printf("FP for the CLIT\n"); return 0;
}
vodka, straight up, thank you!
President Bush appointed the first African American
WTF does a persons race/gender/height/sexual orientation have to do with anything at all? I think George "is our children learning" Bush has gotten a Slashdot account.
just disagrees with breaking up Microsoft into two monopolies from one.
Except they wont be monopolies. As other people have pointed out, Microsoft leverages its products to take over the market. IE is the top browser because it was integrated into Windows. Office is the domminant office sweet because of big discounts if it was bundled with Windows. If MS gets broken up into an os company and an apps company they can't do that anymore.
His solution is to penalize Microsoft and force them to adopt different business practices
Which wouldn't do jack shit, and Jack's on his way out of town. Fining Microsoft or forcing them to open up the desktop wont take care of the core problem: MS using the os to leverage its apps and vice versa. If they are forbidden from doing 3 anti-compeditive business practices they'll just come up with 5 new ones to replace them.