FTC Opens Formal Antitrust Investigation of Intel

andy1307 writes to tell us that according to the New York Times, The Federal Trade Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation of Intel. Reversing the decision of former FTC chairperson Deborah P. Majoras, the new chair William E. Kovacic is pushing the investigation to look into Intel's pricing policies. "Since it will almost certainly be many months before the commission decides whether to make a case against Intel, as European and Asian regulators have already done, the investigation could mark an important early test for the next administration on antitrust and competition policy."

Comments

Intel is a monopoly?

[Gavagai80]

I hadn't realized that AMD, VIA et all don't exist.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Monopolies, in markets like this, are not meant in such that there are 0 competitors. However, when a company becomes so large that it can sway the market on its whims, then it becomes abusive, and therefor detrimental to consumers and competition.

Intel has been using their size, money and influence to keep competitors out of use in their customer's systems. This is anti competitive, and when on a scale of this size, is considered monopolistic. Intel owns over 80% of the microprocessor market, plus they design specs for systems, such as their PCI spec.

If Intel is guilty of keeping other processors out of machines by being anti competitive, they are going to see some sanctions and fines.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Lostlander]

As per TFA "[Intel]controls 80 to 90 percent of the microprocessor market. " if that isn't a monopoly I don't know what is. The market shares for AMD and VIA are somethile like 8-15% AMD 2-5% VIA if I remember correctly. The greater majority of computers sold still come with Intel processors. Not to mention low power mobile StrongArm and newer ATOM processors.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[3p1ph4ny]

I'd say so:

Intel...controls 80 to 90 percent of the microprocessor market.

Also, for those of you (like me) who were wondering what exactly they did:

A.M.D. has asserted that Intel offers rebates and discounts that, in effect, result in its chips being sold at prices below the cost of production, a practice that some courts in cases involving other companies have said can be a violation of antitrust law.

Intel denies that its discounts and rebates drive its prices below cost, or at predatory levels. Intel has said that it offered legitimate discounts based on the volume of chips that have been purchased by companies, and that consumers benefit when personal computer manufacturers â" using the discounts â" are able to lower the cost of making their products.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Enderandrew]

You don't have to have a monopoly to comit illegal business practices. Conversely, you can have a legal monopoly that doesn't violate antitrust laws.

Intel violated the concept of competition by threatening companies unless they only carried Intel products. They threatened to hold off shipments of paid products, etc. etc.

They've already been found guilty of antitrust in other countries. AMD claimed to have a mountain of evidence, and several companies willing to testify. I'm shocked it has taken this long to even really open the case in the US. The sad thing is that it almost worked out for Intel, that by breaking the law, they almost drove AMD out of business. At that point, a fine doesn't matter because they would have total market share.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Dogtanian]

If Intel is guilty of keeping other processors out of machines by being anti competitive, they are going to see some sanctions and fines. If the senior management were likely to get thrown in prison, could we make jokes about "Intel Inside"?

Sorry... :(

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Yeah. They would be shown some new backdoors and have their interfaces expanded to accept all sorts of new peripherals.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[bsDaemon]

So, Intel does the R&D on a product that everyone needs and wants, then gets rich because of their invention.

Thne along come some other people, who make clones of Intel's chips. No one wants to buy the chips from the competitors, because they have no significant cost savings, no significant performance increase, and lack the feeling of being a "genuine" article.

So, all these companies that are trying to ride the coat-tails of Intel, and failing, get together and complain to the government that its not fair?

Maybe they should have tried coming up with their own ideas and hoping that people would want to buy them instead of just trying to hop on a bandwagon and complaining that they got there too late and there is too little space.

no one is saying you have to buy an x86 cpu. SPARC and PPC work and do a good job. If Intel has solidified a market dominance that's pushed out OTHER architectures, that's more to do with Microsoft than it is to do with Intel.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[poetmatt]

There are such things as natural monopolies from simply making better products.

However, it's different when you squash the competition. You can do better than them, that is completely acceptable, but to force everyone to not buy their stuff, is not acceptable.

Difference: I own the world market on water. Someone else wants to produce water too. Do I continue to produce safer and better water (aka compete and also give a reason for my competitor to do better), or do I abuse my market control by doing something financially that the competitor cannot compete with (and/or making people agree to such things).

Another fine example (which I suspect will hit monopoly issues/etc) was when (MS was it?) made a company sign an agreement to agree to not produce HDDVDs (or was it bluray discs) with a major manufacturer. Legal? 100%, actually. Monopoly abuse/attempt? 100%.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[morgan_greywolf]

no one is saying you have to buy an x86 cpu. SPARC and PPC work and do a good job. If Intel has solidified a market dominance that's pushed out OTHER architectures, that's more to do with Microsoft than it is to do with Intel.

Hey! Stop ruining our Intel-bashfest with such irrelevant things as "facts" and "common sense"!

Major buzzkill, man.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[thtrgremlin]

The scope is computer microprocessors, by which I think they mean home PC. Also, AMD is much more x86/x86_64 than anything else. I am just curious, while they operate in very different markets, how does ARM compare to Intel for embedded devices? I can't seem to find much information on the issue.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[plasmacutter]

If Intel is guilty of keeping other processors out of machines by being anti competitive, they are going to see some sanctions and fines.

back in the good old days, the FTC and courts actually did their jobs and broke up abusive monopolies.

Not anymore

I guess that means we need new laws to compel the executive and judicial brances to actually enforce the law? or maybe establish a saddam-esque paranoid circle jerk of watchers watching watchers?

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Except that's not how it worked or works.

Intel was a single source supplier for CPUs. IBM wanted a second source or they would not deal with Intel. Intel then sourced production of pre 486 CPUs to AMD. However, they did not restrict AMD from selling them as their own, which they did. Then, AMD was developing their own chips based on the instruction set and specification that intel developed. Intel sued for trademark infringement, knowing that AMD had the license to produce likewise chips. The courts in the US ruled that Intel could not trademark a number, which is why there was no 586, but rather the "Pentium" with the 5 prefix Pent. This is a trade-markable name.

Being more agile than Intel, and being willing to accept thinner margins than Intel, AMD and competitors were pricing very attractively to OEMs. Intel, however, looked disfavorably on this. They punished their customers with "shortages" of their chips and chipsets, knowing it would allow their customer's competitors, also their customers, to gain an upper hand. They also offered special pricing, not for volume, but for "loyalty." They would give their customers a break if they were 100% intel customers and not "Buy 10,000 units and get 200 free, which would likely have been legal.

The issue is not substandardness nor the inability to compete. Instead, it was that after the original Athlon, AMD was able to out maneuver the challenges that intel through in its way and was able to out innovate them in many areas. The FSB that intel still uses can cause memory bottlenecks as well as poor scaling to multiple sockets and cores, but that is a topic for another discussion. Intel was abusing their customers, their competitors, and consumers with their methods of market manipulation. But, to quell your intent to show that AMD et al were simply riding on Intel's coat tails, ask yourself "Who built the spec to extend x86 to 64bits with extended register counts?"

