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AMD Takes Case To Public, Japan
Kez writes "Following on from Tuesday's post on AMD filing a lawsuit against Intel in the U.S., Reuters is reporting that AMD is claiming damages against Intel K.K. in Japan, over the Japan Fair Trade Commission's recommendation that Intel has violated Japan's Antimonopoloy Act. They are seeking to claim $50million in damages in the High Court and have also filed for damages in the District Court. AMD continue to throw the punches, but will they come out on top?" At the same time, Rob writes "Computer Business Review is reporting that Advanced Micro Devices yesterday ran a
full-page advertisement in several major North American newspapers urging readers to
familiarize themselves with its 48-page
complaint against Intel Corp's alleged anti-competitiveness. By taking its case to the
people in this way, AMD arguably may pique investor interest and raise its market profile.
At the same time, these antics may however lead AMD into a precarious legal position."
Good for them. Intel's actions are exactly what anti-monopoly laws were passed to suppress.
Lawsuits are sometimes interpreted as a hallmark of a desperate company. Perhaps things are not looking so rosy for AMD?
Please, AMD do not use this in some SCO-like attempt to pump your stock price. Instead, advertise your products. Let the courts decide whether or not Intel has had an unfair advantage. Mud slinging just makes you look like you are hiding something.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
We need both AMD and Intel in order for innovation and lower prices to remain. If AMD destroys Intel we'll just trade one alleged monopoly for another.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Whether or not this story is "news", there's a pretty clear difference between the two blurbs you cited.
/. - the tidbits of new news.
1. The Fair Trade Commission of Japan (JFTC) ruled against Intel, saying that Intel deliberately engaged in illegal business practices.
2. AMD decided to claim damages against Intel in Japan, a logical decision seeing that Intel has already been found in violation of the law.
Call me crazy, but Intel being found guilty by the JFTC and AMD claiming damages as a result of that ruling are not the same thing. Perhaps you think that #2 logically follows from #1. But at least as of Tuesday, it hadn't *actually* happened yet.
So for people like me, who are interested in what happens in this case, this is not only news but new news. Which is why I read
It's ridiculous fanboydom like this that makes reading comments too early sickening.
What's best for the consumer is not Intel's death. Intel goign bankrupt will be about as good for anyone as AMD going bankrupt. After all, we can safely assume that Intel's demise would leave AMD as the only major x86 chip maker, and hence give AMD a monopoly over that segment of the processor market.
What promotes growth is competition, both to drive down market prices and provide incentive for innovation and continual progress. Competition is a good thing. Monopolies, whether they were the underdog or not, whether they were evil or not, are bad. With a monopoly, everyone suffers except for the few top brass in the company.
I've always liked AMD processors, because of better performance/price ratios. My last one was an AMD Athlon XP 2000+ or something like that.
Still I think it is a good idea to reserve judgement until all facts are on the table. I would not slam AMD for going to the courts, and I wouldn't slam Intel until we know if AMD's allegations are actually true.
However, know that AMD is NOT a small company. It is in fact a massive multinational company. This is not a David vs. Goliath, it is a giant against an even bigger giant.
Yes, if your competitor uses a monopoly position to crush you.
Is it the case with you ?
A CPU "should" cost what the customer is willing to pay for it. The customer is the only person to blame for the fact that Intel chips cost 2x what AMD costs. If the customer wasn't willing to pay that much, you can bet that Intel wouldn't be charging that much.
Via dying? I'd say it's way too early to start writing an obituary. They're actually expanding their x86 compatible offerings quite a bit at this point, with the recent release of the C7, C7-M, Eden-N, and "Luke" chips. And Hewlett Packard just chose them to power their entire thin client line.
The thing about Via is that they're in a fairly invisible market segment, as far as mainstream computers go. They compete against the Pentium/Celeron M ULV and AMD Geode, not the Pentium IV and Athlon lines.
The industry is only just starting to focus on the issue of power consumption seriously, and the classes of devices where this is a key feature (e.g. tablets and ultraportables) are only just starting to show significant growth.
I have a feeling Via has a lot of untapped potential here. Intel finally coming out with decent low power designs hampers things a but, but Transmeta's exit from the marketplace balances that out somewhat and they still have a very compelling overall platform.
For those that are interested in reading a bit more there are better articles out there such as this one It's a bit negative on AMD but the infor is better.
Hard to believe that one could bully a big company like IBM. Maybe monopolists like to stick together.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
Intel's exclusivity contracts make Intel CPUs cheaper for an individual vendor, but presumably, unfettered competition would make it cheaper for everyone.
