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Intel in Antitrust Trouble in Japan
vincecate writes "The Japan Fair Trade Commission has ruled that
Intel violated antitrust laws in Japan.
Giving customers discounts based on the volume of your products
they purchased is good business.
However, Intel was adjusting customer discounts
based on the volume of competing products they purchased,
which is not legal.
After the ruling,
AMD responded saying, "We encourage governments around the globe to ensure that their markets are not being harmed as well".
While
Intel responded
saying, "Intel continues to believe its business practices are both fair and lawful."
While Intel responded saying, "Intel continues to believe its business practices are both fair and lawful."
That's how PR hacks are taught to respond. When, for example, your CEO is stealing money, your PRish role is to go out and with a straight face say: "The core Value of our company is Honesty. We will introduce a Business Codex to emphasize our commitment."
I think you missed the point slightly, it goes something like this:
Intel: "if you buy 1 chip it costs $500"
Intel: "But if you buy 10 it costs $450 per chip"
Intel: "If company X wants to buy 10 then it will cost them $480 per chip because we found out they bought an athlon chip last week"
THAT is not on!!
Oh regarding Intel's comment that it "... continues to believe its business practices are both fair and lawful.". It might just be legal in some countries but how is it fair to use your dominant position to prevent other companies from being able to compete with you?
Statements like this are not meant to be factual. They are meant to influence opinions. "continues to believe" is a phrase that should warn you that a politician or a company is lying to you. Always replace it with "persists in claiming".
Actually, from the way TFA explained it, it sounded a little more like this:
:P
Company A and Company B buy 500 intel processors.
Intel goes back to those companies and says "Hey, we'll pay you money^H^H^H^H a 'rebate' - if you promise not to buy any AMD chips for a while."
Company A says "ok" and gets the cash, Company B tells them to go to hell, and doesn't get squat.
But who reads TFA around here?
"Intel continues to believe its business practices are both fair and lawful ,in spite of all evidence to the contrary."
If they keep on going like that, pretty soon we'll have Intel turn into a religion.
Just
Are you really surprised? Intel and all large corporations exist to make their organisation more valuable. They all push the law just as far as they think they can get away with... but this time, they judged wrong. I'd love to know about all of the dodgy shit that even fairly reputable organisations get up to, because I suspect there's an awful lot more of this stuff going on than your average person knows about.
;)
I always think of it like this: they're not immoral, they're amoral. They just don't care about right or wrong, they can't afford to, because that's how the system works. I'm glad that they got caught, and I think we need much more government constraints put in place and have them actively enforced to prevent things like this from happening.
Of course, for that to happen, I'd need to buy myself a politician or two... and I'm only a poor student... care to give me a donation anyone?
I can and have "threatened" to quit doing business with online stores who tried to sell me damaged computer parts. Should I be charged with antitrust violations? Why or why not?
Of course not, A) damaged goods are not an acceptable good and B) You're the buyer, you can do what you want anyway.
Now lets say you go to the computer store and the manager says "You own an AMD, so that video card in your hand will cost double" would you call that a fair trade practice? If they're the only computer store in the country?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.