N.Y. AG Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel

CWmike writes "New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against microprocessor maker Intel, alleging that the company engaged in a 'systematic campaign' of illegal conduct to protect a monopoly. Cuomo's lawsuit alleges that Intel extracted exclusive agreements from large computer makers and threatened to punish those perceived to be working too closely with Intel competitors. Intel gave computer makers payments totaling billions of dollars in exchange for the exclusive agreements, and the company threatened to cut off payments to computer makers or fund their competitors when they worked with other microprocessor makers, the lawsuit alleged. Cuomo's lawsuit comes less than two weeks after news reports that the FTC is considering filing a formal complaint against Intel. 'Rather than compete fairly, Intel used bribery and coercion to maintain a stranglehold on the market,' Cuomo said in a statement. 'Intel's actions not only unfairly restricted potential competitors, but also hurt average consumers who were robbed of better products and lower prices. These illegal tactics must stop and competition must be restored to this vital marketplace.'"

Comments

It's the new fad

[Bobnova]

Lets see if they do a better job on intel then they did on microsoft.

Re:It's the new fad

[Penguinisto]

...what - they'll slap Intel on the wrist twice?

(assuming they're actually found liable/guilty/whatever)

Re:It's the new fad

[Trepidity]

While I wouldn't say the Microsoft anti-trust suit was nearly as successful as many of us Slashdot types would've hoped, it did have some benefits. It managed to stop a few pernicious practices, like exclusive licensing to OEMs (who weren't allowed to sell non-Windows OSs if they wanted to receive the normal favorable OEM pricing). It also provided a sort of hovering threat that forced Microsoft to at least think a little harder about whether they wanted to engage in new anti-competitive practices, since MS knew the cost of doing so would be higher than otherwise.

Re:It's the new fad

[ClosedSource]

If AMD ends up getting money from this and you don't, it'll be exactly like the job they did on Microsoft.

Re:It's the new fad

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they didn't do anything to microsoft. They gave them a pass. They are still giving them a pass (every day). Windows must be split from Office, must be split from every other large application. Further, there is no legal smackdown for microsoft not paying state taxes (IN WASHINGTON STATE!). If more than 20% of a companies operations are in any given state, they must pay taxes in that state based on the size of the operation within that state. Having a single desk office in Nevada, and being incorporated there and paying very low tax rate there, means that they are not paying enough tax in Washington. This must end. Also the illegal tactics, collusion and racketeering of the harware/software market. Paying a forty billion dollar fine would be a start, but a decade or two in jail for everyone on the top three or four tiers of the company would be a great start.

Re:It's the new fad

[InlawBiker]

All they had to do was watch that 30 minute training video on corporate ethics, but I guess they were too busy. What a shame.

Re:It's the new fad

[BikeHelmet]

Lets see if they do a better job on intel then they did on microsoft.

Holding companies accountable for their actions?

Re:It's the new fad

[BlackSnake112]

Last I checked, microsoft office was not part of windows. One is supposed to pay in order to get it. A trial may be installed on your new computer but it is not a full version, and many people get a computer with a windows OS without office.

Split microsoft like Bell was split? Good idea. Have an OS division (or company), office should be it's own division. A software developer division, does msSQL deserve it's own division? I am not sure if that should be part of the developer application one. Just like Bell was broken up into the baby bells. Which in turn all joined up years later to form what we now call Verizon. Maybe a few baby bells are not part of Verizon yet, but a lot are. Even if microsoft was split up into 5-6+ separate companies. They would all still feed from the same source and profits would go to the same place. Unless microsoft was forced to separate the balance sheets for each division and all divisions had to live (or die) on their own, splitting up microsoft does not do any good. So we get a new company name and new boxes for software. The same people are still calling all the shots.

The rest of your rant about taxes has nothing to do with the anti trust case. You might want to look at who worked for microsoft before and during the anti trust case. Then go after those people. Employees who were hired after that case were not involved and they should not be punished for other people's screw ups. They may have to fix the screw ups, but those newer people should not be punished for it.

A lot of people do not like microsoft, but not all of the people who work there should be punished for it.

Re:It's the new fad

[mabhatter654]

The key to breaking up Microsoft is to wipe out the cash reserves.. force them to pay out dividends of 150% their cash on hand at their peak. The shareholders (rightful owners of the money) can then be told by the government to put their windfalls someplace other than Microsoft... what an extra 70 Billion wouldn't do in Wall Street right now!

Once you wipe out the cash hoard the other problems will fix themselves. Microsoft would have to sell off quite a bit at a steep discount to competition, that's why I picked 150% of their PEAK CASH. That will divest many of the non-profitable ventures that are burning profits to crush other growing, individual businesses. Taking the cash also forces them to make every business division cut excess products and focus on being profit driven like a real business. Again, the idea is to cut them to the bone, so they have to have massive layoffs (employees who will start new companies) and have to borrow money from the bank for large capital intensive ventures (no more losing $5 Billion on video games over 5 years). It will stop the buying sprees of small companies just so they can't "grow to be threat" and it will put the screws on the legal team when they can't make those big cash payouts "out-of-court" to make things go away.

Re:It's the new fad

[Anonymous Coward]

They won't. Micro$oft is the perfect target for antitrust regulation. They are raping just every law made in every country about it. They were convicted by the highest instances in the world: US supreme court ( their own country ) and the EU.

That didn't even slow them down. They are still at it, and aren't even bothering to covering it up anymore.

What do you think the DoJ can do?

Answer: A show of doing something.

Yawn.

[DoofusOfDeath]

These illegal tactics must stop and competition must be restored to this vital marketplace.'

With that language, I wonder if he's just going for a consent decree regarding future conduct, and maybe a slap on the wrist. I wonder if this will in any way lead to AMD being made whole.

Re:Yawn.

[Penguinisto]

I doubt it - AMD decided to drop its fabs without Intel's help.

Yes, for awhile the Opteron series was kicking Intel ass all over the map. But, AMD never really did that much with it after awhile, and Intel finally removed head from ass to come up with Core. I'm not seeing how things could've been that much different. Once Core came out, all bets were off (and thus NetBurst died a well-deserved death...)

Even on the Apple side of things, well... Apple started looking at the x86 in the first place, largely because the G5 chips were such room heaters that you couldn't make a laptop with one and have it not overheat (or keep the form factor to a usable size). AMD had a similar reputation for heat, no realistic roadmap to match/beat Intel's, and didn't really (IMHO) offer much to entice Apple to their side, tech-wise.

Re:Yawn.

[Pulzar]

Yes, for awhile the Opteron series was kicking Intel ass all over the map. But, AMD never really did that much with it after awhile, and Intel finally removed head from ass to come up with Core.

I guess the point here is that even though Opteron was kicking ass, AMD couldn't get past 25% or so marketshare, thanks to what Intel was doing to preserve its monopoly. It's hard to compete when your competitor can give Dell a billion dollars to stop them from buying any AMD.. (or threaten "jihad"!)

If AMD was fairly allowed to sell the products they made a few years back, they might have had the resources to keep their fabs and fund research into next gen CPUs.

Re:Yawn.

[Penguinisto]

Assuming the allegations were true, how can you explain AMD's continued presence in OEM machinery anyway? HP (for instance) certainly didn't stop selling AMD-based desktops, servers, etc., and Intel+HP are like fraternal twins.

Also, AMD still had gobs of cash with which to spend on R&D, even with 25% of the market (Hell, Apple has less than 10% of its market, and look how they're doing). Also, consider that Opterons were mostly relegated to servers and higher-end desktops (and IIRC not laptops, low-end desktops, etc).

