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EU Officials Raid Intel Offices
Eukariote writes "As part of the ongoing antitrust investigations, EU officials have raided Intel offices as well as offices of a number of IT firms manufacturing or selling computers. This follows the recent ruling by Japan's Fair Trade Commission declaring Intel's exclusionary practices illegal as well as the lawsuit filed by AMD."
Here's my story submission, which provides some more info, that didn't make the cut:
starrsoft writes, "Apparently AMD's lawsuit isn't just just a PR stunt, as some have suggested. In related news to today's earlier story about AMD's claims concerning Intel compilers discriminating against AMD, EU regulators raided several of Intel's European offices regarding 'an ongoing competition case.' From the article: 'European antitrust regulators raided Intel Corp. offices Tuesday, two weeks after rival U.S. chip-maker Advanced Micro Devices filed a lawsuit claiming Intel used its market dominance to bully computer makers away from using AMD chips... For more than four years, the EU has been investigating claims that Intel used unfair business practices to persuade clients to buy its microprocessors to the exclusion of rivals' chips.In March, the bloc said it was continuing its probe after a Japanese investigation found that Intel had violated antitrust rules there. The EU cooperated with the Japanese regulators.'
Read my blog: HansMast.com
I wonder if they are going to pick up a copy of the source for the compilers. That could be a nice boost for AMD's claims.
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Even though the wording of the last sentence in the blurb is misleading as it seems to mean that AMD's lawsuit was ruled illegal by the JFTC:
Bruce Sewell, vice president and general counsel for Intel, said: "One of the core principles of competition policy is the notion that such policies should be based on sound economics. There is a broad consensus that competition regulators should only intervene where there is evidence of harm to consumers. It is apparent the JFTC's Recommendation did not sufficiently weigh these important principles."
So, chips that *could* be faster (if companies were not using Intel compilers), less expensive, and have other better qualities (heat, size, etc), isn't good for consumers? Sorry to say Bruce, but obviously no one believes you.
Anticompetitive strongarming via financial kickbacks is probably only good for Intel's market position and the companies that are selling Intel-based machines regardless of what your and your company's spin is. Unless you can, without a shred of doubt or lies, prove otherwise, I really suggest you just shutup and comply.
Personally, I want to see Intel give back to consumers directly. Anyone who has purchased an Intel machine since AMD's introduction to the market should be given a large rebate and I'm not talking about settlements like $13.55 check or shipping mass quantities of unwanted product to schools. I don't want to see AMD get any money out of this as it will do little for the market's consumers who had to deal with the anti-competitive behavior just as much as AMD did (if not more).
What kind of RAID was it? 1, 2, 5...
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Are you kiddding me? The truth is much more important than national boundaries!
And why should I care any more about people working in CA versus Canada? They have about the same impact on my economic standing.
Why? Because I think it would result in lower prices to me. While regulated monopolies (phone, electric, gas, etc.) may be necessary in order to only build a single service infrastructure, I have yet to see a market monopoly declare: Now that we've eliminated the competition, let's lower prices and improve our service!
Different code being generated. Did they really think someone wouldn't figure this out?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The offices that were raided were located in Europe.
So you're saying that an EU office of Intel being raided by EU police will cause intel to move jobs away from the united states and into EU?
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It seems quite clear that most European police officers massively read Slashdot while on the job.
I bet Intel is already bracing for another raid when the dupe is posted...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I wonder how this lawsuit will affect Apple's decision do use Intel Chips? True, a case like this could stretch for years, but developing and integrating new chips into your product line could do the same. If Intel actually recieves a relevant anti-trust court decision, or greater, gets broken up, would this be better for apple (perhaps buy up the company) or might any instability hinder Apple's decision to use Intel?
"Microsoft antitrust style case in Europe" = Slap on the wrist, with some teensy, little restrictions that the prosecuted company can easily get around
Read my blog: HansMast.com
Back in '98, a friend of mine was an intern for
a summer at Intel. He described a curious
practice. They would evidently hold practice
raids on employees. The legal staff would ask
the employee to drop what they were working on,
and step outside. The legal staff would rifle
through the office, looking for anything that
would help an antitrust suit. (E.g., even
memos that said "We dominate the chip fab
market...") They would then confiscate and
edit the documents that looked like they would
help an opponent in a suit. (E.g., rewrite to
"We are competitive in the chip fag market...")
So, I think the EU Intel offices are well
prepared for this raid.
...or can Intel's x86 chips take advantage of compiler tricks that are not baked into the output for AMD processors because Intel would not be privey to what AMD is up to inside their processors?
And is there not an AMD x86 compiler set -- and if not, whose fault is that? This sounds like sour grapes to me.
"a company based mainly in the United States and employs our people."
Posting from Indonesia, are we?
What?!? Haven't you ever heard of "truth, justice, and the American Way?" It's not about jobs, or even us vs them -- it's about doing the right thing.
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
Why is Intel getting slapped so hard with anti trust when Microsoft seems to get away with it.
Intel does have competition. AMD, Sun, and IBM all make chips that compete with Intel in the server market.
MIPs, AMD, TI, and many more have chips that compete in the Embedded space.
And AMD seems to be doing a pretty good job competing in the PC market. Is anyone shocked that the Intel compiler wouldn't have "If SSE2 and Intel use SSE2 else use emulation in the code generator?" Intel is not the only compiler in the X86 market, you have VC and GCC as options. What Intel has done while nasty is no where as anti competitive as Microsoft's tactics.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Espionage is the ultimate way to discover what your competitors are up to. It's risky. It takes careful planning. You need flawless execution. There's a certain art to it.
Too many companies see a competitor and then lower prices or try to outperform them. Tossing morals aside, propaganda and sabotage are much more efficient.