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Yes, they only operate in the PC realm. Please do not look at this:

http://h20219.www2.hp.com/integrity/cache/342254-0-0-0-121.html
or http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4600/specs.xml
PCs may have higher shipping volume, but servers are no slouch either, and produce higher margins.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[thtrgremlin]

Windows on a SPARC? That just makes me cringe.

I think, or have always passively believed, that Intel is great, but that Microsoft dragged them along for a ride on the success train. I don't think 90% market share should be usable as evidence of monopolistic practices, but it is reasonable suspicion to warrant an investigation, IMHO.

Also, by comparison, Cisco was investigated for the same reason, but discovered to have simply done business better through innovation and such, not underhanded dealing. There are a lot of BAD Cisco wannabe knockoffs out there, but do you really believe Cisco v. D-link is comparable to Intel v. Sun, IBM, et al?

I really am curious.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[AcidPenguin9873]

I think you need a history lesson. When AMD released the original Opteron in late 2003/early 2004, it had numerous desirable, innovative features that Intel's offerings at the time did not have:

• 64 bit support in the form of AMD64
• An on-die memory controller
• HyperTransport point-to-point interconnect for non-coherent I/O links and coherent socket-to-socket links
• Better power numbers than P4
• Better performance than P4

AMD has alleged that Intel used its monopoly position to exclude Opteron and other K8 derivatives (Athlon64) from major OEMs for 2 years, from its release in late 03 until sometime in 2005, when the antitrust allegations were filed. During that time, the problem was not poorer, "cloned" products which offered no advantages over Intel's. Basically, anyone who followed the x86 processor market during that time knew that Opteron/Athlon64 was better than P4, for a competitive price.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit examples. People need water to live. Also, how exactly can a company force another company "agree to" something? Monopoly laws are just stupid anyway, they only make sense in the face of a commodity of a physically limited nature. It's just creeping socialism, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his ability to whine and litigate like a little BITCH."

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[tygt]

I have only a minor technical complaint about your posting:

when a company becomes so large that it can sway the market on its whims, then it becomes abusive

Such large companies may be able to sway the market, but do not necessarily become abusive. Most likely they do, of course - power corrupts....

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[jdschulteis]

[...]I am just curious, while they operate in very different markets, how does ARM compare to Intel for embedded devices? I can't seem to find much information on the issue. Numerous firms, including Intel, make chips that run ARM code. The overall ARM share of the market for embedded 32-bit processors is about 75%; I couldn't readily find how big Intel's piece of that pie is.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[wattrlz]

Sorry I squandered my last set of mod points. That was funny.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really discounts, but "marketing support". Which is why nearly every ad for a PC has the Intel chimes/logo at the end.

This plan was really devious because not only does it encourage OEMs to use Intel, it also made "Intel Inside" into consumer religion.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[MadnessASAP]

Well now there you going using the ACTUAL and REAL facts to get in the way of someone trying to present some sort of "facts."

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[CompMD]

Didn't AMD win out with the standard for 64-bit x86 instructions?

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[the_humeister]

How exactly would you break up Intel in any way that makes sense?

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[tyrione]

If Intel is guilty of keeping other processors out of machines by being anti competitive, they are going to see some sanctions and fines. If the senior management were likely to get thrown in prison, could we make jokes about "Intel Inside"? Sorry... :( Liquid Cooled/Injected?

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[dshadowwolf]

No, the "Water" example is using something simple to showcase a problem. The but about the agreements has occurred.

MS has a history of refusing to do OEM agreements with a company if that company wants to offer more than MS Operating Systems. AFAIK they are still doing similar to this – it's one of the reasons Dell took so long to offer Linux – but now it's differences in licensing cost.

So, AC, it appears you are either misinformed as to the truth, or you are just an idiot. I'd like to think that it's the first, but know that it's probably the first with the cause being "willful ignorance". Now go away.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[dshadowwolf]

should be "the bit about the agreements" - I missed the typo. (not the first time I've missed a typo, but it makes me feel bad)

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that means we need new laws to compel the executive and judicial brances to actually enforce the law? or maybe establish a saddam-esque paranoid circle jerk of watchers watching watchers? What, you mean like some sort of system of checks and balances? What a wonderfully absurd idea!

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[cyber-vandal]

And you can run your Windows-only bespoke apps on PPC and SPARC can you? Will libertarians ever stop pretending that one over-powerful company dominating a market is good for consumers and should be left alone until a competitor magically appears and isn't squished by all sorts of very difficult to compete against tactics.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[mitgib]

How exactly would you break up Intel in any way that makes sense?

How was AT&T broken up in any way that made sense?

Had AT&T been broken up by service layer instead of service area, we might actually have good telecommunications and true competition in the US

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel has a goal of faster, better, cheaper. Other than getting fantastic yield, leading edge speeds, and standard profit, what's the beef? It sounds like if someone started making a profit making large volumes of gasoline and selling it for a profit at $1.00 a gallon, the Shell and Arco would have the exact same complaint. Intel as far as I can tell isn't dumping on the market at a loss or inking secret back room deals to eliminate the competition. They simply are shipping the best fastest most efficient chips for the money and able to do it at a profit better than the completion. If they weren't able to do it cheaper and used it's massive bankroll to simply undercut the market, then they may have a real concern, but last time I checked, they were making money, not dumping on the market.

References? Certainly.
Profit Margin (ttm): 17.32%
from http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=INTC

AMD able to do it?
Profit Margin (ttm): -49.74%
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AMD

Just because AMD can't get good yield and efficiency, they think Intel shouldn't be able to either. It's a desperate act to keep afloat in a sea of affordable chips.

Have you seen the number of Atom chips on a single 12 inch wafer? They are cranking them out cheaply and for a profit.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[lowlymarine]

Intel has a goal of faster, better, cheaper. Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9775: $1549/ea in batches of 1k. AMD Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition: $229/ea in batches of 1k. Yeah, cheaper...because the QX9775 is 7 times as fast as the 9850? Amirite?

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Chris Burke]

Such large companies may be able to sway the market, but do not necessarily become abusive. Most likely they do, of course - power corrupts.... Indeed, that's a very good point, and it's equally worth pointing out that as long as the monopoly is not abusive, then it isn't breaking any laws.

Monopolies aren't "punished for success" as I heard a few thousand too many times during the MS anti-trust trial. Monopolies are punished for parlaying that success and resulting market power into back room deals designed to prevent any competition from getting a leg up.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anonymous Coward]

"AMD... was able to out innovate them in many areas"
    Sorry, but AMD has never innovated. They have licensed and, in the recent years, built solid traditional designs (after NexGen acquisition -> K6). They do not have a culture of innovation, which is part of why they are suffering now.

