Slashdot Mirror
AMD Subpoenas to Stop Document Destruction
cyberfunk2 writes "It appears that a court has granted AMD a "no-shred" request with respect to documents related to its' charges of Intel anticompetitive behavior. 9 of the 32 companies subpoenaed so far have said they will adhere to the order. The 9 are Acer, Gateway, Lenovo, NEC, Rackable Systems, Sony, Sun, Tech Data and Circuit City. Others have promised to respond soon."
I guess they have many electronic documents as well... Does the order apply to "not deleting the file". More specifically, how do they intend to enforce this order ! They can't obviously sit and ensure that no shredding is performed or no document is deleted !
\u262D = \u5350
The nature of the complaint sounds awful, and AMD certainly has a very competitive product that Intel is trying to quash. I can't help but wonder, though, at how difficult it is going to be to prove the charges AMD makes, and even if they are proved, by the time years have passed and the judgement is made, the market will be way down the road. Look at the Microsoft browser case: while there was relief granted, did it really make a difference by the time it was given?
In addition, the sheer volume of paperwork requested (38 companies) indicates that this is going to be huge and take time to prosecute. While that's great for the lawyers, I'm not so sure it serves the interests of their client. Aside from a insignificant (relatively speaking) award and the lawyers getting paid, I can't remember one tech company suing another and actually coming out on top of the market years later. Perhaps they are doing this for deterrence purposes? ie, to keep Intel from continuing its practices during the trial?
Easy For You to Say
AMD
* Outsourcer of jobs to overseas, according to CNN's Lou Dobbs, at a time when huge numbers of US tech workers are unemployed.
Ooooh, that's a huge misdeed, and I trust Lou Dobbs with my life!
And from the same link:
"The purpose of the new capitalism is to shoot the wounded."
Andy Grove, Intel Chairman
[leading to monopolies? to cartels? to fascism?]
* Class-action suit alleging that the Pentium IV is slower than the Pentium III despite Intel's marketing hype. Info here
* Supported California Proposition 64, which prevents many just lawsuits against corporate criminals. info
* Theft of $1.969 billion as "tax breaks" from US Taxpayers between 2001-2003, thanks to legally-bribed politicians. Information here.
* Intel received $300 million in tax breaks from localities over 30 years ending 1993 despite being a major polluter. More information here.
* Intel was caught in a $600 billion tax-evasion scheme. Info.
* Intel tried to have an ex-employee Kenneth Hamidi prosecuted for trespassing when he sent emails to former ex-coworkers at their work email addresses. His emails contained criticism of the company. Intel ultimately failed. More info here and here.
* Intel is currently polluting at Corrales, New Mexico
How can you tell whether an organisation is shredding or not if they do it covertly? After all, if you have something to hide why are you going to worry about someone telling you to stop if you think you can cover your tracks - or is this like the infamous "have you stopped beating your wife?" question?
AT&ROFLMAO
Otherwise the court won't ask the company to keep their document/file. This case probably will take a while to settle...
Others have promised to respond soon.
Yeah, hang on, we'll send in our response as soon as we're done shredding these last few tons of paper.
Once we have shredded the necessary documents.
Even without Toshiba, or the other 22 comapanies that have not responded or made a decision yet, AMD still has some big guns on their side.
Those 9 companies are big names and could win the case for them if indeed they have the evidence AMD is hoping for.
Web Design Tips
Please wait... Here, last document....
OK, now we promise we won't destroy any more documents.
You point the finger at AMD and talk about their misdeeds, and what do you have to back this up? A homepage saying that AMD has been outsourcing work to other countries. That is a pretty lame misdeed in my book.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
As soon as the shredder cools down a bit.
Imagine you work at one of these 32 companies and you're dilligently working on a project that's going fantastically. Suddenly because of some lawsuit that you have nothing to do with and the company only tangentially has any relationship with one of the two parties, you have to stop working on your project so that you can immediately begin a document preservation project.
I'm not saying AMD isn't within their rights, I'm just making the observation that it's getting so difficult to do business anymore. Bad enough companies have to dodge copyright, trademark and patent infringement cases all day for things they actually do. Add to that cases that they had little or nothing to do with, but they might have some document that some other company sent to them.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Those responsible for shredding the important documents, have been sacked. ...
...
We apologize again for the inconvienence. Those responsible for sacking the people who were shredding documents have also been sacked.
A moose once bit my sister...
And they said zombies weren't real!
Hmm. So we know both are "evil".
What happened to other players in the x86 market? Cyrix is dead, Transmeta is dead, are there any others left? Any one NOT evil?
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Man it is totally unfair to not allow them to skateboard during this!
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
necessity.
Would you rather AMD go out of business?