Even if Intel did pull a Microsoft with 'rebate' scams, I doubt that AMD was exactly starved for cash, and Hector Ruiz certainly wasn't helping things any with the way he ran the show.

I'm not denying Intel may have done shady dealings (in fact I think it's likely that they did do it, along the lines of Microsoft's OEM 'rebate/marketing funds' model), but there's only so much you can blame on that even if it were 200% as bad as alleged.

Re:Yawn.

[eabrek]

AMD couldn't get past 25% marketshare because their fabs were running at 100%. AMD could not, and never could have produced sufficient product to have a greater market share.

Re:Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, for awhile the Opteron series was kicking Intel ass all over the map. But, AMD never really did that much with it after awhile, and Intel finally removed head from ass to come up with Core.

"Intel is accused of paying I.B.M. $130 million to hold back on selling a server based on A.M.D.’s Opteron chip, while also threatening to curtail joint projects if I.B.M. marketed A.M.D.’s products."

If true, that's pretty damning.

Re:Yawn.

[BlackSnake112]

$130 million to IBM is like me paying for my friend's lunch. It really is not a lot of money to IBM. If the amount was $10-20 billion, that would be more tempting. Also doesn't IBM sell AMD based servers? Yes they do here:
http://www.ibm.com/systems/hardware/browse/amdpro/index.html

Re:Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

The evidence submitted includes a large sum of money paid to Dell to delay buying Opterons for either 6 or 8 months. You might remember that Opterons were scarce but not because AMD's fabs couldn't meet demand. Rather it was from Intel secretly holding them back from the market. It also drove the price way up on the Opterons because they were so hard to come by.

Re:Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they do, that isn't even being debated. What is being claimed is that the bribes/threats from Intel delayed the introduction of AMD-based systems for so long after they were ready for market, that it gave Intel enough time to not only release new chips, but to drive up the price of the AMD offerings so high that they weren't commonly used in hardware configurations put forth by the server OEMs, like IBM. They just outright paid off the consumer OEMs.

As for the other poster up there who mentioned HP? Intel and HP collaborate on quite a few things, and as we found out fairly recently, their leadership isn't exactly a stellar example of corporate responsibility. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if HP helped cover for Intel by releasing just enough limited and scarce models of systems with AMD processors as to not draw the direct ire and attention of the FTC to what Intel was doing in exchange for cheaper CPUs and chipsets that they would then overcharge their customers for. This way HP could get product by both chip makers, get rigged deals in their favor from Intel, and Intel could appear to have 'competition' to the FTC.

Go high enough on the food chain in quite a few industries, and this disgusting behavior seems to be quite commonplace.

Re:Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is more akin to Dell. They integrate hardware but develop software too. Apple doesn't develop microprocessors or build chip fabs. The fabrication costs is where AMD has gotten into financial trouble--chasing Intel's heels by 6 to 12 months is expensive and new fabs, like the one in planned in NY, approaches $4B usd to build. This is why they had to go fabless, because they don't have enough resources to invest in both. They're focusing on their chips and relying on outside capital to handle the fabs.

Re:Yawn.

[duffbeer703]

Assuming the allegations were true, how can you explain AMD's continued presence in OEM machinery anyway? HP (for instance) certainly didn't stop selling AMD-based desktops, servers, etc., and Intel+HP are like fraternal twins.

The AMD OEM machines at BestBuy, etc that HP is/was selling are mostly low-end or midrange consumer desktops at the bottom of the profit curve. The higher margin, higher priced machines were almost always Intel.

You see the effects of Intel's manipulation in the corporate market... with large quantity buyers like Fortune 500 and government, resellers and vendors often sell PCs at a loss, counting on backend rebates from vendors like Intel and memory vendors to make a 1-3% margin. In general, the money in PC sales is from services... Dell will charge $100 (@ 70% margin) to install a $500 PC (@ 2% margin). The vendors compete aggressively for that business.

Intel knows this, because they have their own field marketing groups who are able to figure out who is planning on buying computers. They use that intelligence to bully vendors -- if they know that 400,000 PCs are being sold, they can use that information to manipulate the rebates and affect the ability of the PC vendor to win business.

You might ask: "Why do they care if Dell sells a PC at a 10% loss, only to make up for it in services?".

The answer to that its in Intel's interest to keep the overall price of a PC stable -- around $500 in large quantity. Intel does lots of math on everything that they do -- they wouldn't let you go to the bathroom if the ROI of letting you wet your pants was 6% higher. Stability makes it easy for Intel to do the math and shape product demand to meet their product launch/production schedules. If PC vendors were allowed to engage in an all-out price war, it would push down the prices for the most expensive substitutable commodities in a PC purchase (ie the Processor) and jeopardize the PC vendor's cash cow -- the $100/pc installation. (Because "soft costs" in a lease cannot exceed a certain amount). By manipulating the market, Intel essentially sets a price floor to discourage the PC vendors from getting too aggressive.

Re:Yawn.

[Eskarel]

As much as I like AMD they killed themselves. Lots of companies bought AMD chips, both in servers and in desktops. For quite a while after the Itanium debacle and Intel's architecture mistakes they were the preferred chipset. They gained massive amounts of market share. That said, market share takes a long time to acquire in this sort of market, most machines have a replacement cycle of 3-4 years or more and they weren't so massively good that they were getting every single sale. Under those circumstances 25% was pretty damned good.

The problem was that the times of AMD's dominance also coincided with essentially the highest average CPU prices I've seen since I started buying. I paid over $AU500 for my 4200+ three and a half years ago. This left the door open for Intel to come in with a chip that was just as fast or faster and cost about half the price. Needless to say that blew a pretty big hole in AMDs market share rise, and their subsequent failure to even have anything that can compete with Intel's middle end, let alone high end basically finished them off.

Even this claim doesn't argue that Intel sold those CPUs at a loss or anything like that, and when your competitor can come back from what was essentially almost the dead with something that outperforms your best offering for less than half the price, you deserve to fail.

Re:Yawn.

[Pulzar]

Assuming the allegations were true, how can you explain AMD's continued presence in OEM machinery anyway? HP (for instance) certainly didn't stop selling AMD-based desktops, servers, etc., and Intel+HP are like fraternal twins.

You're confusing HP with Dell. Out of all major OEMs, HP offers by far the most AMD solutions.

How do you explain that anybody sold AMD at all? Well, Intel couldn't offer enough to convince everybody to stop selling superior AMD products. If you read the lawsuit, you'll see that Dell was constantly complaining about having to only sell inferior Intel products, and that they were disappointing their customers. (To which Intel countered: "The billion dollars we gave you last year should more than compensate for your lack of competitiveness).

Re:Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

AMD's demise is of AMD's own making. They've always had great engineers and crappy management. They would have had the resources to keep their fabs and fund research if they didn't sell at below their manufacturing cost to buy market share.

Intel clearly doesn't have a monopoly, as evidenced by all the vendors who did and still sell AMD. Even Dell still sells AMD chips (look at Wal-Mart). Unfortunately for AMD, very few people want their systems now that Intel has far surpassed them in price/performance.

This is yet another attempt by AMD to get the government to protect them from their own poor decisions.

Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets see if they do a better job on intel then they did on microsoft.

This time, the govt will just seize the corporation and take over. All in the name of national security and importance to the economy or whatever.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Captain Splendid]

This time, the govt will just seize the corporation and take over. All in the name of national security and importance to the economy or whatever.