It takes balls. Big ones. Intel has proven that they will do what it takes to maintain market dominance. When someone has a better idea, they will buy it or steal it. Either way, the consumer benefits.
Some may argue that the consumer is hurt by anti-competitive behavior. That's true, but the opposite can be true as well.
"Anti" competitive behavior is actually the most competitive kind there is.
A bit overzealous term.
They walked in, asked for documents they had called about. Intel's lawyers were there waiting because they had been notified, and handed over everything they asked for.
So it wasn't a swat team breaking down doors catching barret with has pants down in front of a goat while grove was cramming confidential documents into his mouth.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
You know, those Intel automatic doors? They'd been programmed to open real slow if someone involved with AMD is trying to get in.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Yes, and please don't consider the jobs of those working at companies that buy Intel parts. It's okay for an American company to gouge people because it's good for Americans, even if Americans are the one being gouged. That makes tons of sense.
The enemies of Democracy are
AMD's argument wasn't that different code was generated.. but rather that two different code paths were generated (in the same binary); on highly optimized, the other less so. When, at run time, an AMD processor is detected the less optimized path is chosen.
From page 40 of AMD's complaint:
ie. the problem isn't manifest at compile time but rather run time. So your simple test isn't actually testing anything.Will Apple now go to AMD?
After reading the headline, all I can picture are a bunch of special ops dressed in black crashing through the windows of the corporate headquarters throwing flashbangs and ripping computers out of the wall.
There was a similar case brought against Pillsbury by Ben & Jerry's which more closely mirrors the case between AMD and Intel. Pillsbury (who own Haagen-Daz) were trying to drive Ben & Jerry's out of the premium ice cream market by refusing to sell products to stores giving freezer space to Ben & Jerry's. Ben & Jerry took Pillsbury to court and eventually won the case, forcing Pillsbury to pay damages and to allow Ben & Jerry's to be sold next to Haagen-Daz.
European regulators are also looking at Intel, following complaints from AMD. ®
And now we need someone to take AMD's example to tackle the Microsoft tax.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Well.. we all see where this leads..
:D
If indeed intel made such practices then their arse is on the line, not necessarily a Anti-trust case similar as was with M$ (coz' the case brought up elsewhere than the US), obviously intel is gonna suffer with a non favorable ruling.
I think the source code for icc is not needed as many of you already now that when using it on a AMD processor you need to pass the option to, let's say, "skip microprocessor detection".
I'll like to see intel making good products and really competing , and, believe me, i don't like intel, but AMD is far beyond them right now, and if intel steps a lot behind (be it for any reason whatsoever), AMD will still make good products and maybe slow down innovation, and thats not good for either side.
Maybe im totally wrong, who knows?, but AFAIK it's evident that intel will need to address their marketing (And PR) practices, coz' they have the money to really make good products, and really compete the right way.
On a side note, i would like to see a ad where the blue man group get's smashed with a building scaffolding with some buckets of green paint on it.
Justice should no know bounds and no borders. We are but one human race and we should act together to protect each others interests , Enough with the xenophobic talk.
This is one American corporation Vs another American Corporation it just so happens the battle field encompasses planet earth.
IF Intel are guilty , then let the company be subject to the law and let them be prosecuted and sentenced as such , if they are innocent then they are fine and will be reprised
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Obviously expecting there main competitor to build their main complier is a flawed concept...
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Considering that the code is picking the worst possible mode (8-bit) for things in it's runtime lib, etc. it's not that it's "optimized" for Intel, it's de-optimized for AMD machines. Not acceptable. And, before you say anything to try to play apologist here for Intel, I will point out that they DO know that their compiler is doing this, they've been handed superior code that rocks on all x86 platforms, is 50% faster and is somewhat smaller and a hell of a lot simpler- with the understanding that they were welcome to the code with no rights reserved on it to improve the compiler. They weren't interested in fixing the situation save to improve Pentium 2/3 performance.
I have a PROBLEM with this attitude and action. To be honest, everyone should.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
They (Intel) shouldn't be expected to make a main compiler for AMD's CPU's, no. But that's NOT what AMD's contending. What AMD's contending is that Intel's compiler isn't just optimized for Intel CPUs, it's de-optimized for AMD CPUs- as in, it picks the worst possible instructions for code when it knows that an AMD is being executed against. Technically, it shouldn't care about what CPU so long as the same runs x86 architechture CPU- it should be peak speed, etc. on a P3 or P4 or whatever Intel CPU, but shouldn't be running utterly crippled on other brands of the same architechture. What is happening with the Intel C++ compiler is that they're picking 8-bit instructions and the like in as many cases as they can get away with. This means you're doing memory copies in the form of byte copies instead of word copies, etc. That is a degredation of performance on the order of 20-75% (or more!) for those sets of instructions and I can guarantee that if they're doing 8-bit stuff (And this has been confirmed by alternate sources, by the way...), it explains why it's NOT happy on an AMD64 machine- 8-bit would choke the CPU hard because it eschews the 8-bit modes to accomplish 64-bitness... I've encountered some drivers for Windows XP in some of my porting work that BARFED on my AMD64 machine (the only machine I typically run XP on since it's my reference machine for Linux game porting, etc...)- when it was installed on an Intel machine and an VIA machine, it ran just fine.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
"We are competitive in the chip fag market..."
Is a competitive chip fag that jerk who bogarts the Fritos?
More music, fewer hits
If the claim were just regarding the compiler, then yes. However, the compiler issue is just one instance of anti-competitive tactics.
The claim is that Intel employs illegal tactics to maintain a monopoly in the x86 market. What the raids are looking for is documentation that threats were made or odd financial deals were occurring. The compiler issue is extremely marginal in this case.
"From my cold, dead hands you damn, dirty apes!" - CH