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DRAM Price Fixing Investigations

Posted by timothy on from the at-least-it's-still-cheap dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A few days ago after FTC antitrust charges against Rambus were thrown out, the U.S. Department of Justice and EU have both begun probes against the 4 largest memory makers in accusation of price fixing during 2001/2002. News.com.com has information regarding the pending EU investigation. Anandtech and Silcon.com both have primers on the U.S. investigation. If you thought you paid too much for RAM in 2002, chances are you may have been more right than you originally thought."

12 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. I need some clarification... by numbski · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't like paying high prices any more than anyone else, however I have to wonder...

    Let's say I have a monopoly on widgets, or myself and my compeptitors agree to keep the price of widgets artificially high.

    At what point are we no longer allowed to sell our widgets at whatever price we see fit? When do we cross over into breaking the law for price fixing?

    --

    Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    1. Re:I need some clarification... by numbski · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So I can go sue Gillette for price fixing on razor blade refills?

      Or the printer manufacturers for price fixing on toner cartriges?

      You see what I'm getting at? When is it illegal?

      --

      Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    2. Re:I need some clarification... by haystor · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Clearly it's your use of gas that causes the fluctuations. Bastard.

      Seriously though, for the in town prices being higher there are a couple reasons. The cost of operating on more expensive land works its way into the price. There may also be city taxes involved as well.

      As far as why it fluctuates from week to week, you should view the gas station as a very small futures market. They don't price the gas they have now based upon how much they paid for it. They price it based upon how much it will cost to replace what you buy. This means they are pricing your current purchases on how much it will cost them to buy gas a couple weeks from now.

      This means that if the political climate in the mideast flares up they may raise prices. If some nation bucks OPEC and produces more, prices may go down.

      I heard of a study that observed the prices moved up much more efficiently than they moved down.

      There are also seasonal differences in the composition of gasoline which is actually a mixture of lots of chemicals. This, along with a greater demand makes gas in the summer more expensive.

      --
      t
  2. Uhh...no by Pingular · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you thought you paid too much for RAM in 2002
    I paid 70 for a stick of 512mb in 2002. That may be expensive compared to now, but with my first 486 I paid the same price for a 4mb stick. Unless you own a server farm, what's 10 per half a gig or ram?

    --

    When anger rises, think of the consequences.
    Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
  3. Price fixing lawsuits are hard to try..... by ghettoboy22 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Saving my mod points....

    While I'm willing to give any company the benefit of the doubt, it does seem rather suspicious that Micron chose to sell off their PC arm and focus instead on, the implied, more lucrative memory manufacturing business line. Circumstantial yes, but it never made sense why Micron would sell of a business line that was the only good alternative to Dell.

    That being said, it's really hard for the DoJ to prove a conspiracy existed to fix prices of memory between manufactures. IANAL, however from my understanding basically a "smoking gun" would be the only way a conviction could be had - some emails between companies discussing price or marketing strategies perhaps. Other than that, it's almost impossible to get a price-fixing case with a favorable outcome for the prosecution.

    1. Re:Price fixing lawsuits are hard to try..... by HardCase · · Score: 3, Interesting
      While I'm willing to give any company the benefit of the doubt, it does seem rather suspicious that Micron chose to sell off their PC arm and focus instead on, the implied, more lucrative memory manufacturing business line. Circumstantial yes, but it never made sense why Micron would sell of a business line that was the only good alternative to Dell.


      Micron owned ~60% of MicronPC. The business was losing money at a fantastic rate and shareholder pressure was on Micron to divest itself of businesses that were not part of its core competency. MicronPC itself was straying well out of its own core business by operating a rather poorly-run Internet services company, as well as making a huge departure from its niche of being a no-compromise performance PC company. MicronPC was a terribly mismanaged company.


      Micron either sold or closed a number of other businesses as well. The company used to be in the construction management business, RFID business, flat panel display business and property management business. They even manufactured semiconductor processing equipment. The problem was, though, that the company was a semiconductor manufacturer. During the dot bomb days, that was well and good, but, like many other companies that strayed from what they did best, when the bubble burst, Micron was stretched a little thin.


      But, to the point, Micron did not sell MicronPC. They donated their entire holdings to the Micron Foundation. MicronPC "sold" (and by "sell" I mean that they paid Gores to take the business) the computer business to a turnaround company and merged with Interland to further its ISP business.


      It's possible that 6 or 7 years ago MicronPC was a good alternative to Dell, but, up until a year or so ago, that certainly wasn't the case. As soon as MicronPC started trying to directly compete with Dell, the company began tanking. The product quality suffered tremendously and the company simply didn't have the management quality necessary to make the jump from a niche manufacturer to an industry giant. It's interesting that in the past year, MPC is now making a profit and building a focused range of no-compromise systems...much as it did in the early days.


      Micron Technology recognized what was happening at MicronPC years ago and pretty much turned its back on MicronPC quite a while before the company split up.


      -h-

  4. Toner and Ink by nycsubway · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd like to see the price of toner and ink cartridges go down. Those things seem so simple, I wonder why they are so expensive. A memory chip seems slightly more expensive to produce than an ink cartridge. Yet the prices are very similar.

    --
    http://github.com/gbook/nidb
  5. Re:I remember when 64MB of RAM was $1000 by WinDOOR · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah and paying $250 for a 16mb Toshiba laptop dimm from CompUsa because it was the only place I could find it. Memory should still be going down in price, but it isn't. I bought 50 sticks of 128meg PC-133 for about $16.00 a stick in '02. Can't buy it for that now.

  6. Market fixes itself in this case by Brahmastra · · Score: 5, Interesting
    In April 2002, Michael Dell said that his company, PC maker Dell, began to buy memory from second-tier manufacturers to avoid cartel-like behavior of some memory makers. Why is price fixing by a few manufacturers a concern when alternate vendors are available? It's a problem only if the price fixers are the only vendors. The market is fixing itself. If Dell buys from the 2nd tier vendors, the price fixers have to ultimately lower their prices.
  7. Too Bad About Rambus by stevesliva · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I thought the FTC complaint against Rambus would have set a great precident. Basically Rambus participated in standards development for DRAM technology and ensured that the standards would include technology infringing on Rambus patents without disclosing those patents. Rambus then withdrew and began suing every DRAM maker in sight.

    SCO is doing just about the same thing as Rambus, but with much less success. Participate in Linux/UNIX standards groups, but later claim to own those standards and begin suing everyone.

    --
    Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
  8. so, class action lawsuit soon by fireduck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Class action lawsuits are becoming my new favorite pasttime. Consider:

    In the past month, apparently I've been involved in at least 3 class action lawsuits. Both my wife and I got checks for $13.86 from connecticut's part in suing the record labels over overpriced CDs. Both of us have gotten paperwork regarding whatever claims are against Microsoft and software purchased in the late 90s (couple window versions, offices, etc.). I just submitted something for a company who were apparently inflating their stock value (or something) while I owned a number of their shares. And I can't even recall doing anything to get involved in the lawsuit to begin with. That's the best part. Christmas in March. I love it.

    So, when are the consumers going to sue and and how do I convince the authorities to go after Corsair, as that's the only memory I purchased in that timeframe?

  9. Maybe big brother should investigate microsoft. by jason.mitchell · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you think maybe 200 dollars for a peice of actual hardware is bad, they might want to start looking into software like windows trying to sell $1,000 for microsoft windows xp. Atleast you can actually hold the ram in your hand and be like "yeah! I have ram in my hand."