1. Leading Intel solutions [P4] are worse performers than the AMD32 and AMD64 [the P3 was better than the P4]. The PentiumM is a good runner but the recent AMD processors still take less power and get higher IPCs
FACT: The Pentium M is only competing with the Athlon64 in the mobile market, where battery life is king. If you look a the battery life benchamrks, you'll see why people buy Intel there...perfomance means less for most mobile users.
2. AMD owns the 64-bit x86 world.
FACT: Intel has sold more 64-bit enabled Pentium4 processors in the last year than AMD has ever shipped. On what basis do you declare "own?"
3. The future will be either x86_64 or not x86_* at all.
Since Intel has equipped low-end Celerons with this feature, I would agree...
4. AMD processors are just as reliable and often more so as they generate less heat. Even a two year old AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ 1.8Ghz generates comparable heat to a NEW Intel Celeron 1.4Ghz [both Presarios] and have the same battery life.
Apple to apples, please: Celeron is a low-budget part, so it has many of the power-saving features disabled. (They're available in the Pentium M part...which is lower heat...)
5. AMD processors cost less.
Pentium4 XE 840: $999 (in volume) Athlon X2 4800+: $1137 (in volume)
6. AMD processors are x86_* compatible.
Or people wouldn't buy them at all.
What everyone fails to realize is that market share has very little to do with technical superiority and a lot more to do with the ability of a company to match the demands of its customers (OEMs). If you have a solid supply chain for volume parts, you will have more customers than someone who can only supply what those customers needs today. They need you to be able to scale with their growth. It makes sense to choose one or the other, since maintaining two identical competing products complicates your supply chain, and one is almost certain not to seel in favor of the other. Technical superiority only plays a part when one product is better than another by a VERY significant margin (and we all know how fickle benchmarks can be...) Until that happens, keeping with teh same supplier makes sense. So why is Intel ahead? They can push out more wafers than any other chip manufacturer, which leads to lower manufacturing costs, which allows them to match their customer's needs, and rake in the big profits.
And that's the way it supposed to work.
There is a valid technical (and financial) reason for buying Intel. Its called a chipset. Intel markets chipsets supporting their CPUs. AMD, in general doesn't. As a result, people like Dell go for the package deal CPU and chipset. They don't have to depend on a third party to create motherboard support. I think, this more than anything else, was responsible for Apple's decision to go with Intel. One stop shopping, chipset and CPU, from the same manufacturer.
If you read the complaint your head would probably spin with some of the allegations against Intel. Granted, the complaint is only AMD's side of the story, but if even half of the allegations are proven, Intel deserves a serious spanking.
Does anyone (especially the Intel haters) remember when AMD's CEO Sanders testified at the Microsoft antitrust trial -- in favor of Microsoft? Even though Microsoft was accused of many of the same things that AMD now charges Intel with, such as bullying suppliers? I guess it's OK to abuse a monopoly position, but only if you add support for someone's processor in your OS.
I wonder if that courtroom appearance will come back to haunt AMD.
Dunno if it went that way. Right now, Apple needs intel a lot more than the other way around. I doubt Jobs would have had an intel version of OS X for so long if he hasn't been damn worried about IBM screwing them. I don't think it probably took much convincing from Intel (aside from finances), and I'd think Jobs probably initiated contact.
The x86 versions of Windows and Linux, the two operating systems that dominate the business and consumer computer worlds, have spawned a huge installed base of Windows- and Linux-compatible application programs that can only run the x86 instruction set. This has given Intel effective ownership of personal computing. Although other microprocessors are offered for sale, the non-x86 microprocessors are not reasonably interchangeable with x86 microprocessors because none can run the x86 Windows or Linux operating systems or the application software written for them.
I found it interesting that Linux no longer runs on PPC, Sparc, Alpha, xScale, etc.
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
Conventional wisdom was if either Intel or AMD was going to have chips in Macs, it would be AMD for many reason(64-bit chips, collaboration on HyperTransport, image of the most powerful CPUs, etc)
I was under the impression that a big part of Apple's switch away from IBM was due to recurring supply problems in getting enough G3/G4/G5 chips to meet demand. If that really is the case, why would they go and switch to a new vendor that is notorious for supply shortages in their high end offerings, regardless of any technological superiority. I doubt AMD really ever had a chance at that deal, regardless of any tactics Intel may have used.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?