Slashdot Mirror
Japanese Government Raids Intel Tokyo Offices
mordicus writes "Reuters
is reporting that Japanese Trade Officials have raided Intel's Japan Offices. From the article:
'Japan's fair trade watchdog raided the offices of Intel Corp's Japanese unit on
Thursday and a government source in Tokyo said the chip giant is suspected of violating
antitrust laws.' Japan seems to be rather vigilant in enforcing its antitrust legislation. Microsoft's Japanese unit was target of a
similar operation
less than two months ago."
It's hard to declare Intel a monopoly (which is has to be if you are going to accuse it of monopolistic practices) when the latest numbers I've seen show AMD at 12% of the market and climbing, prior to this "invasion".
Do you know any Japanese company which has a >80% worldwide marketshare and has been abusing it?
And in other related news: Microsft, SCO and the RIAA have teamed up to counter this threat by sucking up all of the countries legal and technical resources in a frivolous and long-term legal battle. On a more serious side, it is about time a country gets tough on this subject. My biggest fear is that Japan will not be able to counter these international economic threats. The U.S. government was not even powerful enough to take on Microsoft. Their best bet is to cooperate in the Asian market with OpenSource. Have you ever seen or used Asian versions of Microsoft products? They are even worse than the American counterparts. It is no wonder they are feeling a bit angry. My prediction is that the Asian market is going to give BIG Corporate American business a big surprise in coming years.
Sony is like the Microsoft of Japan. Billboards dominate the streets. They certainly dominate the media and the advertising dollar there. Interesting how they would "raid" a US company who, to me, seems no more guilty than the dominant player there. It also lends creedance to revenge - seeing as Sony recently made a HUGE order of Transmeta Chips and didn't go with intel version of the ARM processor.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
IIRC, japan takes it's crime very seriously, compared to say.. the US (disclaimer: I'm a native of the USA). Criminals move with the expectation of being caught, because the cops in Japan are highly efficient, work selflessly, etc etc. I hear some figure about how criminals in Japan have a 80-90% chance of being caught, where as in the US, it's more like 20-30%.
Is it still that way?
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
You can't believe this is in the interest of fair trade, not in Japan, where business has the government firmly wrapped around its little finger? Surely you don't believe this was not at the behest of griping japanese electronics manufacturers who have had a difficult time competing with Intel on their home turf. This is the country that dumped consumer electronics and automobiles on the world, subsidized by taxing their own citizens. This is the country that negotiated hardball and grudgingly every millimeter of trade concessions for years.
When Japan, Inc. does things we like, like make handheld devices with Linux embedded, we applaud. When they do things we're less thrilled, we overlook. Japan, Inc. makes some damn fine stuff, but don't confuse that with government-industrial policies.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...of other nations, Japan makes no secret of the fact that they are a highly nationalistic country, and that they will do whatever it takes to protect their markets. Most other western industrialised nations are more fragmented and disingenous about it. Japan since WW2 and their rebuilding, sees economics as just another form of warfare basically, and acvts accordingly. They are polite about it, but ruthless. They are also really up the creek with the yen and the dollar, and are exploring different ways to ease the burden of supporting a still grossly over valued dollar. They have too many investments tied to it, but realise they needed major serious diversification like years ago, and are in max overdrive to rectify what to them is a national economic disaster in the making if it's not addressed past the lip service level. Same thing in the US, just we have.... stupider central bankers. They thought that they could keep pushing funny bux forever, like no one would ever notice. another subject there, but that is happening as well.
There's probably also a lot of other internal political action (politics=money, like any other place) going on around this, but I don't follow their internal affairs adequately enough to comment on it to any significant degree.
As an aside,I am also highly surprised that in this day and age that *any* intel chips get used in Japan.
And its laws. American companies get away with far more than they should here. It wouldn't be surprising that they think the rest of the world is just as forgiving. For a company like Sony that has been created in Japan, they know what they can and cannot do inside and out. It makes sense that Japanese companies are not being busted, they probably all realise how harsh it can really be if they mess up. It's a learning lesson American companies will have to learn quickly. Ever wonder why the XBox has done so bad in Japan? It's because Microsoft cant get the leverage they can in other countries without breaking a metric ton of laws. Microsoft in turn has slammed Japan over and over saying they dont need them, etc .. While doing this, they've pretty much lost all respect for any Japanese developers jumping on the XBox2 ship. They've doomed their console hopes because they finally have to play fair somewhere and it bit them in the ass.
Read the book "intel Inside". The insider account of the culture of fear and paranoia fostered at Intel, with propaganda posters on the wall about how "it's nice to work at Intel", constant employee surveillance, the Randall Schwartz of Perl fame lawsuit, etc etc.
It's Orwellian nature makes it perfectly suited for Japanese culture. Should be a slam dunk. Except, as another slashdotter pointed out, the profits are rolling back to Andy Grove and his clan. The Intellies probably cut some deal with Taiwan and a Japanese company lost out, and before you know it, the offices are being raided.
With Intel's culture, a government raid is the biggest kick in the balls you could deliver. Start going through computer files and the network there, and people would be flipping out. What if they uncovered the AMD sabotage plot?