As a leftard, I WISH! Seriously, you teabaggers need to stop prickteasing me with all this socialism that's supposed to happen, but doesn't.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[commodore64_love]

What's left? Government:

- Runs our childhood (school)
- Run our retirement (social security)
- Soon will run our very bodies (sick care and preventative care)

It also directly runs or strictly-regulates the electric company, phone company, cable/internet company. A socialist like you should be jumping up-and-down with glee, since there's very little the government doesn't already control. "Heil! Ooops... sorry. Bad habit." - Doc Strangelove

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Captain Splendid]

strictly-regulates

I don't think that means what you think it means.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[brian0918]

It means a government-induced monopoly. No competition can exist because it is illegal to build on these public "properties".

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Captain Splendid]

It means a government-induced monopoly.

Are you even paying attention to what we're talking about? Go away and leave the grownups alone, son.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[brian0918]

Are you even paying attention to what we're talking about?

Turning your brain off doesn't make problems go away. We're talking about ISPs with government-granted monopolies supported by the restriction against the creation of competition.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[cyber-vandal]

Apart from the millions of small to medium businesses and the thousands of large to gigantic corporations outside government ownership. But don't let reality get in the way of your 1980s-inspired bullshit.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Red Flayer]

We're talking about ISPs with government-granted monopolies supported by the restriction against the creation of competition.

And the alternatives to government-authorized and strictly-regulated monopolies in a market with natural monopoly tendencies are...

1. No service provider
2. Unregulated monopolies.

Maybe you weren't around when telephone and/or cable infrastructure was being built out. The choice was: license a monopoly, or get no service.

Even now, these markets tend to natural monopolies due to high overhead and infrastructure costs. So if we deregulate, we'll still end up with a monopoly... but it'll be less regulated one. Yay.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't build our microprocessors. Duh! Does 'Social Security' really count as running our retirement? I don't disagree with you completely, but that kind of overreaching statement is exactly what OP is protesting.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[AshtangiMan]

So you hear fox news portray the health care bill as "government run health care" and you believe that this is an accurate enough depiction to parrot? Are you 15? There are a lot of good points of debate to the bills in question, but simply parroting the right wing nut job line shows pretty low critical thinking abilities. But I can see from your sig that you really don't have much to offer in the way of solving problems.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot one: 3. Government ownership of the infrastructure. You think Sweden got their cheap, faster-than-anything-available-in-the-US broadband by magic? The government owns the lines and any ISP can use them. Ta-daa!

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[commodore64_love]

Congrats. Your behavior has now formed a new neural connection in my brain. Socialist (like Cappy Splendy) == Rude Asshole. Way to sell your product bud.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[commodore64_love]

A government monopoly is worse than a private one. At least with the private monopoly they don't have access to my wallet or paycheck. (Or worse, jail me for nonpayment of taxes.)

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[commodore64_love]

Congressman Barney Frank has already admitted, on camera, that the public option will mutate into a sole-provider monopoly (like the UK has) within the next decade. He says this is just the first step towards that ultimate goal.

And even if Harry's wrong, the current bill still forces me to pay a ~$3000 fine every year for not having medical insurance. A monopoly over my wallet is still a monopoly. Plus the fact it's unconstitutional and anti-liberty. (What's next? I get fined $1000 a year because I bought a conventional vehicle instead of a hybrid?)

Open your eyes. This is not liberalism; it's a throwback to conservative government circa 1700. The leaders are rebuilding a Middle Age-style oligarchy where they run your life as if you were a serf.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Captain Splendid]

Way to sell your product bud.

LOL. I ain't selling shit. I just like making fun of absolutes. Like your 'neural connection', for example. Would that life be actually that black and white...

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[BoothbyTCD]

People forget that Adam Smith's 'free markets' were markets that had freedom of entry and exit, not markets free of regulation. Your example is a good one because it shows how gov't participation takes an area that, because of the infrastructure required, is a difficult market to enter for a new player and transforms it into a 'free market', where new participants can enter with little cost.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[AshtangiMan]

I also have problems with the mandatory coverage. Without the public option it is worse as the gov is then mandating that I give money to private industry. And Barney frank is an idiot.

Re:Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Captain Splendid]

At least with the private monopoly they don't have access to my wallet or paycheck.

-This statement not valid in any RIAA/MPAA/DMCA case.

Campaign season already?

[R2.0]

Here we have an election yesterday and already Cuomo is running for Governor.

Re:Campaign season already?

[cvos]

Albany (ny state capital) is not very far from Armonk (IBM HQ). IBM would love to have more of the high end server market.

Closing the barn door after the horse has left

[Anonymous Coward]

Our government is so good at worrying about things several years too late. It seems much of their evidence predates Intel's current CEO. Way to stay on top of things. I guess we have to wait until someone gets into office that hasn't received the appropriate bribes (oops, I mean campaign contributions) to get anything done.

Find/Replace

[Caviller]

Ah if only I could just use find/replace and find all 'Intel' in the article and change them to 'ISP X' then it would be a good day... Seriously, they should be going after the much more monoploistic ISPs in this country then Intel.

Politicians + Tech = Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm neither an Intel fan nor an apologist, but I very seriously doubt whether Andrew Cuomo could tell a microprocessor from a microbrew. As noted above, dude is running for governor here, not seriously prosecuting a case.

Re:Politicians + Tech = Bad

[CannonballHead]

but I very seriously doubt whether Andrew Cuomo could tell a microprocessor from a microbrew

Well, that depends on how many he has had.

I'll scratch your back....

[surmak]

I wonder if this has anything to do with AMD (err Global Foundaries) dropping a few billion on the construction of a plant a few miles from Albany?

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[jellomizer]

Shhh Quite. The government only has our best interest in mind... Nothing as petty a bringing billions of dollars to an ailing local economy that is right next to the state capital.

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[Gudeldar]

Does that change the facts of the case?

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[Penguinisto]

...this is New York we're talking about, not Chicago. They're (well, supposed to be) more subtle about such things.

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[brxndxn]

I'd say that viewpoint, which seems to be the mainstream on Slashdot, is like taking a single snapshot of a baseball game and acting like you can lay out the stats.

This antitrust lawsuit is filed after a precidence of antitrust lawsuits from other countries against Intel. Right now, if we take a snapshot of how Intel is competing, Intel may be playing fair. However, in the past - especially during the relatively long time (in the IT world at least) that AMD had the clear technology lead - there are quite a few reasons why there should be an antitrust lawsuit.

First of all, Intel only has the technology lead right now because Intel has more funds to dump into research and development. However, in the past, AMD leveraged themselves to put enormous amounts of funding into the Athlon and they came out with a clear technology lead. The market share barely followed. AMD had trouble selling their superior processors. The largest computer maker, Dell, was an Intel-only company. It's easy to be ignorant and blame bad execution on AMD's part - and maybe there was. But, there is some damning evidence that Intel was not playing fair. For example, AMD tried to give away 1 million processors to HP - and these were faster processors than Intel's at the time - but HP declined. Intel's pricing model was structured in a way to make it so that using any competitor in any small percentage would be more expensive than being 100% Intel only. They did this by using 'marketing rebates' that would directly correlate with the percentage of Intel processors sold.

Face it.. the P4 sucked. It did nothing but suck for years. It was an awful processor. Yet, somehow, Intel kept its exclusive agreements long enough to keep AMD from gaining significant market share - which would have in turn allowed AMD to keep spending on R and D which would have allowed AMD to remain competitive. It takes YEARS to develop the next best processor. Intel is only sitting where it is because it successfully choked AMD years ago.