"Who built the spec to extend x86 to 64bits with extended register counts?"
    The spec was simple. It adds basic 64-bit extentions, leverages SSE, and adds a few registers. It wasn't a hard one to write, just to get adopted.
    Intel had a very similar one for the chip after the Pentium Pro, but this was killed in favor of HP's EPIC architecture.

Overall, you are correct. Intel degraded when they won the market in the 90s and they're compitition was unable to make equivilant chips. Cyrix was the #2 maker, and had the best P5-compatable chip, but died after National Semi bought them and they went super low-end with integration solutions. AMD was traditionally the worst, but after purchasing NexGen they began to become competitive. The NexGen chip (rebranded as K6) was a good P5 replacement, but never a Pentium-Pro/P2/P3-clsas chip as it was marketted against. The Athlon was the first good in-house design, from NexGen and former-Alpha employees. But AMD has cancelled every replacement since and allowed only incremental gains. Even the more recent Fusion project was cut back to be a shell of its original intent - the name was kept and the design scrapped.

Intel has gotten better and AMD has gone back to their old ways. I'm not sure who can bring Intel back in-line if they win the market again and go back to their old behavior.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anonymous Coward]

An on-die memory controller
  - This was brought to market first by Transmetta
HyperTransport
  - This was licensed from Alpha Inc. Not sure if its innovative.
Power/Perf
  - That's not innovation, but good. The P4 was innovative and bad. Learn what "innovative" means.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anarke_Incarnate]

HP and Intel joined up for the EPIC (Explicitly Parallel) architecture. AMD HAS innovated, by the way. Just because you choose to ignore or make light of it does not change that fact.

AMD went to on die memory controllers for x86 CPUs. They did away with the front side bus with their HT (formerly LDT) system, they have also gone on to be the first to 1Ghz in the x86 arena, using alpha technology and also, their 3DNOW! technology was one of, if not THE first SIMD architecture to handle FP calculations.

All this is NOT BAD for a company whose total worth is less than Intel spends on marketing.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

ARM competes with Intel in the embedded market by:
1) Licensing the core design to be manufactured by the company using the core in their designs.
2) Making core designs that have 1 or 2 magnitudes less power consumption.

I believe ARM, MIPS, and PPC are the major players in the embedded market for the same reason.

Essentially, Intel has no stake in the high end embedded CPU market except as a manufacturer of ARM-based Xscale chips when they still made those.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anonymous.

It's common knowledge at IBM that Intel did lots of behind the doors stuff to keep AMD out. When they finally figured out the code name for one of the projects was an AMD one, they completely flipped and we are now supposed to keep anything that may mention a code name that may upset a company hidden.

I actually was told to keep anything like that hidden until we announced it officially, even though it was unofficially announced and taking bids for the projects I was working on. We didn't want another incident in the department like what happened with Intel.

That initial AMD project at IBM was epically bad, by the way.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[Daengbo]

Wow. AMD, a company which in 2006 had 10% of the revenue of Intel, managed to hand Intel its hat in the CPU performance game for a couple of years, an you dare to say that they've never innovated?

Moving the memory controller onto the die and making multi-core mainstream is innovative.

Killing Intel's own preferred IA-64 and making them follow AMD's AMD64 is also a sign that AMD innovated where the market wanted to go, even though Intel pushed as hard as it could.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[ps2os2]

But you forget the Republicans run everything now and it may be an attempt to wring more money out of INTEL for the election. Also you will probably see that all INTEL people get a pardon. Color me use to seeing the Republicans are far more crooked than the Democrats (not that they are immune either).

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[hairyfeet]

And whose fault is that? AMD was growing rapidly and every gamer that walked through my door wanted an Athlon because at the time they were stomping Intel. Then they screwed the pooch by buying ATI at a grossly overinflated price which blew their R&D capital down the toilet,and then it turns out their successor to the Athlon 64 was a big old pile of suck,which I'm sure that they had to know there was problems with the Arch BEFORE they got the bright idea to over pay for ATI. And finally while Intel was marketing like mad and even those that don't know squat about a PC know the "Intel Inside" jingle AMD had a CEO that was of the attitude that "good chips sell themselves". Which of course meant when their performance went into the toilet and the gamers ran to Intel that they went down in flames.

Now while I am the first to admit that I have always been an Intel user,since back in the days of the superclockable Celeron 300, AMD had numerous chances to really take a chunk out of the market,but they were just too damned cocky and arrogant for their own good. From the power suckage of Turion to the so horribly crippled it isn't usable for squat Sempron,AMD just seems to keep taking the opportunities they are handed and blowing them. So IMHO this has less to do with Intel rigging the game than with AMD dropping the ball. But that is my 02c,YMMV. And this conversation reminds me that I have a nice Barton core Duron board sitting in the closet so I think I'll get to building. Have a great weekend y'all!

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[msince]

> They also offered special pricing, not for volume, but for "loyalty." They would give their customers a break if
> they were 100% intel customers and not "Buy 10,000 units and get 200 free, which would likely have been legal.

To be more accurate, AMD claims that Intel offered a break to customers if they were 100% Intel.
While Intel has stated that they did not do that, but only offered breaks based on absolute volume numbers.
(ie. Intel claims they would tell the OEM you get X price for Y volume. And if the OEM got Y volume that's the price they got, whether they sold just Y volume of Intel products or sold Y volume of Intel products and N volume of AMD (or cyrix or idt or via or ....) products.

Intel salespeople *KNOW* that any deal they make - for that matter, anything they say - can be used against Intel in an antitrust investigation of Intel. And if they were to make a deal such as you suggest, IMO they would be fired as soon as their manager found out. (Unless you believe that their manager, and all the way up the chain of management the people are incompetent... Given their success in the marketplace, I don't think they're incompetent)

Personally, I believe that Intel's management and salesforce are competent enough to stay just on the legal side of the antitrust laws.
I would bet that in 18 months, this investigation will have found basically nothing - no smoking gun like some AMD fans think is out there - and the investigation will be closed without a trial.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[grantph]

> If the senior management were likely to get thrown in prison, could we make jokes about "Intel Inside"?

They could replace their jingle with the sound of clanging jail bars. Ding ding DING !

