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New York Launches Intel Antitrust Investigation

Posted by Soulskill on from the chip-on-their-shoulders dept.

Multiple users have notified us of reports that the Attorney General of New York has initiated an antitrust investigation of Intel. The EU served Intel with similar charges last July, and AMD has been battling Intel over antitrust issues for some time. Quoting the New York Times: "The subpoenas from Mr. Cuomo's office will seek internal memos, billing documents, and correspondence between Intel and its customers to determine whether the company engaged in a variety of anticompetitive practices, like penalized customers, primarily computer manufacturers, for purchasing processors from competitors or improperly paying customers to use Intel chips exclusively. Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Intel, said the company would comply with Mr. Cuomo's subpoena but denied any illegality."

2 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Intel is a monopoly, but it's a natural one by ElBeano · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, Intel has a long history of anticompetitive behaviour. I've read other posts basically saying "...AMD has created their own problems" but what people seem to forget is the incredibly capital intensive (and long term) nature of the processor business. When AMD had a real performance lead with the Athlon, Intel used their monopoply position to keep them from selling to as many OEMS as they might have. This likely depressed the prices and reduced capital that could have been used to build for the future.

  2. That's not exactly how it worked for us.... by cybersquid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I once worked at a now defunct major PC maker in the late 80s/early 90s.

    They developed a notebook computer. There were 2 flavors: one used an Intel low-power 386 chip, and the other an AMD low-power 286. (They were going to use an Intel low-power 286, but Intel canceled the chip.)

    The next month, they got shorted their allotment of 486 chips. Which meant that they couldn't ship all the desktop computers they'd built. There was no 2nd source for 486 chips. I was told that Intel was very clear why this happened. I think the AMD version was soon discontinued.

    Not long after, Intel was investigated for this sort of thing. When the authorities contacted this company, they were so afraid of Intel that they denied anything like this had happened to them.