For a few quarters, AMD was kicking Intel's ass - but it should have been kicking way more ass than it was. Also, AMD's financial situation is a result of leveraging themselves in order to compete with Intel and then not receiving the market benefits that normally come in a competitive industry with a technology lead.

Further, it is hard to dismiss threats as evidenced in emails from Intel against business with competitors. Or, you can shove your head in the sand and call this entire complicated situation as all sorts of 'red herrings.'

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[Joe Mucchiello]

Nah, far more likely to be related to IBM's Headquarters in Armonk. Does IBM still do any fabrication in Poughkeepsie?

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck was this modded funny? Someone take the mod points away from the 15 year old doche bag.

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[DomNF15]

I'll agree with you on the shady practices of Intel when the Athlon line was launched - but I don't think a one hit wonder like that should magically position AMD as the top chip maker. There are probably other reasons why AMD didn't enjoy a greater deal of success even though it had, for a limited time, a superior product. Brand recognition is one reason. Reluctance of professionals trusting AMD processors in server grade machines could be another. The P4 may have sucked but keep in mind that previously AMDs chips sucked as well, and for a long time the only thing AMD was good for was reverse engineering Intel designs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD#IBM_PC_and_the_x86_architecture)

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[spammeister]

I'm sure GloFo was more than forthcoming with all sorts of fantastic documents and whatnot they've had from all their previous rally sessions with other institutions against Intel.

Not saying Intel doesn't have some major Karma issues coming back at them, it's just kinda fishy the new lawsuit just happens to be coming from a newly inducted AMD/GloFo state.

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[Funk_dat69]

There is an IBM site in Poughkeepsie, but the large Fab in Fishkill.

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[BikeHelmet]

Of course. All things are connected in some way.

It also has something to do with Intel using illegal tactics. I'm shocked it took building a new multi-billion dollar fab to get anyone interested.

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[Chris Burke]

I'll agree with you on the shady practices of Intel when the Athlon line was launched - but I don't think a one hit wonder like that should magically position AMD as the top chip maker.

Nobody said they should have been the top chip maker -- that would have been impossible simply based on AMD's manufacturing capacity relative to Intel's. They should have gotten a lot more marketshare than they did, though, and that difference would have been huge for AMD. Companies like Dell and HP wanted to sell (more) AMD processors based on their merits, but the financial punishment that would come from Intel made it not worth it. That's a big deal.

Brand recognition is one reason. Reluctance of professionals trusting AMD processors in server grade machines could be another. The P4 may have sucked but keep in mind that previously AMDs chips sucked as well, and for a long time the only thing AMD was good for was reverse engineering Intel designs

Yes but those days were also long gone. AMD earned recognition as a chip designer in their own right with K6 as a budget processor, earned recognition as a chip maker capable of going toe-to-toe with Intel with the K7, and then knocked it out of the park with K8. The true customers of Intel and AMD, the OEMs, were well aware of AMD's "brand" and had no qualms about using them in server parts... Except for the interference by Intel. Did you see the email from Dell to Intel where they're basically telling intel that they're getting killed in the server market and Intel better do something? And intel's response is that the $billion they'd given Dell should compensate for their competitive disadvantage? Customers wanted to use AMD, but Intel made sure that AMDs marketshare was artificially limited.

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be fair- up until the Athlon, AMD's execution sucked. Chips were late and under-powered. Athlon did a lot to change this, but if I'd been told that AMD was launching a new cpu, and that I should design systems around it because it was going to be the bomb, I'd be a little skeptical. The delays getting K8 out the door didn't help anything. Of course, once they established the superiority of the K8 over netburst, it's a whole different story.

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[Anonymous Coward]

You're comparing a state to a city. The politics are a bit different at the two levels. Hell, the politics even differ between the largest and second largest cities in the state (NYC and Buffalo).

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[drinkypoo]

I'll agree with you on the shady practices of Intel when the Athlon line was launched - but I don't think a one hit wonder like that should magically position AMD as the top chip maker.

let's look at some realities. AMD's 386 and 486 beat the pants off their intel equivalents and the 586 was fairly competitive with the pentium. The K6 is a far superior chip to the P2 but it's a crap 386, but because of intel's hold nobody put effort into supporting K2 and it flopped; by the time the K6/3 came out with real x86 compatibility (think FPU) it was too late.

Meanwhile, from the point the Athlon came out until the time the Core 2 Duo got its first price drop, AMD has had a clear technology lead over Intel no matter how you measure it. What happened? AMD has been executing like crazy. I can't believe they just failed, sorry.

Re:I'll scratch your back....

[jellomizer]

In some ways yes. It means there may be motivation to legally hurt intel for the sake helping their own local economy. Lets use food for an example as food sales tends to be hard to have monopolies on.

Lets use Dole and Delmonte as an example they compete with each other and product similar products. Now lets say I live in a good farming area... (I currently don't as I live actually near Albany, NY) And they open a Dole plantation in the area has boosted my local economy. However Delmonte competition who is based in an other State for its plantations, is a hinderance to our success. So we will dig up any dirt that we can find on Delmonte let just say for example that they are doing something illegal or unethical. So We sue them for this activity while we overlook any activities that Dole is doing. If it was a case the if Dole wasn't around we may have left it alone, and didn't care, or even supported such activities it made our food cheaper.

Re:Adobe

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there is no one to compete with to whine about being squashed by the larger entity.

Re:Adobe

[Jaysyn]

Because, if you look around a bit there are free, functional replacements for almost everything that Adobe makes.

Who gets the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides the lawyers of course... if Intel did " hurt average consumers who were robbed of better products and lower prices", does that mean everyone that bought a pc with an Intel processor gets a settlement? I'm still waiting for my cheque from when the EU fined them back in May.

Re:Who gets the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

The CEO of Intel will handwrite millions of checks for $1.09, just like Steve Martin in The Jerk.

Who gets the money?

[Beerdood]

Besides the lawyers of course.. If Intel really did "hurt average consumers who were robbed of better products and lower prices", then shouldn't everyone be getting a settlement? I have a couple of Intel processors, and I'm still waiting from my cheque in the mail from the last time they got sued.

Maybe Intel needs a new CEO and Board.

[Futurepower(R)]

My understanding, from talking with Intel employees, is that Paul Otellini is not a good CEO.

My understanding is that only one member of the Intel Board of Directors has any technical knowledge. How can people with no technical knowledge oversee an enormously high-tech company? They can't.

Intel board member John L. Thornton was president and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group, it says. Goldman Sachs helped engineer the present financial collapse. Since the collapse, Goldman Sachs has been very profitable. The U.S. government has done NOTHING to prevent further abuse.

Re:Maybe Intel needs a new CEO and Board.

[hemp]

I think you misunderstand the purpose of a Board of Directors. Their job is not to oversee the company, that is management's job. Their job is to look out for the interests of the stockholder.

Re:Maybe Intel needs a new CEO and Board.

[commodore64_love]

I don't buy it. For Goldman Sachs to have "engineered" the collapse, they would have had to be an omniscient god. They may have taken advantage of it, using political connection to DC, but they certainly didn't plan events to happen. I'm sure they would have preferred the bubble keep going up.

Re:Maybe Intel needs a new CEO and Board.

[clampolo]

Since the collapse, Goldman Sachs has been very profitable.

