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NVidia, AMD Subpoenaed In Antitrust Investigation
mustardayonnaise writes "CNN Money is reporting that graphics chipmakers Nvidia and AMD (who recently acquired NVidia rival ATI) said Friday that they received subpoenas from the US Department of Justice as part of a probe into potential antitrust violations involving graphics processing units and cards. Each company controls about 25% of the entire graphics chip market. According to the article, Intel, who makes their own fair share of graphics chipsets, has yet to be included in the investigation."
well, if this is happening, why isn't intel/amd being questioned about their control over pc chips?
Why UNIX?
Antitrust? No kidding. ATI doesn't make Linux drivers that work, and won't release the source code last I checked. They're pretty much the reason I couldn't move to Linux earlier, or I'd lose most of the function of my TV graphics card. But I guess the free market lets them lock up their niche since the competitors aren't that much better. Why can't they share the love with OSes other than Windows? It just doesn't make sense to limit your market unless you're being paid off.
Maybe I shouldn't attribute to malice, what can be explained by ignorance though?
Oh You POS
From TFA: "To my knowledge, we haven't gotten a subpoena ourselves ... but I'm not 100 percent certain," said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy, adding he was checking with company lawyers to confirm.
You know, as an investor, I'd rather go with the company that has been subpoened over the one that can't quite be sure!
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
CNN Money is reporting that graphics chipmakers Nvidia and AMD (who recently acquired NVidia rival ATI) said Friday that they received subpoenas from the US Department of Justice as part of a probe into potential antitrust violations involving graphics processing units and cards. Each company controls about 25% of the entire graphics chip market.
Meanwhile, the RIAA, who has a stranglehold over the music industry, gets to drive their truckloads of money straight to the bank.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Maybe NVidia and ATI need to bring 3Dfx back as a straw man to claim that there's no anti-trust issues. They could bring back S3 but people would fall down laughing. The days when graphic chips truly sucks are long gone.
Next thing you know they will be looking into Microsoft for monopoly practices.
that are making gaming graphics cards that are actually really useful - their great cards are making it impossible for competators to compete with their lackluster cards! It must be a case worth of an antitrust suit!
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
How long is it going to be before they have an anti-trust lawsuit against Mc Choke 'N' Puke and Cholesterol King for not serving food from other restaurants or giving the other restaurants their recipes?
Ah, so the DOJ is perfectly happy with multibillion-dollar competition-free contracts for "rebuilding Iraq" and blatantly monopolistic behavior by telecom providers, they think allowing Microsoft to racketeer OEMs into forcing customers to buy Windows with every machine they sell is absolutely fine, and of course they won't even dare to think about prosecuting other branches of their own government for numerous violations of the Constitution and war crimes, but when two companies, by persistently competing with each other and achieving near-perfect parity for long periods of time, create one of the most staggeringly cutthroat markets on the planet, they must of course be investigated.
Good job, DOJ!
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I don't get it...what is the DOJ's angle here? There is real competition in the graphics card market, more so then the processor market and definately more then say...the operating system market.
Why are they going after these guys anyway?
I worked for a company that made 3D chips. We had a pretty good component. Not astoundingly fast, but a competitive mid-range component more than adequate for the current crop of games. Faster and cheaper than the GeForce 2 when that was still considered a competitive card.
So, the sales people went to various board manufacturers, and said "Do you want to buy our chip". The board manufacturers said Gosh. That's perfect for our mid-range market. We'd love to. Our sales people went home happy. nVidia's sales people said "Do you want us to keep selling you our chips?" The board manufacturers sid "Yes, of course we do". nVidia said "well, don't buy chips from that other upstart company".
Apart from the huge board manufacturers who would be able to seriously dent nVidia's sales, none of them were interested in us any more.
I guess thats one advantage VIA and Cyrix have with their crappy processors: You don't get bothered by the Feds.
Is is just a coincidence that both Nvidia and ATI were each awarded Xbox contracts (Nvidia = Xbox, ATI = Xbox 360)? Perhaps there was some behind the scenes deals to thwart the development of FOSS graphics drivers.
With the top two graphics chip companies controlling the majority of the market, this could have happened. Perhaps the "patented code" in the drivers that prevents them from opening the source is Microsoft-owned?
I know that it will never happen, but it would be nice to bring it up just in case someone is listening.
More
The number of times this particular order of events happens in the tech world qualifies it as Standard Operating Procedure.
I didn't RTFA, I'm more interested to hear the chain of events that got the DOJ started on this particular issue. As I recall, it was intense lobbying in DC by Microsoft's competitors that finally got them into trouble.
Which competitor(s) got the DOJ started on this one? Microsoft? Intel? ?