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[MtViewGuy]

I think what really hurt AMD was Intel's release of the Conroe-core Core 2 Duo CPU. The Conroe core--if I remember correctly--was based heavily on the excellent Pentium III Mobile CPU, hence the reason why the Core 2 Duo CPU ran so much cooler than the competitive AMD Athlon64 x2 CPU.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[TheRaven64]

Intel no longer makes ARM chips. They sold that business last year to Marvell for $600m.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[TheRaven64]

The licensing is very important. Many embedded applications have higher processing demands than the ARM core can handle (or, if it can handle them, it will flatten the battery too quickly). Companies like TI take an ARM-designed core and add some custom coprocessors, typically an efficient DSP or two, onto the same die and then sell the result. Customers like Nokia then get a final CPU which can run general-purpose ARM code and specialised DSP code for things like video encoding. Intel can't really compete with this, because every ARM licensee adds their own extra features and so there is always an ARM chip that runs your off-the-shelf, commodity, OS and still has the extra features that you need. This didn't matter on the desktop, because eventually the desktop CPUs got fast enough to do everything the special-purpose chips were doing. In the mobile arena, it does matter, because special purpose hardware is more power-efficient than general-purpose chips.

Re:Intel is a monopoly?

[hairyfeet]

While I agree that was one of the nails in the coffin,I am reminding of what my economics professor taught the first quarter-you can have the best product in the world,but if nobody knows it exists it is worthless. If they would have bothered to market when the Athlon 64 first came out they would have slaughtered. Ever try to cool a Netburst P4? You pretty much need an AC unit mounted to the machine. And the performance of the Athlon compared to the Netburst wasn't even a contest. it was like a high school football team going against the Denver Broncos.

IMHO all the had to do was advertise and keep a good Duron out there for an alternative to the Celeron. You know,for the folks harping on it,I have found for general computing the Celeron makes for a great general purpose PC. Mine plays the games I want to play and makes for a great little PC. And in the under 2Ghz day the Duron was an even better chip and could have EASILY cleaned up the low end while the Athlon killed on the high,all it needed was a little marketing and TLC. Instead they never bothered to advertise,and worse the killed the Duron and replaced it with the Sempron,which is the only chip I've ever seen to cause someone to get so mad they kicked the machine. Even the bottom of the line Celeron stomps the top of the line Sempy. And once you have them hooked on your brand it is easier to get them to upgrade their CPU or have their next PC come with your chips because you already have your foot in the door.

But instead of capitalizing on Intel's blunders they just sat back and watched the market slip through their fingers. Not since Cyrix in the old 200Mhz days had I seen a company that had a shot of really cutting a chunk out of the x86 market. With a little push "powered by AMD" could have been as common as "Intel inside". But instead I can't think of a single non gamer who even asked about AMD during the height of the Athlon and I had to quit stocking AMD machines since the non gamer folks thought it must be substandard since they had never heard of it. And while I hope that AMD sticks around if for no other reason than to keep Intel on its toes,I really don't see short of a miracle AMD being able to turn it around for at LEAST the next 3 years due to blowing their capital on the disaster that is ATI. If I had to bet it would be longer,probably closer to 5 years. And ultimately I think someone like Sanyo or Toshiba will end up buying out AMD once they completely hit the skids. They simply can't keep bleeding money like they are. But to try to blame it on Intel when Netburst practically gave them the market on a silver platter is just IMHO sour grapes. But that is my 02c,YMMV

Never understood....

[thtrgremlin]

Not that I have ever had a problem with Intel (though I have always bought AMD), but I never understood how why Microsoft gets ALL the blunt of the anti-trust stuff. Intel made a killing with their "Intel inside" campaign, but was it THAT great? I think more architectures for home PCs would be a major benefit to open source software, and a big hit to the stranglehold M$ has had over the sheeple for a long time. I have wanted to get a sparq for a long time, but it has felt a bit to risky to just make a statement. I really hope something comes of this investigation, if Intel was really playing unfair.

Re:Never understood....

[timeOday]

I don't believe Intel and Microsoft are at all comparable. I can buy an AMD processor that runs all the same software, heck I wouldn't even know the difference without opening the box. The same cannot be said for the OS.

I still resent Intel for gouging me all through the 90s, but let's face it they are the best and AMD have largely kept Intel in check.

That said, if their pricing strategy is illegal, well I guess they should get sued.

Re:Never understood....

[thtrgremlin]

But was it necessary for Windows to be built for Intel-based processors only in order to secure their monopoly? Was it only Microsoft that saw an advantage in only developing for one processor type, whether or not it was the best? Not that I'm worried, just not convinced there wasn't any collusion between Microsoft and Intel that helped secure each others monopoly.

Re:Never understood....

[dbcad7]

I think this is more about practices with vendors that were similar to Microsoft tactics.. How long did Dell refuse to use AMD processors even when performance exceeded Intel's ? .. but there are extenuating circumstances, so I don't think much is going to happen.. mainly that vendors claimed that AMD didn't have the capacity to supply in the volumes they required.. which is why Macs are also Intel... If you can't deliver "production wise" then you can't really complain if you don't get the business.

I'm an AMD guy, from forever.. and I still don't think Intel is wrong in this situation.

Not just Anti-trust

[houstonbofh]

I hope people remember that there are some good reasons to avoid AMD besides pressure from Intel. More than a few people got burned by the poor support for OEM cpus that were DOA. I was one, and avoid AMD to this day because if it. Yes, they are better now, but I have a long memory.

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[Stewie241]

Could be said both ways... I'm quite happy with my Intel products myself, but I know someone who won't buy an Intel chip because of poor support for a DOA top of the line Intel CPU he bought.

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[Anonymous Coward]

AMD's problem is that Intel's market standing has pushed them mainly into the home/budget segment. This means AMD CPUs are typically packaged with cheap mobos, crappy harddrives, etc leading to the impression that AMD is "cheap".

If AMD can prove that Intel colluded with OEMs to limit AMD's ability to get into the business/workstation market, they could have a real case.

(However Intel should have no problem proving that AMD has been a technology generation behind except for a couple years after the K8 came out.)

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[Lostlander]

Indeed, When I was working as an in store sales rep promoting Intel. I spent half my time hearing about overheat disasters with Pentium D series processors. When the Core came out for laptops and Core2 finally came out I thanked the heavens since I could finally talk bad about the D's and not have to worry about my bosses getting word. Although once they had enough sales from the Core2 series they were kind enough to kick my entire region on our collective butts. From most of what I have heard AMD's OEM issues were often due to an improperly installed or insufficient heat sink.

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[initdeep]

AMD is STRONGEST in the Server market.
Period.
The may not sell the most, but this is where they shine the best.

There is absolutely no denying this.

The Opteron chip is what basically saved AMD from liquidation and pushed Intel to come up with a new architecture to compete.

This like most of the techno anti-trust cases is plain old Bullshit and reeks of nothing more than more bashing on big guys, which our government appears to like to do more and more.

And they wonder why more and more businesses are starting to locate outside of the USA.

Intel has done plenty to go after them for, so has Apple, AT&T, Verizon, every cable company in existence, and most utility companies.

go spend the tax dollars doing something useful and not merely justifying your useless political existences.

asshats.