They would have been bankrupt if the US hadn't bailed out AIG. The AIG bailout was just a Goldman Sachs bailout in disguise.

Re:Maybe Intel needs a new CEO and Board.

[ClosedSource]

"Their job is to look out for the interests of the stockholder."

But the job they really do is to look out for the interests of board members in general (e.g. if you give me big bucks for being CEO then I'll give you big bucks for being CEO through my buddy who sits on your board of directors).

Re:Maybe Intel needs a new CEO and Board.

[m.ducharme]

Actually, I think Goldman Sachs was profitable all through the crisis, and didn't take any money from the gov. And now we know where all the money went.

Re:Maybe Intel needs a new CEO and Board.

[Chris Burke]

(e.g. if you give me big bucks for being CEO then I'll give you big bucks for being CEO through my buddy who sits on your board of directors)

If it's even that indirect as to have to be "a buddy" rather than the CEO in question themselves.

My company's last CEO was, in addition to being Chairman of the Board of the company he headed, also on the Boards of two other companies.

It's a big incestuous network. When would the board ever not vote to increase executive compensation, or to create actual incentives not to run companies into the ground? Golden parachutes and ever-increasing bonuses (always to "maintain competitive with industry standards" that they created) are a direct result of this inbreeding.

Re:Maybe Intel needs a new CEO and Board.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Got any evidence of that? Simply making small, concise statements like yours, without any supporting evidence - regardless of the existence of supporting evidence or not - makes you look like a conspiracy theorist.

Re:Adobe

[Pulzar]

Because, if you look around a bit there are free, functional replacements for almost everything that Adobe makes.

You must not use much of their portfolio professionally to say that. The free replacements are quite non-functional for anything but most basic tasks.

On the other hand, there are lots of commercial offerings that compete well with Adobe's products. Other than Photoshop and Acrobat, all of their other heavyweights (Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere, Dreamweaver, etc.) have significant competitors. I'm not really sure why they should be considered a big bad monopoly.

IT's called "I want to be Governor..."

[tjstork]

Hey lets file a couple of lawsuits against some companies and maybe I can be governor... strike the heroic looking photo of the AG "going after" evil Intel.

This lawsuit, like anything else our political classes do (regardless of party), is total b.s.

Re:SpitzerSwallows?

[TheRealMindChild]

If you can't see a monopoly abuse on Intel's part at this point, I'd say you are the one with the agenda.

Besides, isn't doing good things so that you can get reelected SUPPOSED to be the way things should work?

NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, the simplest and most effective solution is to line up a few greedy CEOs and shoot them dead. Then the ones that weren't executed will know you mean business, that they need to play fair. So, if CEOs are as smart as they are supposed to be, to hold those corporate positions, only a very few need to be executed, for the message to be thoroughly understood and acted-upon.

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[ae1294]

Really, the simplest and most effective solution is to line up a few greedy CEOs and shoot them dead. Then the ones that weren't executed will know you mean business, that they need to play fair. So, if CEOs are as smart as they are supposed to be, to hold those corporate positions, only a very few need to be executed, for the message to be thoroughly understood and acted-upon.

That wouldn't work, although we can give it a try anyway.

Sociopaths, by their very nature, do not see others as human beings equal in any way to themselves. They are unconcerned about any adverse consequences received by others due to their own actions or the actions of others.

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[ovu]

CEOs are acting just like individuals do, except with amplified powers and priorities. In my personal life, I am free to do anything that is not explicitly illegal. In legal grey areas, I assess the risk vs. reward and proceed accordingly. With the corporate veil, corporate size bank accounts, and attorneys on staff, CEOs have more leeway than an individual to venture into the grey area. Human history is largely composed of people violating existing rules and either getting away with it or not...Judging morals is like armchair quarterbacking.

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Even sociopaths may have a sense of self preservation.

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Anonymous Coward]

That wouldn't work, although we can give it a try anyway. Sociopaths, by their very nature, do not see others as human beings equal in any way to themselves.

Sociopaths... you mean like people who would line up some businessmen and murder them?

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Quiet_Desperation]

Slashdot- where the solution to the sin of greed is wholesale murder.

And it gets modded Insightful.

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Anonymous Coward]

they do not have to see others as human beings, they only have to know that we see the remaining live CEO's the same as we see the dead CEO's.

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Jodka]

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Really, the simplest and most effective solution is to line up a few greedy CEOs and shoot them dead..

ae1294 wrote:

Sociopaths, by their very nature, do not see others as human beings equal in any way to themselves. They are unconcerned about any adverse consequences received by others due to their own actions or the actions of others.

While I agree with ae1294's observation that the AC who proposed executing CEOs is sociopathic, it seems too evident to merit that "+4 interesting" mod.

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[shentino]

In priniciple it's wrong to weigh lives versus dollars.

In practice the greedy folks at the top of the food chain have such complete control of the system that nothing less would even faze them. They've got congress critters making nice laws for them, they've got judges on their payroll making sure they don't get in hot water, and are cozy in bed with the regulators to make sure they look the other way.

Combined with monopoly control over the market in many cases, the consumer, normally the one with the power of wallet-voting, has to go without, and perhaps risk bankruptcy due to supply problems. A proposition even less viable considering that the customers themselves often have competitors of their own, and can't really afford the luxury of holding out trying to force their vendor to behave.

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[ae1294]

Even sociopaths may have a sense of self preservation.

Yes but shooting another sociopath will simply not mean anything to them. You would have to line all of them up and use blanks in some of the guns. Even if you did that it would not mean they would act morally afterward as they do not have an understanding of what that means.

Regardless it's human nature to disregard that something like that can happen to you. It's why capital punishment does not stop all murderers...

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[ae1294]

While I agree with ae1294's observation that the AC who proposed executing CEOs is sociopathic, it seems too evident to merit that "+4 interesting" mod.

There is a lot of talk here about shooting evil CEO's, etc, etc but no one seems to care or understand that it would make no difference in their behavior because they do not think they are evil or are doing anything wrong. Nor do they feel empathy towards others which, should be transparent, since they act in such a manner that causes great harm to society.

The only real solution is to re-balance the justice system so we have something close to real justice. We clearly don't have that now. If you have enough money you can buy your way out of most anything. Perhaps we would do better if lawyers where appointed to people and corporations at random. There would be set compensation rates like many other professions have. We could group them by talent and reserve the 'better' ones for the more critical cases. You wouldn't get a $2000 an hour lawyer for stealing a TV but if you are on trial for murder you'd get one of the highly skilled units.

That idea should scare the hell out of anyone thinking of going to court which might be a good thing. Then again?

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Anonymous Coward]

"Really, the simplest and most effective solution is to line up a few greedy CEOs and shoot them dead."

The simplest solution is to freeze private companies and eject management and the board, i.e. transfer ownership to new private owners, with some goals/targets conditions on stewardship.

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[dkf]

You would have to line all of them up and use blanks in some of the guns.

Using some blanks? Sounds like a missed opportunity to me...

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you care to explain how "only a very few need to be executed, for the message to be thoroughly understood" equates with "wholesale murder"?

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, a lot of CEOs are regular people like you and me, and are as far from being psychopaths as anybody else. But, don't let any facts disrupt your polarizing delusions.

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[ae1294]

You would have to line all of them up and use blanks in some of the guns.

Using some blanks? Sounds like a missed opportunity to me...

Well...

Don't let something like logic or due process stop you... Buy a 50cal 'Hunting Rifle' and install a high quality scope. Then make your list, buy some ammo and take care of the problem.

Nothing is really stopping you...

