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."

Comments

So carrots are legal, sticks are not

[grandmofftarkin]

In summary it looks like there is no problem encouraging people to use your product, it is only wrong if you threaten them when they consider using another companies product. Yes, this sounds pretty reasonable to me.

I know very little about law in this area. Is it the same in the U.S. and Europe? I would like to think it is but then considering today's climate I wouldn't be surprised if you it wasn't!

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? A statement like that is just a bare faced lie. If the situation was reversed you can bet Intel would kick up a fuss. I'm not saying I'm surprised it is just irritating.

Hey Intel...

[BackInIraq]

...see that fine line between shrewd business practices and predatory, monopolistic racketeering?

See how you and Microsoft are on the same side of it?

That's a bad thing.

Last sentence was edited out by slashdot editors

[vincecate]

But if Intel really believes this is "fair and lawful", why is it that Intel does not use written contracts for these deals?

Dell and AMD

[Anonymous Coward]

Could it be for a similar reason that Dell reinstated that they will stick to Intel chips despite the lead of AMD in 64 bit processors.

I mean the Intel CEO called Dell's CEO and said: "If you offer a single system with AMD processors we'll raise the prices on our stuff". Of course both will deny.

I strongly suspect something like this: in big business relationships, you can never be paranoid enough. The reality is much worse than anything that most people could start to imagine.

For example, AMD has been the only source for mobile 64 bit processors for quite some time. But Intel can prevent Dell from entering the market until they are ready, and maybe also pressuring Microsoft in the same direction, so that both Dell 64 bit portables and 64 bit Windows will be available only when Intel has all 3 catergories (mobile, desktop and servers) covered.

Re:Give me a rational reason why this is a problem

[orlinius]

I'm not surprised at all that Intel has such practices with its customers.

Two years ago, in the company I worked for, we needed to buy 600 cheap servers from Dell for an embedded application that we had to install at our clients. The price was really very important. If we couldn't get them at the right price, our project was not going to make it.

Dell did everything to lower the price. I remember they went down as much as 50% but it was still not enough.

We were about to cut the project when Dell called us and told us that the only way to reduce the price of the 600 servers further was if we signed some sort of paper saying that we used AMD processors in our previous project and this was a replacement project. This way they could get a big rebate from Intel under a certain program provided by Intel.

I just couldn't believe that Intel was ready to go that far...