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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."
What's their reasoning, I wonder? They think Intel is stealing processor stuff from Nintendo?
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".
Well, at least they have been against American companies.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think they might have chosen a more descriptive word for what happened? When I think of a raid, I think of things like a drug bust where they bang down the door and come in with guns drawn. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling this "raid" was more like some guys in suits showing up and demanding to speak with certain people and look at certain files, etc. Then again, Intel does hire some sneaky folk, and you never know if they have a stockpile of BFG-9000's in the back room waiting for the FTC to come.
Needless to say, calling it a "raid" gives the wrong impression (to me).
Celebrate Steak and a Blowjob Day!
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.
Unfortunately, many countries are not in the same position to aggravate or turn down Western business, even if in the medium and long run they lose in the deal. For many "third world" countries, short-term existence (and political graft) are the only thing on the radar.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
From all of the recent /. stories, I imagine a lot of japanese robots doing the raiding...
That or I watch too much anime. Probably a bit of both.
You are wrong if you think any American company is going to march into Japan and tell the Japanese how to run their business. Very wrong!
The Japanese are known for protecting their own, at any cost, from non-Japanese threats. To say such protectionism a cornerstone of their culture is an understatement. Chances are that Intel tried to go John Wayne* on their Japanese suppliers/distributors, and they replied to the threat in their own special way: Using Tokyo to respond for them.
* - Being an American currently living in Japan, I can say that acting American in a Japanese Business setting is like walking upto the plate, in baseball, with 2 strikes against you.
No-knock raids have been going on in America for quite some time to combat those crazy marijuana and crack users. It's about time that other countries pick up on the value of no-knock raids in taking down corporations that violate anti-trust laws. Had it gone down American-style, someone would have ended up dead.
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.
Does SCO, by any chance, have offices in Japan?
c++;
Intel and Microsoft? They need to raid a case maker, a hard drive maker, a video card maker and a motherboard maker and they'll be all set to play Half-Life 2 at the precinct. ;)
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.
I wish AMD was the only processor manufacturer in the world, then everyone could only buy processors that are high quality for a low price.
I wonder if the price of AMD would be so good if they would be a monopoly ...
I still like choices. Let AMD and Intel and maybe some more companies compete. This creates innovation and good prices
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?