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[ae1294]

And yet, a lot of CEOs are regular people like you and me, and are as far from being psychopaths as anybody else. But, don't let any facts disrupt your polarizing delusions.

Shhh.. Don't tell anyone but I use to be the CEO of a small company... but "THIS IS SLASHDOT" voiced by King Leonidas of Sparta.

Re:NO Govt Seizure of Private Business

[Quiet_Desperation]

Slashdot - Where the *amount* of murdering is of far more importance than the fact of murder itself, and murder is still implied as a solution to simple greed.

Re:Adobe

[abigor]

Assuming Adobe has a monopoly in some area or other, precisely how have they abused it?

The illegal part is the abuse/protection, not the monopoly itself.

Why did Intel even need to do this?

[je ne sais quoi]

This was a pretty stupid move on Intel's part, they didn't even need to act in this way because they seem to have really pegged the market precisely in going after the performance/efficiency angle with that last few years worth of chips. I should know, I was an AMD fan throughout the late 90s and early 00s but for my newest PC I went with an Intel Core Duo2 because they really are that great in terms of speed versus power consumption. Not to mention that during AMD's disaster with their Barcelona quad core chips, there really wasn't any choice for awhile for quad core chips except for Intel. Most of the dates in TFA are from 2003-2006, I suppose those were really sort of dark years for Intel in that it seemed like AMD was gaining ground and their chips were cheaper for the same performance, but now Intel's latest are really quite good.

Re:Why did Intel even need to do this?

[jellomizer]

Well because the tides can shift again.

Re:Why did Intel even need to do this?

[DrWho520]

You answered your own question. The K8 product line beat anything Intel was pushing during that time frame. It should have given AMD a sizable portion of the market share. The performance was that much better. In a free market, the obviously better product should take the market share, and as fast as the IT market moves, there should have a perceptible wave in market share and profit flowing into AMD. Who knows where AMD R&D would have gone with the influx of cash.

Really?

[mcmonkey]

Off-topic and not for nothing...

For all the acronym- and jargon-laden summaries which barely qualify as English, and inevitable posts of 'WTF?', and the even more inevitable follow ups of 'Google, ya wanker," is it really necessary to qualify Intel as a "microprocessor maker"?

Anyone here not know what Intel is or what it does? Anyone?

Does it strike you as ironic?

[mcrbids]

Does it strike anybody else as a bit ironic to have Intel being sued for a market segmet defined by Intel?

There are loads os chips out there tat can easily be made into a GP computer - ARM, MIPS, SPARC, and Cell, to name a few. It's Intel that defines 'x86' and they are being sued in tat 'market'.

I'm not saying this suit isn't a good idea. Just seems a bit ironic...

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[Korin43]

The market is processors used in general purpose computers, and the lawsuit is because Intel makes sure that that market is the same as the market for x86. Other processors could easily be used in general purpose computers (Cell is not one of them), but the lawsuit alleges that Intel is using bribes to make sure that doesn't happen.

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[ClosedSource]

The recent anti-trust scam is about defining the market so that the target is a monopoly by definition. That's why "server" computers (that might even use PC hardware) were artificially excluded from the "market" so that MS could be considered a monopoly.

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[m.ducharme]

Or maybe the market for servers really is distinguishable from the market for home computers, or something crazy like that.

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[Uberbah]

Yes, just compare the high marketshare of Unix in the server market since it's inception, vs the penetration in the consumer market. More like ClosedMind.

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[ClosedSource]

It's hard to argue with such are well-begged argument but if Sun was in the "server market" and not the "consumer market", how could they have been harmed by MS's actions in a market they didn't participate in?

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[Uberbah]

And your poorly reasoned red herring might have a leg to stand on if we were talking about Sun or if they were the only company or group complaining about Microsoft's monopolies.

But we weren't, they weren't, so you don't.

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[ClosedSource]

So those who were found to have been harmed by MS's monopoly aren't relevant to a discussion of whether there really was a monopoly? Interesting logic.

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[mabhatter654]

Sun was harmed by Microsoft's actions against Java on the Desktop. Microsoft used it's position to implement Java to keep the version on Microsoft's OS from working correctly with Sun's other licensees. Microsoft voluntarily signed a contract with a competitor to get Sun Java on it's desktop OS, then made the licensed product perform poorly when Microsoft's created it's own product. Nobody MADE Microsoft sign that contract (but because Microsoft had a near monopoly on desktop OS it was good to have), but once they did they were bound to "do their best"... and they didn't.

Anti-trust law is not about being an absolute 100% monopoly, it's about making and performing service on fair contracts between two parties. In the case of Java Sun needed to get Microsoft on board for their market share in desktop office computers in order for their server products and other licensees to be valuable. Microsoft COULD have walked away and told SUN they had to work alone, that would have been perfectly legal.. but they didn't... Later Microsoft promoted it's OWN product over the contractual agreement they had with SUN. If Microsoft did not have monopolistic advantage then people would stop asking them to partner.. but they have so much power they can sign contracts they never intend to service properly... and middle managers effectively can play "kingmaker" in their industries because of the desktop marketshare.

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[Uberbah]

Again you pretend that this is all about Sun. Interesting, selective argument.

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[ClosedSource]

And this is based on the fact that Java was a product that ran both on servers and on desktops. So to support the contention that MS was a monopoly, Sun's market share was excluded, but in order to claim that MS had harmed them, Sun had to be considered in the same market. Thus the contradiction.

Just to set the record straight on Java on Windows, it ran faster than Sun's own JVM. MS however did make a major blunder. If they had simply ignored Java instead of legitimizing it, we probably wouldn't still be talking about it.

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[ClosedSource]

Not at all. The argument that it is "all about Sun" is just your straw-man.

Re:Does it strike you as ironic?

[Uberbah]

Not at all. The argument that it is "all about Sun" is just your straw-man.

You're using that word but it doesn't mean what you think it means.

The result was very well known in advance.

[Futurepower(R)]

"bubble keep going up". Bubbles don't always go up. That's why they are called bubbles.

Everyone in the financial industry knew two things: 1) The bubble would collapse, and 2) The U.S. government, led by the Federal Reserve Bank, composed of former financial industry executives, would make the taxpayers give money to the financial institutions.

You didn't read the Rolling Stone article linked in the grandparent comment, did you? Or anything else about Goldman Sachs and the financial collapse?

Note that the "Federal Reserve Bank" is not a bank, it is not federal, and there is nothing in reserve. Three lies in three words, in the name!

This Slashdot comment, The Investment Banking cohorts JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are the **huge** winners, discusses some of the new ways Goldman Sachs will make money in the future using the power of government. That Slashdot comment links to the Rolling Stone article, but that copy of the article has been removed. See the link to the article in the grandparent comment.

The corruption is not new. For example, see the May 13, 2002 article in Business Week, How Corrupt Is Wall Street? New revelations have investors baying for blood, and the scandal is widening Quote: "Consider Enron, which has paid $323 million to Wall Street in underwriting fees since 1986, according to Thomson. Goldman, Sachs & Co. (GS ) pocketed $69 million of that..." Enron, of course, went bankrupt when it was discovered the company was dishonest.

Beginning in 2002, Warren Buffett began very publicly calling derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction". That particular part of the corruption was allowed by the removal of laws designed to prevent fraud, at the beginning of George W. Bush's first term. Nothing was done to reinstate the laws, and that's why we are suffering now. Why was nothing done? Numerous articles say the corruption was allowed to happen because Goldman Sachs people, and other financial company executives control the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.