Their competition outsources and so must they.
nntznnr
My only qualms about this lawsuit have to do with AMD's wonderful pricing. We all know that lawsuits take time and, most of all, money. AMD can sue Intel all it wants, but they cannot pass on the price of the lawsuit to their customers, lest its prices be raised nearer to that of its sworn enemy.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Are we just putting apostrophes anywhere we damn well please now? It's bad enough when people think "it's" is a proper possessive (it isn't), but now you're just sticking them places to your heart's content?
The Angry Flower can help you. See rule 3. http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif
if Intel is doing what AMD alledges, I would assume many third-party companies resent what Intel is doing. Shred? They may secretly help AMD behind the scenes for all we know.
They may not want to be held hostage.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Mod down. It's an advertising site that links to litigation companies.
Not only that, but the majority of AMD's outsourced jobs don't go to places like India, but rather to Germany, another first-world nation to workers that are making wages similar to, if not better than, those that their American counterparts. Sure, I'd prefer that money stayed at home, but in all fairness, I can't lump sending that money to another country where workers are generally treated a little bit better than the US as far as benefits go in the same category as sending programming jobs to India to save money. Lou Dobbs is a fairly smart guy, but he's got a huge nationalist streak, and it shows in reports like this.
Man, it looks like AMD is really putting Intel through the shredder.
Being funny is my sig nature.
Yep.. this is only 2 days old... Guess its not stuff that matters. ;P
Just realise the reality of the situation..... There is no reality.
AMD will win, Intel will appeal, and after about a decade of litigation, Intel will pay AMD about a billion dollars in a settlement. In the meantime, Intel will not in any way alter its behavior.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Silly lawyers. Just burn the papers instead.
Outsourcing isn't a misdeed.
AMD has no duty whatsoever to employ anyone in the first place, and they're perfectly entitled to have work done overseas if it makes financial sense to do so.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Files can be deleted, but if tapes go missing or don't pass integrity checks, you know someone was mucking around.
Even fairly small corporations/businesses use complex backup plans, with redundancy, off-site storage, etc.
You're also assuming most of these companies don't want to cooperate. If Intel was strongarming [ducks]
Please help metamoderate.
So when outsourcing goes to first world nations it's OK, but when the business goes to places that actually need the money it's bad?
Larry Ellison to hire a bunch of PIs to hang out at the dumpster.
=)
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
This is a typical motion granted by judges in litigation. The order simply states that the company preserve its documents. The company under the order has to implement certain policies to preserve documents for litigation. That would include not shredding files or deleting electronic files. Keep in mind that questioning the bejeezus out of company executives about how documents are handled is a very effective litigation technique since most large companies, if they are smart, have detailed document retention policies. And most employees don't follow them to the letter. Which looks very bad.
If you are in the testing phase of a shredder development project.
FRA: STFU GTFO
...As soon as we take out the trash!
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
If this is true, then in my opinion the fact that they are outsourcing and not saving money is worse than outsourcing to India. Why outsource then? What is the benefit? They surely are benefiting in some way, probably monetarily, with the outcource or they wouldn't have done it. Why would they waste money to move opperations if there was no benefit??
Attornies of Mass Destruction
Attornies of Mass Documentation
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Others have promised to respond soon.
"What? I can't hear you!" an Intel spokesperson calls out while feverishly shoving papers into a shredder.
After all what really matters is that the wealth is kept in the hands of the wealthy and as little as possible ends up in the hands of those dirty poor people.
Cyrix is not dead, it was taken over by VIA after NatSemi gave up on pushing it as a mainstream chip. NatSemi still makes some x86 chips for embedded applications. VIA's Epia also targets embedded and SFF applications.
Neither (NatSemi, VIA) is aiming for high-performance or mainstream markets, this is why the Cyrix legacy is pretty much forgotten.
a) big support from local government trying to rebuild industry of east germany.
b) a lot of unemployed GOOD engineers there as far as I know. As far as I rememer, Robotron was in Dresden? It was one of the most famous computer companies in soviet block.
The AMD guys in Dresden have pulled off some quite impossible jobs. Germans are the best engineers after all... I don't think AMD made a bad choice moving there.
--Coder
We told them to "Ship the Enron documents to the Feds", but what they heard was "Rip the Enron documents to shreds".
It was all just a case of bad cellular.
</VOICE>
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Maybe they are not saving money on workers, but rather on some other things?
Ignore this signature. By order.
I'll agree as soon as I'm allowed to import products from there for the same prices they're paying, then I could work for the same wage. At the moment companies are allowed to have the work done elsewhere, but at the same time you can't buy the cheaper products there and sell them over here.
I am trolling
Why did they not bother with Dell?
Is seems obvious to me that Dell is getting something for not using AMD chips. A company that was so open about wanting to build a freaking Macintosh X86 computer would not EVER use an AMD chip?
So on one hand they will build a computer, that "may" be radically different than any other they have produced, for say 2% of the market, and of that market a large percentage would still only buy from Apple. But they won't use AMD for ANY systems??? I am willing to bet that AMD would make up far more than the fraction of a percentage of their sales...
