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."

Comments

by that token

[eneville]

well, if this is happening, why isn't intel/amd being questioned about their control over pc chips?

priorities? WTF?

[User 956]

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.

Re:priorities? WTF?

[jimstapleton]

Please mod whoever said that is off topic as "stupid"

Honestly, it's a very good point, why are two agressively competative companies, having half the market share being examined for antitrust, while the RIAA fatcats, who are obviously a TRUSTworthy consortium not?

Re:priorities? WTF?

[Darth]

the RIAA is made up of companies. it exists to represent the major companies' common interests.

In the oligopoly of the music industry, the RIAA is the cartel that allows the major players to exert monopoly control on the market.

The fact that the RIAA itself is not a company should not be sufficient to protect its existance and protect its members from antitrust prosecutions.

Re:priorities? WTF?

[Tweekster]

They are highly competitive against each other. they are only deadlocked because of their competition, if one just sat back they would soon see their asses handed to them.

Antitrust issues come in when the consumer is getting screwed. in the case of video cards you may only have 2 major options, however they are constantly trying to out innovate the other in order to gain some market share (and not fall behind) defiantly a good situation for the consumer.

there are many monopolies in industries, however if the consumer isnt being adversely affected then the issue isnt raised near as much

Re:Linux whining ahead

[MrBulwark]

My guess would be that the cost to develop working drivers would outweigh the profits that they would see from increased Linux user base. By the conspiracy idea is a good one too ;)

Glad the DOJ has their priorities straight

[darkwhite]

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!

Huh?

[PingSpike]

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?