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Intel Antitrust Trial
strredwolf writes "I
just heard about this one through ABCNEWS:
Intel's being sued
in a seperate antitrust case for not releasing the technical specs
on upcomming chips to competitors such as AMD, IDT, and Cyrix.
I guess Microsoft no longer feels alone in being under
goverment scrutiny. "
yay.
The difference between Intel and Microsoft is that Intel isn't so stupid as to leave incriminating emails lying around and pass off fabrications as video testimony. They've been through this before and are much more clever for it.
yeah, yo
This is further evidence of the fundamental lack of vision at the FTC and the danger of the Section 2 of the Sherman Act when it is misused. Suits like this, that seek to compel market leaders to cooperate with their competitors, create perverse incentives and stifle the inovation the antitrust laws are, in part, meant to encourage and protect. What incentive is there to invest in R&D if one has to give away the fruits of ones efforts to whoever asks for them?
The successful competitor, having been urged to compete, must not be turned upon when he wins. US v. ALCOA
The people in the Justice Department must be out of their minds. If I make a innovative product must I release the specifications so other people can make this product? Of course not. So why should Intel be required to? It is their research money and their patents. They should be free to release/or not release the specifications to their products. If Cyrix and AMD want to compete they should create a superior product.
The Government has no right to tell a private company that they have to release their patented specifications. I suppose they figure that this runs under the Interstate Commerce clause in the Constituion. But in that case it is the job of the American people to tell their Congressmen that they want Intel regulated.
The government is stepping over its Constitutional bounds here and their suggestion that Intel must release information to their competitors is ludicrous.
Now the article was not specific about the charges the FTC is bringing against Intel, but the idea that a company should be forced to reveal their product secrets is totally ludicrous.
First of all, AMD and Cyrix have had tremendous sales growth recently, and their new chips outperform Intel's hardware, so I cannot see Intel as being a total monopoly.
Second, x86 is an Intel designed instruction set, not some sort of ANSI/ISO standard, so why should Intel provide its competitors with detailed specifications. If other companies want to build machines that run x86 instructions, fine, but there is no reason that Intel should help them.
Third, x86's days are numbered (hopefully) and the future is wide open for hardware designers. If Intel is forced to release specifications and details, x86 could become a de facto standard for hardware, forever stunting design innovation.
If a company forces people to buy their products, then yes, they should be stopped. However, no one should be forced to make it easier for their competitors to win.
Without this happening, Intel would be in a monopoly position, And whats even worse, Intel would still be charging you and I $800 for a p5-200mmx. You think this stifles innovation? Intel keeps trying to come up with new ideas everyday to beat the living crap out of amd.
blah
Ravette
This suit should have happened three or four years ago. At this point they still controlled the chipset market, but are facing some serious competition in the cpu market. Everything I've read says they have lost the low end market for cpu's to Cryix and AMD,especially the reatil market. I do like them supporting Linux, but I am tired of hearing about these "breakthroughs" which involve bascially a rehashnig of old X86 arch with some multimedia extensions. then there is the holy grail of Mercad which wil make 64-bit computing a reality for 64-bti Nt whenever that comes out. I personaly see a brighter future with Alpha (if Compaq doesn't screw that up), and the G series as well as whatever Transmedia cooks up.
Remember 386s? Cyrix and AMD made em too. We all loved our 386s, whether or not it was Intel or what not. Then the 486 came out, and we all loved those too. Cyrix and AMD made em too. But what made Intel's sell more? That little sticker that said "Intel Inside." The performance was nothing more, matter of fact the AMD's may be better. But(true story), AMD's market collapsed because of the sticker If it didn't say intel, people didn't want it. AMD chips are fine! I'm saying this, it's because AMD doesn't advertise. If you reply to this, don't be bitching at me about outperformance, because you need to take economics and business classes. Some(most) retail buyers are idiots and just go with what they see most of(on tv usually). Intel is just more popular by reputation. It's not that they are out to get anyone. Cyrix just plain old f*cking sucks though.
Geez, we got a government run by a bunch of crazy liberals here!
Companies like Microsoft and Intel pour billions into R&D and grow the US economy like crazy, and our government goes and tries to tear them down and rip them off. That's punishing achievment!