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[thtrgremlin]

I knew about AMD's problems when I first started buying AMD processors. I see it as what are you willing to put up with? I narrowed the argument down to this: 1/10 AMD processors are DOA (based on hearsay), BUT are only perfect or DOA, never shoddy with intermittent problems. AMD has a GREAT return policy for their retailers (never dealt with them directly). Intel can be counted on to be perfect every time out of the box, but you pay, IMHO, up to double for comparable performance. I am not going to pay a few hundred extra dollars to avoid a trip back to the store (and mind you one I love having an excuse to go back to).

But just to be fair, this was a conclusion I came to 15 years ago and haven't thought too much about since. I am satisfied with the range of problems with AMD, and still laugh (light heartedly) at Intel's little "can't divide" fiasco.

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't help but notice that your comment makes no sense at all.

This like most of the techno anti-trust cases is plain old Bullshit and reeks of nothing more than more bashing on big guys, which our government appears to like to do more and more.

And they wonder why more and more businesses are starting to locate outside of the USA. You do realize, as the article says, that the US was one of the last countries/organizations to investigate Intel, right? The EU has already opened an investigation, and just recently, South Korean fined Intel $25 million. So yes, more businesses should locate outside the US, so that they will be under the jurisdiction of sane government entities who aren't pussies and will actually investigate companies for antitrust violations.

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[Anarke_Incarnate]

I don't know where you were buying your CPUs, but I have had exactly 1 DOA processor from AMD in dealing with oh.. dozens of dozens.

Often times, what appeared like a bad CPU was actually a motherboard issue with voltage not being applied correctly. I found this on a few KT266A boards where the BIOS would be set for 1.65v but instead supply 1.58v, or barely enough to boot. The fix for this, was to set the BIOS voltage to 1.7 and usually achieve a voltage of 1.6+ which was sufficient most times.

This was not exactly AMD's fault, per se, but to the consumer, they don't care. It would be like a customer knowing if you take a Ford to Jiffy Lube, nothing goes wrong, but they can't get their wrenches in to GM cars and get the nut back on right after an oil change. Jiffy Lube doesn't get the major blame, GM does, because nobody with Fords is having the problem....

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[Dragonslicer]

Not that my anecdotal experience is worth more than your anecdotal experience, but I remember the exact opposite. Several years ago, I had a problem with JPEG's not rendering correctly. I contacted my video card manufacturer's support, assuming it was a video card problem (some things would render fine, others wouldn't, so my first guess was the video card). I was told that it was a known manufacturing defect in some AMD CPU's. I contacted AMD, and they said that it was odd that the problem would show up after owning the CPU for about a year, but they had me send it to them to check out. I ended up getting a replacement that was a little faster than the old CPU.

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[initdeep]

And you do realize that the practices which Intel were supposedly fined for in Korea, are perfectly legal in the USA, right?

In fact, if you read the fucking article you referenced there, it specifically said so.

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[Anonymous Coward]

We've bought about 700 desktops over the last seven years, all with AMD processors and have had around two or three confirmed cases of the CPU being bad

I've personally bought 5 AMD processors in that time and have never had a problem.

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[wattrlz]

Nice... did your new CPU render .jpgs correctly?

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a problem with the retailer. Any reputable one, even online, will take a dead CPU back.

One time, I even took a mobo and CPU back to the retailer (Fry's) (no reasonable way for me to tell which was busted without buying more equipment) and they figured out which part was broken (the CPU), letting me keep the mobo which I had purchased at a discount with the bundle.

Re:Not just Anti-trust

[Anonymous Coward]

... a practice that some courts in cases involving other companies have said can be a violation of antitrust law. Um ... no, if you read the fucking article, you'll realize that selling products below cost (an example of predatory pricing) is not "perfectly legal" in the USA. Isn't the purpose of the investigation to determine the legality of Intel's actions?

I wish I were dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dead.

Re:I wish I were dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

wow. i went from 'regular day' to immensely sympathetically depressed in no time flat. i hope things get better for you.

Re:I wish I were dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

What we need is more action, less wishing for things to be different.

Seriously though, there are so many cool opportunities if you're not worried about staying alive.

moron open investigations of ftc/corepirate nazis

[Anonymous Coward]

liars & touts & shills oh my. looks like the manufactured 'weather' is causing disastrous effects nationwide. better days ahead. the lights are coming up all over now. conspiracy theorists are being vindicated. some might choose a tin umbrella to go with their hats. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.

http://news.google.com/?ncl=1216734813&hl=en&topic=n
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/29amnesty.html?hp
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/02/nasa.global.warming.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/05/severe.weather.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/02/honore.preparedness/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/opinion/01dowd.html?em&ex=1212638400&en=744b7cebc86723e5&ei=5087%0A
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/05/senate.iraq/index.html

is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give or take a few 1000 years), the creators will prevail (world without end, etc...), as it has always been. the process of gaining yOUR release from the current hostage situation may not be what you might think it is. butt of course, most of US don't know, or care what a precarious/fatal situation we're in. for example; the insidious attempts by the felonious corepirate nazi execrable to block the suns' light, interfering with a requirement (sunlight) for us to stay healthy/alive. it's likely not good for yOUR health/memories 'else they'd be bragging about it? we're intending for the whoreabully deceptive (they'll do ANYTHING for a bit more monIE/power) felons to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather', as well as a # of other things/events.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=weather+manipulation&btnG=Search
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying

dictator style micro management has never worked (for very long). it's an illness. tie that with life0cidal aggression & softwar gangster style bullying, & what do we have? a greed/fear/ego based recipe for disaster. meanwhile, you can help to stop the bleeding (loss of life & limb);

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/28/vermont.banning.bush.ap/index.html

the bleeding must be stopped before any healing can begin. jailing a couple of corepirate nazi hired goons would send a clear message to the rest of the world from US. any truthful look at the 'scorecard' would reveal that we are a society in decline/deep doo-doo, despite all of the scriptdead pr ?firm? generated drum beating & flag waving propaganda that we are constantly bombarded with. is it time to get real yet? please consider carefully ALL of yOUR other 'options'. the creators will prevail. as it has always been.

corepirate nazi execrable costs outweigh benefits
(Score:-)mynuts won, the king is a fink)
by ourselves on everyday 24/7

as there are no benefits, just more&more death/debt & disruption. fortunately there's an 'army' of light bringers, coming yOUR way. the little ones/innocents must/will be protected. after the big flash, ALL of yOUR imaginary 'borders' may blur a bit? for each of the creators' innocents harmed in any way, there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/us, as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile, will not be available. 'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR w

Read this...

[jskline]

There is only one chip--Intel. There is only one chip--Intel. Thou shalt have no other chip before thee!!!
There is only one chip--Intel. There is only one chip--Intel. Thou shalt have no other chip before thee!!!
There is only one chip--Intel. There is only one chip--Intel. Thou shalt have no other chip before thee!!!
There is only one chip--Intel. There is only one chip--Intel. Thou shalt have no other chip before thee!!!

hehehe...