If the past is any guide, Intel will be fined a trivial sum like $100 million, and the corruption and anti-competitive activity against AMD will continue.

Part of loving the U.S. is becoming aware of, and trying to stop, the corruption in government.

Re:The result was very well known in advance.

[Anonymous Coward]

The financial services modernization act was drafted under clinton, and endorsed by senate democrats and republicans.

Re:The result was very well known in advance.

[gtall]

Whatever, the biggest cause of the bubble and subsequent collapse was the American People. They bought what they couldn't afford and allowed certain reptilian species to take advantage of them. The second was the housing industry which never met a development they didn't like and insisted on building McMansions everywhere knowing full well they had way more capacity the market could not sop up. The third biggest cause was government that failed to regulate. The forth was financial institutions that 'packaged' securities they knew were not backed by enough collateral. Even that 1-2-3-4 is misleading because as a system, there were many feedback and feedforward paths.

Pinning it on all on the financial community is convenient to conspiracy theorists like the Rolling Stone, but is rather silly.

Re:The result was very well known in advance.

[commodore64_love]

>>>Everyone in the financial industry knew two things: 1) The bubble would collapse, and 2) The U.S. government, led by the Federal Reserve Bank, composed of former financial industry executives, would make the taxpayers give money to the financial institutions.
>>>

Number two is where it falls apart. The execs had no idea what government would do. Remember the Bailout Bill did fail to pass the first time it was voted upon..... it could have easily stayed that way and the execs would have received no assistance. So number two if flat wrong.

>>>You didn't read the Rolling Stone article linked in the grandparent comment, did you?

Of course. This is actually the second time I read it. It reads a lot like those stupid articles written by fear-mongers who think 9/11 was a deliberate demolition by George Bush. It's an opinion piece bordering on paranoia, not fact.

Re:The result was very well known in advance.

[commodore64_love]

>>>The third biggest cause was government that failed to regulate.

The government did regulate - in the wrong direction. In the late 90s the Clinton administration and HUD was encouraging banks to make loans to poor people.

Re:Adobe

[ColdWetDog]

The illegal part is the abuse/protection, not the monopoly itself.

No, in Adobe's case, the abuse part is customer service. May they burn in Hell forever.

Please state Libertarian position?

[thickdiick]

I would like to know what the Libertarian position is on monopolistic competition?
I believe one ought be free to do what one wishes with one's money, and it follows that paying someone (some people call it bribery) to persuade them to a position is fine. The problem is i haven't studied this and, not being an expert, it's difficult for me to see negative externalities that may ensue should this be brought into practice. Any advice?

Re:Please state Libertarian position?

[Anonymous Coward]

The short answer is: The free market is always right. If you don't have the cash to keep up, you don't have the cash to compete. Sorry.

That's the unregulated free market that libertarians and objectivists favor.

I like a nicely blended market, erring on the side of regulation, because consumer interests are better protected that way.

Re:Please state Libertarian position?

[nomadic]

I believe one ought be free to do what one wishes with one's money, and it follows that paying someone (some people call it bribery) to persuade them to a position is fine. The problem is i haven't studied this and, not being an expert, it's difficult for me to see negative externalities that may ensue should this be brought into practice. Any advice?

The idea of a monopoly strikes at the heart of many libertarian's ideology. Their usual response is to simply claim (then angrily insist) that monopolies are the result of government. In a full free market, there wouldn't be any.

Re:Please state Libertarian position?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously asking slashdot libertarians what you should be thinking? If you want to form an opinion on this, then you should study this, or at least read a wikipedia article or two.

The libertarian position is interesting only in that it demonstrates their logical inconsistency and utopian magical thinking. On emotional note, since the libertarians love nationalistic rhetoric: The U.S. War of Independence (and, indeed, the original "Tea Party") was as much about a monopoly as the crown.

Besides the raw economics, monopolies and cartels get big enough to eat governments. The libertarian model requires strong tort; corporations in the U.S. are already powerful enough to make credible attempts at "tort reform" (that is, ending tort against corporations) daily.

This and many other inconsistencies demonstrate that libertarianism is not a viable framework for understanding economics or politics. Which makes me wonder what it's good for, besides whipping up nationalist fervor for political purposes and making pulp mills profitable.

Their Anti-Trust Suit

[bratwiz]

Their Antitrust lawsuita aren't like your antitrust lawsuits...

Oversight with no understanding?

[Futurepower(R)]

How can a board of directors "look out for the interests of the stockholder" if the directors cannot understand the business of the company?

Re:Oversight with no understanding?

[MBGMorden]

Indeed. Without knowing SOMETHING about the business of the company about the best they can hope to do is walk around slapping people on the asses and saying "Keep up the profits n' shit!".

That and making background deals with company to "buy our stuff". They probably don't even know what stuff they're selling, just that they want people to buy it.

Re:Oversight with no understanding?

[ignavus]

How can a board of directors "look out for the interests of the stockholder" if the directors cannot understand the business of the company?

Um, drink champagne at board meetings, vote themselves larger fees, do a few sweetheart deals for friends, and plan how to close the next AGM before anyone asks probing questions?

The interests of the directors may well be in conflict with the interests of other shareholders. Just as the interests of the government may well conflict with the interests of the citizens (e.g. privacy).

Re:Oversight with no understanding?

[duffbeer703]

Easy.

"Look, we beat the analyst's earnings estimates again! We we rock at this governance thing... lets talk to the compensation committee about increasing our honoraria."

Re:Oversight with no understanding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good business practices are by and large the same regardless the company or market. The concepts are what matters and are why some one can successfully go from being the CEO of Godfather's pizza to Intel to USBank, and not neccesarily know more than can be explained in a week's debriefing. Its like a military unit. The commander doesnt know everything about every job of every one of his subordinates. He doesn't need to know how to fix the radar on an F18 or how to fuel the reactor of the carrier.

Conversely just being techinically proficient doesn't make one suited for the command and control position. IE, just knowing all the geek details doesnt make you business savvy.

CEOs are hired for business savvy. They in turn hire, and delegate as needed, the geeks. The geeks in turn turn around and tell the CEO what the geek needs to do his job. A good CEO listens to his experienced people the same way a butterbar listens to his Gunny whos been there and killed that.

And yes, boards of directors are likewise hired for their business savvy, with the focus being on "what's good for my stockholders". They like the CEO do not need to be subject matter experts.

Re:Adobe

[Jaysyn]

Nope, more of a CAD person. In hindsight I guess that would be like someone saying that QCad or Intellicad was a complete AutoCAD replacement.

Breaking the law is okay with you?

[Futurepower(R)]

Could you explain to me how you think that allowing a company to break the law is looking out for the interests of the stockholder?

Re:Breaking the law is okay with you?

[cyber-vandal]

That's because corporate officers treat the law as a business expense and if it's cheaper to ignore it and pay any penalties they may incur then that's what they do. Microsoft are a classic example of that (sorry shills but it's true). That means there's more money for the stockholders (which includes the aforementioned corporate officers).

Re:Breaking the law is okay with you?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Could you explain to me how you think that allowing a company to break the law is looking out for the interests of the stockholder?

I'm not that guy and I don't like them breaking the law, but the answer to your question is "because it's highly profitable."

Even though the stockholders suffer from the illegal actions, they profit from them. It's everyone else who loses out...

Screw intel

[1s44c]

I never buy Intel CPUs. For a very long time AMD have had equivalent technology at a much better price.

