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AMD Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel
jonathan_ingram writes "As reported on GrokLaw, AMD has just filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel. AMD states in its press release that the complaint details "... how Intel has unlawfully maintained its monopoly in the x86 microprocessor market by engaging in worldwide coercion of customers from dealing with AMD. It identifies 38 companies that have been victims of coercion by Intel - including large scale computer-makers, small system-builders, wholesale distributors, and retailers, through seven types of illegality across three continents.""
Full text of the complaint filed can be found here in PDF format.
Interesting read...it's high time we saw some legal action against Intel for all these shenanigans. However, I'm doubtful that this will resolve anything...in reality, Intel will probably be about as inconvinenced by this antitrust action as Microsoft was by theirs.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Before this, it was already pretty much a foregone conclusion that Apple would use AMD products where they made sense in the future, and that the Intel announcement, specifically, was intended to be one of simplicity that wouldn't rile up Wall Street and analysts, and we can see that they've succeeded in spades. However, once the transition to the x86 architecture is over, there is nothing stopping Apple from using AMD (and/or x86-64/EM64T from Intel or AMD) where appropriate... ...except, possibly, strongarm tactics by Intel.
Since the transition of high end machines is two and a half years out ("end of 2007"), it's likely that at least some of this will have shaken out by then. So even IF there are any types of exclusivity arrangements with Intel on Apple's part, either explicit or implicit (and please note, there is nothing to suggest there is), Apple, along with many other x86 vendors, will be free to choose the best processor solutions for their products - including those from AMD.
Remember, too, though, that while AMD may have superior products in certain, specific areas, since it shares manufacturing/fabrication capability with IBM, it has run into many of the same manufacturing and supply problems as IBM. Superior products are fine - if you can actually ship them. Intel, while you can cherry-pick instances of supply problems, has proven itself to be a stable and consistent supplier.
All that said, choice and competition is still a good thing for this marketplace.
For more on the transition, see Apple/Intel FAQ.
Didn't Dell complain one time that this was part of the reason they don't sell AMD?
At least while the lawsuit is ongoing, Intel will likely be more careful about its practices, so vendors might offer more AMD systems. I doubt that Dell will jump on board, but it's be nice to see some Thinkpad or Viao A64 based systems.
In the end, Intel will pay a fine and agree to not do anymore what they never admitted to doing in the first place.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
They need to drum up more exposure, what better way that an anti-trust case? I'm not saying they don't have one, I am sure they are privy to info I am not, but isn't it great AMD advertising?
What? A well known secret you say?
try { Signature mysig = new CleverAttempt(); } catch(NonCleverSignatureException e) { postanyway(); }
Intel has a higher market share than IBM did during the height of the mainframe wars, by almost 20% -- the question isn't whether they have the market share, it's whether they have the power to command the market.
If proven, the allegations in AMD's suit would constitute a slam-dunk finding of market power and abuse of that power.
If you're of the John Carroll "there is no such thing as monopoly" school, none of this matters. On the other hand, most of us prefer a market where there is honest competition on the merits, not one where a competitor is frozen out by under-the-table payments and other dirty tricks.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
A monopoly doesn't mean that a company has 100% of the market, it just means that they have an overwhelming majority such that they can exert pressures against smaller companies by threatening customers. This is not the same as Intel underpricing AMD because they have a better capacity than AMD. That is legitimate business, and a gain from having the kind of production capacity that Intel has (an economy of scale). The allegation here is that Intel is witholding incetives only for people who specifically buy AMD products, meaning that Intel is using its position in the market to limit competition by not only providing incentives to use Intel products, but to provided disincentives to use AMD products. That seems like a pretty shady deal to me. Doesn't that strike you as disgusting and abhorrent?
I'd rather be cycling.
Shouldn't you be doing something useful?
Here is a list of specific allegations:
Insert Generic Sig Here:
Unfortunately, your wrong.
Unfortunately, his wrong what?
Seriously, though...from TFA:
So, as you can see, these allegations are far from the 'drivel' you make them out to be.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Nowhere on the IPP package does it say that it won't use optimized code. If someone wasn't a developer like I am, they might have just thought (incorrectly) that AMD chips are slower than Intel. This is false, as when I hand write the assembly code and use SSE2 the Opteron, even at 2.2 Ghz, blows the doors off of a 3.6Ghz Pentium 4 Xeon - and that's just 32 bit instructions. I haven't finished porting my code to 64 bit, and then I suspect that it'll be even more of a massacre in AMD's favor.