Let the evidence gathering begin...

[mandark1967]

I can definately see the reasoning behind AMDs push to get this investigation underway.

I used Intel when they were fastest and AMD when they were, and now I am using Intel Chips again.

If Intel used its position to force vendor lock-in and exclude AMD, and AMD can prove they lost a healthy chunk of market for the Athlon 64 that, most likely, would have went to resolve the teething problems with Phenom so that it made its original launch date and frequency...then Intel is going to have to break out the checkbook and make sure they got a lotta ink in the pen, cause it's gonna cost them a LOT.

If it's proven that actions resulted in events like this, you can bet Intel will settle all allegations before a final finding of fact is ever released...and pay a healthy sum to AMD to just shut up.

I just hope that, if these allegations are true, they are forced to pay an equitable amount to AMD and not fight it for years because these two companies vying for my business keep prices low enough for us to get some great gear these days...

Wait a Minute....

[mpapet]

Why is this happening now instead of years ago? The harm Intel has created is egregious and has been obvious for a long time.

Did someone at the White House get up on the wrong side of bed one morning? Maybe the White House didn't like what the Executives were doing with their political action funds?

Why now?

Re:Wait a Minute....

[morgan_greywolf]

Intel missed their monthly bribe payment?

Re:Wait a Minute....

[jonaskoelker]

Why now?

Easy. Now is the first time they hold 100.0000186732% of the market.

Re:Wait a Minute....

[JAlexoi]

A: Inevitable change in US administration
B: EU antitrust case

And we care why?

[nurb432]

Lets say they do get declared a monopoly. What happens to them? From the record of late, nothing. They walk away with a token slap, while they keep their market share.

And we tax payers got to foot the bill.

Feds, you're stupid...

[shentino]

Ever heard of AMD?

Re:Feds, you're stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why mention VIA/AMD when we can ruin free market?

fir5t p0st

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition, paranoid conspiracy outreach are FreeBSd because leaving core. I fly...don't feAr at my freelance asshole to others Standards should

You're going to be told...

[hassanchop]

That a company can engage in "unfair" business practices, which are illegal, without being a 100% monopoly. You will then be told how Intel did unpleasant things to customers in order to force them into positions favorable to Intel.

If you're anything like me, you'll roll your eyes and pretend this nothing story matters.

Owns share vs serves share

[symbolset]

Intel owns over 80% of the microprocessor market, plus they design specs for systems, such as their PCI spec.

This can be written also as "Intel serves over 80% of the microprocessor market and their open standards like PCI are widely accepted."

Every time Intel has started acting like it "owned" the market, somebody has started drinking their milkshake.

How the monopoly might be construed

[Stonent1]

It used to be you got the Intel chip, chipset by whoever, a video card and a NIC. Now buy an Intel based computer and you get an Intel processor, Intel chipset, Intel video, and Intel NIC. So with the bundling you save a lot of money but it in effect shuts out a lot of other companies.

But personally I never have any problems with Intel chip + Intel chipset... It always just works. It seems any time I have problems it is when I use some other chipset.

Re:How the monopoly might be construed

[WiglyWorm]

Really? Because I have an Intel processor, an nVidia chipset, and an nVidia graphics card. The reason for this anti-trust case isn't entirely because of a monopoly. It's because of a monopoly + noncompetitive practices made to artificially keep AMD's market share low. Intel fan boy, AMD fanboy, it doesn't matter. There is 0 debate in the fact that AMD's Athlon core was a much superior product to Intel's Netburst. However, their market share has not reflected that. AMD alleges that that's because Intel has been offering $37 million worth of discounts to OEMs, but only if they keep AMD at or below 20% of their products sold. Intel says that these are not unfair or anticompetitive at all. That's where the anti-trust stuff comes in. Abusing dominant position in the market place to keep others off your turf.

Re:How the monopoly might be construed

[SBrach]

For the time being I haven't and won't buy anything but an intel board and proccessor. I used to run AMD's and still run a couple but they have not been without their problems. You can buy a Intel mobo with X3500, Gigabit nic, 7.1 sound and a Core2Duo 3.0ghz for $250 to $300 and everything will, like you said, just work. Now you might be able to build something comparable with AMD for a similar price but is anyone really arguing that the Core2Duo isn't better than AMD's offerings. I like having the graphics card, nic, and sound integrated on my office machine not to mention it saves me money. Should I really have to buy those things seperate just to make life easier for AMD. Are they incapable of producing AMD brand boards with their own AMD brand chipset and integrated graphics, nic and sound. I thought we were supposed to protect the consumer not the underdog corporation.

Re:How the monopoly might be construed

[Joe The Dragon]

the Core2Duo 3.0ghz is about $189.99 just for the cpu and a MB with X3500 is $89.99. But Nvidia and ati have much better on board video. But you can get amd 3 core or quad core for less + a 780g board with better on board video for less. That 780g board can also boost an ati video card.

Re:How the monopoly might be construed

[mitgib]

I have about 100 servers for my small hosting business, 100% AMD, and I can think of only 1 machine that has an AMD chipset on it, and it still has Broadcom nic's and some not well know video on the board, a Tyan dual opteron board, so not some cheap desktop equipment either.

I recently compared a Dell dual quad opteron and a like Dell dual quad Xeon, and wound up buying a few Tyan barebone dual quad's with adaptec raid cards and double the ram and still saved a couple bucks over anything Dell could do for me. And since Dell was right there in line like a good puppy to the Intel overlords, I've avoided their products since the P3.

I have always felt AMD has been beat down unfairly, and other than the K6 stuff, have always bought their products since the 386's

Re:How the monopoly might be construed

[laffer1]

Well AMD does make chipsets with video.. ATI = AMD. I've been on an Intel only run lately myself. I gave my last AMD box to my mother over a year ago. With the exception of the original athlons, I've liked AMD chips since the K6-2 300. Their problem has always been solid chipsets. nvidia had some decent mb chipsets for AMD cpus, but since AMD bought ATI, thinks have gone sour there.

At the moment, I'd probably only consider AMD for servers, because I know there are a few good server chipsets. I tend to like AMD the best when they are the underdog, but this time the core2s are just too good.

Not a monopoly

[CannonballHead]

Having a large portion of the market isn't necessarily a monopoly. I don't think Intel is really that close to having a monopoly. As someone else said, everyone else has more or less cloned Intel ... I don't think Intel should be punished for making a good product that no one else has competed with yet. But, I realize this isn't really about a monopoly, it seems... unfair business practices, should probably be looked into.

That said, IMO, there's a huge thing nowadays to be anti-big-corporation... but when it comes to me wanting to go buy a chip, I usually will buy the best quality at the cheapest price, right? Nobody goes out of their way to spend more. With big corporations usually comes cheaper prices... it's a hard balance to make sure there isn't a monopoly or unfair business practices without seriously meddling with the basic idea of a free market...

