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Sources Say EU Will Find Intel Anti-Competitive
Anarchduke sends in a Reuters story quoting unnamed sources who say that the European Union has decided to find Intel anti-competitive. The finding should be announced in the coming week. "...the Commission will say Intel paid PC makers to delay or scrap the launch of products containing AMD chips. The Commission will characterize the payments as 'naked restrictions' to competition, the sources said. ... Intel set percentages of its own chips that it wanted PC makers to use, the sources said. For example, NEC Corp was told that 20 percent of its desktop and notebook machines could have AMD chips, the sources said. All Lenovo notebooks had to use Intel chips, as did relevant Dell products. The figure was 95 percent for Hewlett-Packard's business desktops, they said." Previous infractions by Intel include giving illegal rebates to computer makers back in 2007 and paying retailers not to sell AMD-based computer systems.
You mean they shouldn't punnish corporation that harm the free market?
Is it me or is no one even remotely interested in following capitalistic rules?
I mean being for the free market and against socialism and all is not just about exiling the commies and making sure you get the highest bonus you can get away with
You forgot:
4) The company abuses its dominant position.
Exactly who is paying the fine?
Uh, people buying Intel products.
They could buy AMD products, instead, which is more or less the point.
European Union has slightly bigger purchasing power than United States ($14.82 trillion to $14.29 trillion, accoarding to CIA Factbook). It is probably the biggest market Intel has, as China buys cheaper processors and Japan is just smaller.
If it would stop operating in Europe, the local manufacturers would just buy the chips from USA while AMD cranks up its production to meet the demands for a whole continent which despises its competitor.
Please think before you write.
Chronologically late.
Normally I would agree with you there, but I'm in a slightly less cynical mood today so I'll offer a more toned down view...
Standard operating practice is to use your dominant position as much as possible without abusing it to the detriment of the overall market. This from what I can tell is what Oracle (to pick one of the above examples) does - if they were unfairly treating companies who ever recommended/use other databases I'm sure wed know as Microsoft would be very quick to head to the courtroom about it and open source groups would be up in arms too.
Going above and beyond using your position, i.e. abusing it to the detriment to others, should not be seen as encouraged by the markets any more than someone accidentally dropping their wallet should be seen as encouragement to take the cash found there-in before handing it to "lost property". It is abuse of the monopoly that the EU is going after, not just use. MS were suspected of abusing their monopoly so were investigated and called to order (with little effect it would seem, but that is a whole different discussion), now so have Intel.
Of course the above depends greatly on the definition of the very fine (and arguable) line between use and abuse... Intel's behaviour in this case is definitely abuse, I dont' see how else it could be interpreted, but in other cases things are not so clear cut. Are some of Google's plans an abuse of their position or just use of it? What about some behaviour of (to be more general) the large chain supermarkets?
One final complication is that some monopolies, often those that stemmed from a company having spun off from a previously government owned project, being forced to *help* the competition or at least provide services to them at no cost greater then they would cross-share themselves in their internal economy. BT in the UK having to provide access to exchanges for other companies to install equipment, where possible, being one example. I don't see how this would be possible with Intel, but you can see the reasoning in some of the edicts given to Microsoft by the EU about making the installation of alternative browsers easy and obvious to the user.