Yes, image processing is more memory bound than CPU bound, but for things like jpeg compression the CPU matters. (And since the memory controller is ON the Opteron, it ends up absolutely rocking for image processing.)
It makes me sad to say this, but in the current political climate within the US, I don't think that any of this (what you're asking for) is going to happen.
Much of the late-90's dotcom boom was predicated on the 1996 PSLR Act. This act was Clinton's ONLY Veto, over a Republican Congress, and they overrode him on it. This law opened the floodgates for corporate accounting fraud and corruption on an unprecedented scale, and only a very few of the criminals were ever caught or punished, including Enron, Worldcom, Citibank, Krispy Kreme, Arthur Anderson, Veritas, AOL, etc. etc. ad nauseum. The ones who were punished were given very minor slaps on the wrist, as a token gesture during a very brief era of symbolic regulatory tightening that began in late 2001, and ended recently with the appointment of Cox as SEC head.
Cox was the criminal bastard who WROTE the PSLR Act. So the brief era of symbolic regulatory tightening on oversight of corporate accounting practices has ended. It is now open season on shareholders, and especially consumers. I predict that this AMD action will go about as far as Netscapes complaint against Microsoft. A long, drawn out, and profitably-entertaining courtroom drama, AMD will falter and die, somewhere along the way, and in the end, a slap on the wrist for Intel.
Some of the folks who support this kind of wild-west business climate simply have a loyalty to their rich crony-capitalist buddies. Others have a more nationalistic ideology (They're an American company, we have to protect them so they can compete internationally - look what's happened to Boeing, they're effectively a jumbo-jet monopoly, but they're getting their asses handed to them by Airbus). In the end, companies like Intel, or Boeing, end up with no competition - and of course, it makes them still weaker. You think the Chrysler bail-out by the government had nothing to do with their eventual buy-out by Daimler? Corporate Welfare, whether by direct bailout, deregulation, or preferential treatment, or even special tax breaks, breeds nothing but dependent Corporate Welfare Queens. ONLY competition, in a fair, intelligently regulated marketplace, will breed excellence.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
That's the smartest thing I've read on here all day - it's so true. When tech companies specifically break code because it's a competitor, just like Microsoft with IE only pages, it goes to show they can't compete, so they have to resort to intentionally breaking things, which only hurts the consumer.
MOD PARENT UP. Excellent comment.
Intel began self-destructing several years ago. For example, in my opinion, the Intel consumer products division released lame, unfinished products. Eventually Intel reacted to the poor sales by closing the division.
Like really, really scary horror stories? Here's one more scary than you've ever seen in film. Intel marketing has become detached from reality. Intel marketing people go to work every day, but they just pretend to have meaningful jobs and pretend to be doing something positive for Intel. They are zombies, and most of them don't appear intelligent enough to know that they are zombies. If you think this is an exaggeration, read this sentence from a recent email message from Intel Marketing (I'm talking here about Intel marketing, not Intel's advertising agency.):
"Pass any three of the four tests before July 26, 2005 and your company will get a certificate of completion - plus you'll receive an Intel BunnyPeople Character." Here's an explanation with photo: Intel Bunny People.
Intel has been giving those dolls away for 7 1/2 years. Maybe someone bought a huge number of them?
How many technically-oriented people are motivated by the idea of receiving a doll? It goes like this: 1) Give Intel marketing your company's address and phone number and email address, so that they can spam you in the future. 2) Sit through boring marketing-speak, written by people who don't know or care about Intel products, or any technical product. 3) Take a test. 4) Get a doll?
Intel management appears to have spun out of control. Apparently it is now all stock options and company politics, and nothing about actually doing well. The people in charge don't actually know what they are doing, and apparently care more about having their executive positions than making good products.
Intel is known in Portland, Oregon, where it is based, for being abusive toward its employees. I'm guessing that the present problems really began about 12 or 15 years ago, when the Intel management, just before an enormous increase in profits, pleaded broke and reduced the pay of employees by 10%. Intel is known for over-working its employees, and pressing them to work very long hours.
Once about 2 years ago, I decided to ask Intel marketing people to fix a problem with the motherboard web site. Intel's ordering model number, used when you place an order with a distributor, was nowhere connected on the web site with the marketing model number, like 845BGL. I asked them to fix that. I talked to several marketing employees, all of whom clearly did not intend to do any real work.
I could tell many, many stories about Intel's sink into depression, but that's enough for now. I will have to say, however, that Microsoft's marketing people are worse.