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
I'll agree as soon as I'm allowed to import products from there for the same prices they're paying, then I could work for the same wage. At the moment companies are allowed to have the work done elsewhere, but at the same time you can't buy the cheaper products there and sell them over here.
Last I checked, prices in Germany weren't that much different than prices here in the US. Some things are even more expensive.
Do not anger the worm.
She was convicted of obstructing justice rather than actual stock fraud. This court order gives AMD another thing to choke Intel & co. with since people now have to start worrying everytime they hit the delete key. There might even be a chance that they could get blackmail material on Intel if they find out that someone did shred something. E.g. we won't go after you for violating a court order and send you to prison if you help us take out your company"
You're a fucking scoundrel.
You only like outsourcing when the jobs go to a nice aryan country, is that it?
Nobody asks you whether you agree or not. AMD can sell processors at 20 times the price they cost to produce them. Companies are in business to make money, and if there's people willing to spend 20 times the production cost, AMD will sell them at that price. I assume you don't agree with pretty much everything produced outside the US/Western Europe/Japan area, as all of it has been produced at a lot lower cost than the selling price. I suppose its time for you to stop buying cars, clothes, foodstuffs, and almost everything else you take for granted because you don't agree with it. Who is stopping you from importing goods from another country? If I could find processors cheaper in another country, I'd buy/import them, but the trend is usually quite the opposite if you've had a chance to travel between the US, and Europe - prices in Europe are generally higher, partly due to VAT I assume. So if I'm looking to buy a processor, or almost all other wares, I don't buy from Europe (even without VAT prices are almost always higher). "At the moment ... can't buy them there and sell them over here", sure you can. You can import them like every other retailer, you could even fly to Malaysia or wherever the processor is manufactured and buy one in the country but I guarantee you you won't find them to be any cheaper in the poor countries - in fact, technology is generally way more expensive in the poorer countries than in the US. Noting your usage of plus.com, I assume you're British (or some other kind of Western Euro). Oh yeah! That's right, socialism is big over there, not very fond of capitalism are we? Commies without a dictator.
"Others have promised to respond soon."
Just as soon as we're done shred...I mean, we'll get back to you.
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Yeah, they should be raping these dirty poor people. $0.15 an hour? How could they not be getting some of that?
Are you suggesting that AMD should outsource to countries that "need" money where the country clearly has inadequate laws that prevent employees from being exploited ?
I believe the parent poster intended that Germany has employee protections and benefits that are superior to the U.S. and hence you can't complain that the "cheap" (read exploited) labor is the reason for the offshoring.
No, I am not. If you had read my comment carefully you would see that I was asking the poster if he/she thinks that a first world countries should receive preferential treatment because it is first world.
Building microchips uses a LOT of very toxic chemicals (such as powerful acids/etc to wash product between stages). I would rather these extremely toxic chemicals be used in a country with some of the stricted environmental laws around then in a country with weak, if any real environmental laws (assuming they get enforced, which I rather doubt in places like China and India where corruption and bribery is still rampant). Not to knock these countries, Germany almost killed the Ruhr river with pollution 30 years ago, but since then they have learned, unfortunately this is still a ways off in India and China.
I think the parent poster intends preferential treatment where the labor laws meet standards that as as good or better than those of the US. Otherwise it's basically undermining the labor laws of the U.S. to be displacing jobs in the US (with protections of the US laws) with jobs in another country that have inadequate protections.
This is not a new concept.
Actually, the ability to import "stuff" cheap won't help you all that much. The things that keep our cost of living high are mainly things like rent, transportation, healthcare, saving for retirement, etc.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
How much do you think the children working the coal mines and textile mills in England in the 19th century got paid? And what were the working conditions like?
How about today?
Ever considered that maybe this exploitation of the poor is a step on the path to a middle class and a better standard of living for the poor? Subsistance farming is not a pleasant life, and neither is third world factory work. But in England and America at least the increase in overall wealth resulted in the poor being better off in an absolute sense.
I can import them personally I think, but if you try and do that large scale it's called parallel importing and against the law. Amazon's divisions in poorer countries (china and india iirc) were recently sued for letting european customers buy the (cheaper) goods from there. I think it's wrong that doing that is illegal but outsourcing the labour over there isn't. Yes I'm British, we believe in socialism because we've seen the effects, e.g. we've lived with and without a national health service, and know which we prefer. Personally I'm very much a commie, but even the purest of capitalists must see that laws against parallel importing are a distortion of the market.
I am trolling
I worked at Intel as a co-op a few years ago. It seems that at one point they had "Pack Rat Days," basically, a day in the year when everyone went through their desks, took all of the old and unused papers and such, and tossed them in a provided dumpster. I asked after the tradition while I was there. They said that anti-trust suits had made them stop.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.