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
"CNN Money is reporting that graphics chipmakers Nvidia and AMD (who recently acquired NVidia rival ATI) said Friday that they received subpoenas from the US Department of Justice as part of a probe into potential antitrust violations involving graphics processing units and cards. Each company controls about 25% of the entire graphics chip market."
Meanwhile, the RIAA, who has a stranglehold over the music industry, gets to drive their truckloads of money straight to the bank.
To make a video chipset you need millions of dollars. You can make music and market it worldwide with a guitar, a computer, and an internet connection.
I think there's great competition and I doubt any sort of fixing of price has been happening. One has to wonder the motivation behind this. Why are they spending our tax dollars when it is obvious that we have great competition, lots of manufacturers, great prices, lots of power, enormous competition with integrated chipsets, etc.
Any word on why this is happening or are we just funding some Justice Dept's employee's rise to celebrity?
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
See here. The article specifically mentions the GF2 as a competitor. It was a very good chip for the time and the price.
I remember benchmarks for the powervr... In some cases it was competitive but it lackded features like hardware T&L and framerates and benchmark were lower then the radeon/geforce of the time because of it.
Those were the primary reasons i avoided their Kyro line of graphics cards for the pc. The performance was lacking overall when you put hardware lighting into consideration.
Hmmm... Pie...
Antitrust investigations are needed because charging $600 for the high-end video card leaves no room for an aggressive competitor to squeeze in.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
If I'm a little skeptical that is all that prevented you from coming to market. See, there have been (and are) other companies that try to compete with nVidia and ATi. Matrox, S3, XGI, and Bitboys have all tried at one time or another to directly compete in the performance market. In every case the basic problem has been the same: They failed to deliver on their claims. Bitboys failed to deliver at all. They kept talking up this awesome accelerator but nobody ever actually saw the thing in final silicon. The rest mainly failed to deliver on performance claims. I remember how talked up the XGI Volarios were and then when they hit the market they couldn't compete. Likewise the Matrox G400 had nifty features, but fell flat performance wise. Then, of course, there's the promising features that didn't work. XGI and Matrox were big on that. Their drivers were buggy or a feature would just plan not work as advertised.
So it's not like nobody has been able to release a card to attempt to compete with nVidia and ATi, it's that when it happen, the card is, well, second rate.
to really hate somebody's guts, to spend your whole life trying to beat them, then in the end some clown says you're gay and sleeping together?
I am an antitrust attorney in California investigating this case against Nvidia and AMD. If you purchased graphics processing units from either of these companies, then you may have a claim. I am interested in learning your experience with the pricing of these GPUs and finding out if consumers are entitled to a refund. Email me at jhartley@rdblaw.com Jason
What the filth?
Maybe iNTEL is buying a judge to try to stop AMD and NVIDIA from getting together?
There's a timing problem there, but since one would assume a corrupt corporation trying engaging in court warfare as a defense against that other suit, one can't be sure that the timing problem is not being ignored.
(And, yes, I do suspect iNTEL of doing exactly what AMD says they do in that other suit, which is why I won't by iNTEL's CPUs, and why I'm not buying Macs any more. I do put my money where my mouth is.)
at least, not cutting edge for everything.
Use non-leader products for your routers, NAS, lightweight servers, etc. Maybe even use non-x86 CPUs.
It doesn't seem logical anyhow. Sure, there may be only two high capability options, but that doesn't make them monopolies. Besides, there AREW a few other companies out there... Intel doesn't have the other 50%. So, you have at least THREE major corporate players, all within a factor of two of each other marketshare-wise, plus third (fourth?) parties. Intel might not really directly compete with NVidia, but ATI has had and continues to have integrated solutions for laptops, at least. I've tried one; it's not bad, though not as powerful as a standalone card. So, overall I think we have a healthy, active community of companies all competing like hell to give the best customer experience, in a cutthroat and fast-moving industry, without actually cutting any throats. This needs an antitrust probe WHY?!?
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
because then, even if there IS a monopoly coercion going on, according to the players there will be some of their preciois IP out there to give a leg-up on the other possible players. This will lower the barrier to entry for new players and ensure that competition will continue.
Correct?
Plenty of examples like this were heard in the antitrust case against MS. You can bet they're doing it today especially now they have more real competition than ever. Anyone want to talk about kickbacks?
you had me at #!
I'm not sure what the actual market concentrations are, but I'm going to guess something like 30%, 30%, 30%, 10% in the market (Nvidia, ATI, Intel, other). That leaves an HHI of .28, which is high but not usually good enough for antitrust action. In comparison, in the x86 processor market, the HHI is closer to .64 (duopoly), for storage about .18, and for memory about .16. Even if there were shady practices going on, its likely no individual firm had enough market power to merit antitrust charges.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested