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EU Slaps Intel With Formal Antitrust Charges
castrox writes "Intel is now facing a prolonged legal battle in the European Union for engaging in anti-competitive practices. The courts allege that Intel made at least one arrangement in Germany to ensure that PC manufacturers could only use their products. From the article: 'The investigation in Europe has been going on for a long time. Intel's European offices were raided by EU investigators in 2005. Last year, AMD filed a formal complaint with the Bundeskartellamt, the German Federal Cartel Office, accusing a German and Intel of entering into an agreement under which the German retailer would only sell Intel PCs in exchange for undisclosed payments from Intel. The EC quickly took over that investigation from the Bundeskartellamt.'"
The punishments for such infractions are obviously not high enough. It's not like Intel execs sat down and said "Hey, let's potentially bankrupt our company so we can make a couple extra percentage points."
It is more likely they looked at previous (MS) antitrust settlements and decided that an anti-competitive strategy was an attractive move for execs and shareholders alike.
Regards.
Nothing, if you're not a monopoly. Monopolies are also not illegal. Abusing them to squeeze out legitimate competition is though.
Intel abused their position to bully/pay off companies to not sell AMD gear, not because the AMD gear was inferior, or less desirable. That's counter what a free market should look like and is bad for everyone. It lets Intel slack off [re: Pentium 4] and sell things for ridiculous prices [re: Pentium 4].
Nowadays though things seem to be better, Intel has better tech than before and they're selling them at fairly competitive prices. But that doesn't excuse their behaviour earlier. Who knows where AMD would be today if they had more funding for research from sales that were denied them?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Capitalism is a force. Used wisely, it can be of great benefit. Left to its own devices, capitalism can trample the very society that supports it. It needs to have limits.
Left alone, agreements like this can erode the supposed free market in which they exists, leading to monopoly, reduced quality and higher prices. We have anti-trust agreements to protect consumers and producers. You may believe in some pure and unadulterated laissez faire market system, but the fact is that has been proven to be unworkable, no matter how many poor excuses are thrown up.
May the Maths Be with you!
Comments by AMD's Hector Ruiz really struck a cord with me:
www.cbronline.com
In the case of HP, he said, AMD could not even give away a million processors for free, due to the fear of the potential of Intel punishing the PC maker.
If you trust Ruiz, this comment should be all you need to know. If Intel is being such a monopolistic bitch that AMD can't even give away chips to HP, I wonder what other cases are going undocumented. I really hope AMD gets the monetary compensation they deserver, as I promise you that Intel's anti-competitive tactics aren't helping the consumer any.
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
"Does it do this for European-based companies as well?"
YES, for god sake. It is not our fault that some of you don't know what happens arround the world.
* European companies are getting fined when doing anti competiveve practices
* European companies are getting investiged about monopolistic practices (recent I hear more and more about the telecom sector)
* European companies are getting fined when they are forming a cartel
* European companies must follow the same rules as foreign companies between "our" borders
* Etc
It's not one big European conspiracy against the good "old USA". Some of you people are really stuck in the "they are all against us" mantra aren't you ?
Because