Re:moron open investigations of ftc/corepirate naz

[thtrgremlin]

Is Godwin having a slow news day?

That wasn't flamebait

[hassanchop]

There was NOTHING in that post that was flamebait. Are you people really so devoid of intellectual ability that you have to censor anything that doesn't kowtow to your beliefs?

Or am I not allowed to think this non-story is a story?

You're a joke mod, a pathetic fascist joke.

More news on this

[VENONA]

I submitted an article yesterday (still pending, but you can imagine it's future). It was based around a Reuters article which points out that there are several legal actions pending now. The article is at:
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0540220820080605?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

Sorry I couldn't get it accepted. As a journalist, I'm a complete lamer. But it's an interesting article, and it may even be around for a bit--I don't know Reuter's policies, vis-a-vis demanding registration to articles more than x weeks old, etc. I never reference the NYT, for instance, as I don't much like their access policies. They could learn a lot from the Europeans.

Anyway, you may want to have a look at the Reuters article. I'm becoming more and more ashamed to admit that I used to work for those guys.

What about Microsoft?

[mollog]

Intel, shmintel. Who cares about Intel?

But Microsoft has to be watching this very, very closely. If the post-Bush FTC is willing to go after Intel, you have to think they're going to get after Microsoft, too.

You're STILL a joke, keep wasting those points

[hassanchop]

There was NOTHING in that post that was flamebait. Are you people really so devoid of intellectual ability that you have to censor anything that doesn't kowtow to your beliefs?

And my karma is STILL excellent, and you're still a pathetic fascist joke.

Keep wasting those mod points twat, why bother modding tings up when you can censor those you can't refute right?

Intel is Guilty

[byteherder]

The dirty little secret of the industry has been that Intel has been guilty of unfair business practices for a long time. Basically, they say to their customers, if you cut out AMD we will give you cut rate prices. If you don't we will only give you a limited supply of chips and your competitors will kill you on price and volume. They are like the mafia in business suits.

The European commission made a estimate of the damage Intel did to the market and it came to $60 billion. I would like to see that much given to AMD but I am not holding my breath.

Re:Intel is Guilty

[Anonymous Coward]

Not arguing yo9ur point, but didn't/doesn't the mafia wear suits now? I thought it was gangs that didn't wear civilized cloathing.

The apple deal may also be part of this as well...

[Joe The Dragon]

Back when apple was talking about going to x86 amd was kicking intel's ass.

They even had better dual cpu systems vs the intel ones with FB-DIMMS and a poor bus with a weak pci-e setup VS the dual amd of the time with lower cost and less heat ECC ram as well the better Hyper Transport bus with alot more pci-e lanes. The nforce pro chipsets of the time of the time had dual pci-e x16 with SLI+ 2 x4 with dual gig-e with tcp/ip off load and teaming VS the intel chipset at the time that used FB-DIMMs and had less pci-e lanes then the g5's had also intel used pci-e for part of the NB to SB link and some of the pci-e lanes came from SB in the Mac pro also with AMD you had the choice of useing a few differnt NB chips unlike intel.

You can even have a Hyper Transport to pci-x link on there as well.

I said this back when the intel mac pro came out as well.

Apple could of had a system with 2gb of ram 4x512 2 per cpu at the same or lower cost then the mac pro with 1gb of FBDIMM and apple wanted $300 per gig back then.

also Nvidia and ATI that much better on board video then what ended up going in to the mac mini at the time as well.

Apple was useing Hyper Transport in the g5 so why not go to a amd system with 2 cpus and Hyper Transport links?

AMD was also full 64bit back then unlike intel....

[Joe The Dragon]

AMD was also full 64bit back then unlike intel and apple had a few apple system with 32bit intel cpus back then as well.

ROFL

[Anonymous Coward]

I checked out your profile, hassanchop, and I can't help but notice a distinctly hostile theme among your posts. I would go so far as to say you created this login for the sole purpose of trolling (and just generally being a putz).

Not that you care, of course, but I really don't have much respect for you.

And in case there was any doubt, I am aware that I am posting as A/C.

Re:Refrences please?

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel violated the concept of competition by threatening companies unless they only carried Intel products. They threatened to hold off shipments of paid products, etc. etc.

Please provide something current, not a rehash of older already corrected issues. I thought all that was corrected. The issue today is they are making chips faster and cheaper than the competition can produce them and keep their traditional price points below Intel. AMD is the one trying to underprice Intel at any cost. Lately for them the cost to produce has been much higher for AMD than their target selling point. That's why the finance page on AMD looks so dismal. Take a look yourself in Yahoo under finance. Look up AMD and check the key statistics. The % profit is a big negative number. They are selling at a loss.

Intel is not selling at a loss to kill AMD.

What about SCO?

[Anonymous Coward]

When will the FTC open the formal investigation of them?

Re:Refrences please?

[Enderandrew]

Taiwan and the EU were coming down on issues from 2003-2007. I'm not sure if the practices are still happening or not, but I haven't seen anything that suggests they've stopped the practices of bullying and extortion.

The issue isn't the price of the CPUs, but rather forcing vendors to exclude other products, or refusing to ship products they've already paid for, and other such nonsense.

If you want references, try Google and Wikipedia. Perhaps you've heard of them.

Re:The apple deal may also be part of this as well

[bledri]

... why not go to a amd system with 2 cpus and Hyper Transport links?

The short answer is "I don't know." My assumption was that it was some combination of:

1. Marketing: For non-technical customer's Intel means something, AMD has less mind share.
2. Relationship: Maybe Intel was more willing to work with Apple on future chips/chipsets. I assume they were pretty pissed about the G5 never being usable in a notebook and were looking for some guarantees that their requests would be taken seriously.
3. NDAs: Related to above, they no doubt were given inside information on what was coming and future direction and maybe that looked better to them.
4. Price: Intel may have given them one of those sweet, anti-competitive, discounts for going 100% Intel.

Of course, it's pure speculation.

Re:The apple deal may also be part of this as well

[Anonymous Coward]

>Back when apple was talking about going to x86 amd was kicking intel's ass.

But they were talking about the fancy new core2 stuff, which is obviously better.

Even more importantly, Intel were dealing with power consumption issues.

Re:Refrences please?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want references, try Google and Wikipedia. Perhaps you've heard of them.

I've heard of them. I've heard the accusations. We can't sell to company XYZ becasue of this. What I haven't seen is the smoking gun contract, agreement, etc on this exclusionary anti-competitive practice. That is why I asked for refrences. There are lots of accusations, but no documentation of actual ethics violations. Got some email? Company contracts? Do you make machines? Do you have an exclusionary contract? If so, how about a scan and post?

