Timeline Set for Intel/AMD Antitrust Trial

Vitaly Friedman writes "The stage is set for the biggest tech battle in years: the antitrust lawsuit filed by AMD against rival Intel. What sort of effect is it likely to have on the industry and the consumer? From the article: 'Last year, the company filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel, claiming that their rival had "unlawfully maintained its monopoly by engaging in a relentless, worldwide campaign to coerce customers to refrain from dealing with AMD" for more than ten years. AMD has already subpoenaed computer manufacturers, retailers, and even Microsoft to provide documentation pertaining to the case. Now, the timeline has been set for the trial of the Megayear to commence.'"

Comments

Re:Question for the hardware techies

[Courageous]

Is there really that much of a difference between using an Intel chip and an AMD chip?

Yes. However, it has more to do with the integrated IO fabric (hypertransport) than it does with the aspects of the chip that you consider traditional duties of a chip. The AMD solution is highly differentiated from Intel in this way, although the impact to single-CPU system purchasers is minimal. AMD becomes truly distinct as a platform solution at CPU counts > 2. In this market, Intel really is being hurt by AMD right now.

C//