Re:Screw intel

[petermgreen]

do you have a source for that claim? it was probablly true when the athlon64/opteron showed up while intel was still on P4 (and the P4 based xeons) but more recently all the reports i've seen say that intel is ahead in top end performance and performance per watt and doing pretty well in the performance per dollar as well.

Segmentation

[1s44c]

My boss tells me a few years ago Intel didn't have paging in their chips. So instead of working out how to do it they flew people all over the world trying to convince the best and the brightest that paging just could not work and segmentation was a better solution. It was a fools errand and they failed. Good thing too or the whole IT world would be 2 or 3 decades behind right now.

Delaware?

[NullProg]

Cuomo's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware Wednesday, alleges that Intel extracted exclusive agreements from large computer makers and threatened to punish those perceived to be working too closely with Intel competitors.

Why is the New York AG filing lawsuits in Delaware?

Enjoy,

Re:Delaware?

[XanC]

Because Intel (like most other large corps, I think) is incorporated in Delaware.

Re:SpitzerSwallows?

[nabsltd]

Besides, isn't doing good things so that you can get reelected SUPPOSED to be the way things should work?

No, the way things are supposed to work is that politicians should do the right thing, regardless of whether it helps them get re-elected.

As soon as they head down the slippery slope of not doing the right thing because "if I don't get elected, I won't be able to help people any more", it's all over. Once a politician believes that their being in office is the most important thing, then by definition what's important to the people that elected them becomes secondary.

You need to trust that doing the right thing will get you re-elected, and if not, then the people have spoken and don't want what you are trying to do.

They couldn't make Microsoft stop

[amiga3D]

Why bother? Intel is just as nasty as M$. If they couldn't make microsoft behave why do they think they can make Intel do right?

Re:They couldn't make Microsoft stop

[KillShill]

Yeah, they're just so nasty that you can't bear to type Inte£.

MS (look what i did here. ooh!) and Inte£ and App£€...

err...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else smell bull*@#!

Intel board of directors: Did they know?

[Futurepower(R)]

So, you are guessing that the members of the Intel board of directors knew about Intel breaking the law? Shouldn't they lose their jobs?

Re:Intel board of directors: Did they know?

[Cornelius the Great]

Board members are elected by shareholder vote. If they knowingly break the law yet increase value for shareholders, I don't see why they'd lose their jobs.

Re:Intel board of directors: Did they know?

[Anonymous Coward]

It amazes me how much people insulate themselves from the corruption in their society.

Socialist spankings

[TiggertheMad]

There is an interesting though: Corporations that misbehave get privatized by the government. That is awful good incentive for corporate restraint.

Fab Capacity

[PhrstBrn]

I think that people are either forgetting or ignoring this point:

AMD doesn't and didn't have the fab capabilities to take the market overnight. It would take a long time to start eating away the market share that Intel has. The amount of fab capacity that Intel has is enormous. They could stockpile months of chips if they wanted. AMD was selling chips as soon as they came off the production line.

AMD could not have gone to Dell and said "I'll supply all of your x86 chips cheaper than Intel, buy mine instead" if they wanted to. They wouldn't have been able to keep up with the demand.

Re:Fab Capacity

[beakerMeep]

I don't understand. Building new plants and ramping up production is insurmountable? Obviously it takes significant time and investment, but what does that have to do with anything? AMD could have made a deal to supply all of Dell's chips in just a couple years, couldn't they? Seems you're talking about the pace of changing vendors and the pace of the business in general. While the issue here is the behavior of the competition in trying to prevent any change from ever taking place. Certainly the more a smaller competitor gets shut out of the market, the harder it is to get back in the game. But that seems more like a magnifying effect of the original anti-competitive actions.

Whos really behind the scenes on this!!! guess who

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, one only has to think of what big computer manufacturer is located in NY state and who themselves are just as bad at monopolizing the hardware market. Yep! you gussed it IBM. The big/bad computer computer doesnt like competition, doesn't want to sign those exclusive agreements they make everyone else sign and their small computer processing division that makes the power processor and others is getting hurt since everyone wants intel/amd and not a different processor which requires all the desktop applications to be rewritten to run on them. I guess IBM can't take some of their own medicine when other great competitors give them a run for their money.

Re:Adobe

[linzeal]

ProEngineer does parametric modeling and 2d stuff fine. Autocad is nowhere near a monopoly.

Backyard.

[jamie(really)]

Yeah, because they've done much more damage than wall street.

Legislation allowed unlimited leverage: G.W. Bush

[Futurepower(R)]

Don't you find it unusual that you see that statement made again and again, even though few people know much about the issue? Someone want people to think that, apparently.

In fact, the legislation that allowed huge, unlimited leverage was passed in the early days of the first G.W. Bush term.

Re:Adobe

[Jaysyn]

So does Microstation, & that wasn't my point at all.

Stupid question...

[FlyHelicopters]

But why is it illegal for Intel to sell their processers for less to someone who agrees to use them only, compared to someone who uses Intel and AMD?

Because Intel is a monopoly? Hardly, AMD sells plenty of CPUs.

I'm just trying to understand how anything Intel did is illegal. I would have been inclined to do exactly what they did, had I been in their shoes.

Thats why I don't buy from them

[paziek]

Thats why I don't buy from them and never will. I don't buy from nVidia either as I see them doing similar. So all my PC are now Phenom + Radeon (old one Athlon), even tho people say, that Intel is performing much better (could be lie?).
If every1 would do the same, then we wouldn't even have to do that, since companies would avoid that kind of "competition" like fire or Orbital Ion Canon.
How many of you use Intel products? I bet most! Money, money, money!

The financial industry took advantage...

[Futurepower(R)]

The financial industry took advantage of weaknesses it created and weaknesses it found.

Brazil didn't suffer much and recovered easily because it has laws against too much leverage.

That's nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nonsense.

South Korea already did it.

[unity100]

and convicted intel. what took america so long ?

Yes, but that was not what caused the problem.

[Futurepower(R)]

The entire problem was that a law was passed in the early days of the G.W. Bush administration that allowed unlimited leverage. Some banks were leveraged by a factor of 30 to 50 on some deals. That meant that a drop in prices of 2% caused the banks to be in debt.

So what?

[david_thornley]

Okay, assuming that the allegations in the lawsuit are correct, and Intel massively abused its status to suppress competition and maintain a monopoly, causing lack of competition and higher prices, what are they going to do to Intel?

They aren't going to make AMD whole. They aren't going to get enough money out of Intel to pay consumers for what they've paid extra. I've never seen that sort of thing happen. Intel will pay maybe a few hundred million dollars, and all will be forgiven, and they'll end up profiting greatly from the whole business in the long run. Consumers might get coupons for ten bucks off a computer with an Intel processor. Just like Microsoft is benefiting today from its earlier anticompetitive behavior, despite fines and court orders and the like.

If we're going to have laws on business practices, they have to be made so companies are likely to be worse off by violating the law.

They talked about "moral hazard", laughing.

[Futurepower(R)]

"Remember the Bailout Bill did fail to pass the first time it was voted upon..."

It failed to pass because some people wanted different provisions. It was certain that it would pass.

"The execs had no idea what government would do."

For years before the present financial crisis, there were financial executives interviewed on television who talked about "moral hazard", in a laughing fashion. The meaning of "moral hazard" was always that they knew the U.S. government would give taxpayer money to the banks.

The revolution will be streamed

[Quiet_Desperation]

So when will you be starting your shooting spree? Make sure to YouTube it there, Che.