One company selling quad core chips at a profit for a lower price at a profit while another company is selling a slower part with supply issues for a loss does not make an exclusive contract anymore than trying to sell $12 gas in a market filled with $4 gas. If your gas has a cost to produce of $10 and you have a policy of underpricing the $4 producer by 20%, don't scream monolpoly abuse when your profit is a negative number.

Intel does not have exclusionary contracts that I know of. They do offer volume discounts and rebates. Other than leave little room for a shop to produce both lines without cutting back on the rebates and volume discounts, I haven't seen anything regarding a bonus for having absolutely no other processor. Microsoft is more in this camp where a PC manufacture does indeed get a substantual break only if they buy licenses for 100% of their product. This has been rulled bad boy behavior. Only after anti-trust action are we starting to see non-Windows PC's enter the market. This is not the case with Intel and PC manufactures. Many manufactures carry both Intel and AMD lines.

Oh, refrences,,, OK.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23076019/
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2006/09/14/dell-amd-boxes-vastly-cheaper-than-intel

Dell boxes with AMD are cheaper, but at a loss for AMD.
AMD can't compete on price anymore as Intel has upped the ante for lower cost to manufacture.

Re:Refrences please?

[Enderandrew]

When AMD filed the initial suit, the claim was something like 300 pages, with a whole slew of companies cooperating in the suit, willing to testify.

Still you miss the point entirely. This has little to do with price.

And Intel has already been found guilty of antitrust violations in other countries, because of the exclusionary contracts.

Dell, as you may know, the biggest PC company out there, refused to carry AMD processors even when AMD processors where smoking the P4 line.

There was also some accusations of shady practices when Intel stole the Apple contract away from AMD out of the blue. Apple had been openly courting AMD, and then signed with Intel when no one even thought Intel was being considered. At the time the deal was signed, AMD's processors ran faster, were cheaper, and used less power. Perhaps Apple had the foresight to see that Intel was going to regain the performance upper-hand, but there were certainly allegations again of bullying/threats that landed the exclusive contract.

I believe Intel is currently in trouble in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the EU and now the States for antitrust. Yet you insist clearly they've done nothing wrong.

Re:The apple deal may also be part of this as well

[Joe The Dragon]

4 is likely the news about the amd intel lawsuit came out around the time apple said that they where going to intel and people said that intel may of did some anti-competitive stuff to get that deal. Also soon after that dell said that they will start useing amd cpus so parts of the apple deal may end up in court / FTC report.

This is why I've always used AMD

[Totenglocke]

Ever since my dad got an AMD processor when upgrading our PC in the early 90's, we've always been an AMD family. I know that right now the Core 2 Duo is better than the Athlon64 X2, but I want to keep giving AMD my business so I can do my part to help keep them from getting crushed by Intel due to Intel buying off companies like Dell.

While I know I'd be getting a better product, I'd rather make sure my money goes to a company I support instead of one who tries to force people out of business instead of JUST making better products and letting consumers decide what they like best.

Does Anyone Remember

[saibot-k7]

Does anyone remember (given that there is no mention of it) the skype-intel controversy - where skype used a software check to determine if the running processor was AMD and disabled certain features if it was (regardless of the processor's performance)?

Either way, all the non built-in processors on my machines are AMD. My eee is the only computer running an intel processor - and even that wouldn't be case if I could pick. I care about performance, sure, but not as much as integrity.

Supercomputer class machines sell for $300+

[bsharma]

I am not seeing the pernicious effects of Intel's "anti-competitive" behavior looking at Dell prices. J6P can buy an essentially Supercomputer class machine in the $300+ range. If I remember correctly, in a monopoly, price increases (as in gas prices ?). Why waste government resources on a product that an average person spends a couple of days wages anyway. If they really want some work, they can target Big Oil, because that IS going to cause a severe recession!

Intel makes a good product

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone that knows anything about processors have to admit that Intel makes the fastest processors, hands down. I really think that AMD got lucky with the XP series. Intel has so much money invested in their fabs and designs that there's no way any other company can catch up.

Really, the limiting factor right now isn't the logic that goes into the processors, its the fabrication tech that puts everyone else behind. Believe me, I'm not an Intel fanboi (the x86 architecture is pretty horrid) but their fabs beat everyone else. No-one else can beat them on that, which is a shame. I really wish some of the better ISA designs could benefit from their tech, but of course that will never happen.

Let me guess without reading it

[slysithesuperspy]

AMD can't compete in the market so they use government against its competitor. Who's the anti-competitive one now?

Wah! Wah! Wah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does really read like we (AMD) cannot make comptetively performing processors, and have absolutely no capability to do so in the near future?

Kind of funny that they start running around whining about monopoly now that they no longer have the performance or power edge, and were unable to maintain either. Sounds more like poor management by not funding internal R&D at AMD than anything else.

Re:The apple deal may also be part of this as well

[TheRaven64]

It boils down to two things. First, Intel had the Pentium M, and were about to launch the Core (slightly improved Pentium M) and Core 2 (new, lower power, microarchitecture) lines. Apple were selling more laptops than desktop and this trend has continued. The Mac Pro is a tiny, tiny fraction of their turnover and profit - it's a showpiece, while the machine that actually sell are the laptops. AMD had nothing comparable in the mobile CPU and (importantly - one of the reasons for the switch was that Apple wanted to stop designing their own chipsets) chipset arena.

The other problem is volume. Motorola and IBM had both had problems supplying Apple. When they switched to Intel, they became responsible for about 5% of Intel's demand. If they had gone to AMD, they would have been responsible for 50%. If Apple double their market share, Intel needs to grow by 5% to accommodate them. AMD would need to grow by 50%. Which do you think is more likely to happen?

It's facinating that people with NO visibilty...

[Glasswire]

...into pricing arrangements with suppliers are convinced Intel is guity. AMD IS in a position to argue claims about Intel's behavior, but anyone who thinks AMD description of Intel's business practices isn't filtered though their bias is pretty naive. You can probably take anything you read on this subject skeptically - I'd wait until FTC or other 3rd party evaluations and I certainly would not take AMD's assertions as fact until proven.

Re:The apple deal may also be part of this as well

[menace3society]

I would add to this list "volume". Apple, moreso than most other computer companies, tries to keep their product line relatively narrow, with only a few configurations for any given platform. This means whoever builds their chips needs to deliver on volume in a big way, and it's possible, if not probable, that AMD wasn't prepared to give them the numbers they needed.

Mod Response

[jskline]

I don't agree with "flamebait", as it was just meant to be funny.

Re:The apple deal may also be part of this as well

[Anonymous Coward]

If so, they were having delusions of grandeur. AMD already supplies a substantial portion of the processors used for commodity PCs, which is an order of magnitude more than Apple will ever need (as long as they continue ripping off their addicted users on boutique firmware).