It's not fair, it's not right, and in the end it may be suicidal for America. Intel and Microsoft arent the real enemies...the real enemies, are the FOREIGNERS! You dont see the governments of Japan, Malaysia, or Taiwan beating up on their biggest companies -- the engines of their economies. Heck, they try to boost and augment the big companies, not tear them down.
The business of America is Business, not regulation!
sql*kitten is a troll
http://microsoft.aynrand.org/intel.html
this seems more like an attempt to get money from companys that make a whole lot more then the the goverment can charge in taxes
Intel doesn't its specs to it's competitors?
Umm..okay.
Intel do not produce overclockable PII's, or at least you can't bump up the multiplier on the 350, 400, 450 and the new PIII. The reason they allow overclocking on the Celeron, is so they can get away with selling a cheaper CPU that gives the same performance.
Imagine, for a moment, that Intel released a 450 Mhz CPU with identical performance to the Pentium II 450, but at a fraction of the price? AMD and Cyrix will jump up and down and demand antitrust probes.
Not to mention that Intel won't be able to get a nice laugh out of anyone who buys a Pentium II 450 at a high price. I'd be willing to bet that their production costs are pretty similar.
One of the reasons Intel might not release their specs is because the Celeron may be already rated at 450mhz. They just don't want to say it publically or else they'll be fighting legal battles till the cows come home. But it's pretty neat - users overclock the CPU on their own, and they also void warranty by doing so. Intel saves money on faulty CPU's too. Pretty neat.
Many people choose a Celeron 300A over a K6-2 350 purely because it's overclockable to 450 and runs stable at that speed. Maybe it'll only run at 400, but I have yet to see any problems with a Celeron being overclocked.
but I can't really talk - I got sucked in to buying a Pentium II 350 a month ago.. but then again, I didn't pay for the upgrade, so I'm not complaining.
"...America for Americans,
send the Indians back to Africa..."
ok.. i just patented some new computer cases that have fur. I now control innovation of furry computer cases. i suppose i should be broken up?
Yeah, and after Intel puts AMD out of business with predatory pricing, do you still think you are going to be able to buy that cheap Celeron? Home much was MS Word in the old days?
the entire world has been trying to gain at our expense for the past 223 years. i think you are totally wrong, maybe you should read the constitution sometime.
capitilism has not failed. the reason for many of the problems today is because of our over-regulated economy.
I would like to take the time to explain to you why, but I feel as if there is not enough time in this life to do so.
Ayn Rand, what a joke. I think the poor woman never managed to recover from the evils perpetrated upon her little family by the nasty bolsheviks back in '17.
The irony of using Rand's ill-devised concepts of individualism in defense of inherently anti-competitive business entities amuses me to end.
Vassya
IIRC the Constitution only allows patents and copyrights because they are believed to contribute to the welfare of all. They aren't a god given right. I fail to see why the government couldn't decide that a patent is being used in an unconstitutional way and force the owner of the patent to do whatever they want. Unless you have a different Constitution than I do it would seem that the Government does have the right to tell a private company that they have to release patented specs.
... of course then they wouldn't have a legal basis to protect their IP. But that's the chance you take....
If Intel doesn't like that then they shouldn't patent their stuff
The real question is not whether Intel should give its specs to competitors, but whether Intel used its dominance to force out competitors and HOW.
If all Intel did was not release specs the I'd be with Intel on this one.
However, if Intel used its dominance in the market to influence sales of AMD or other chips then I would side with "the others" (for lack of better description). Competition via innovation is not being attacked, but competition via agreements that prevent sales of competitors products is.
The whole point of the MS antitrust case is that MS are being aggressive and undermining their competition instead of outdoing them through better performance.
Now some lawyers are in antitrust fever and they are very confused and think that not supporting your competitors is anticompetitive. Should intel share their fucking profits too. Fuck off you stupid dickless moron lawyers involved in the Intel case (do I smell a bandwagon).
The MS antitrust case is very well based.
The Intel one isn't.
Dildo noses.
Why should Intel (or anyone else) *have* to give competitors an inside track on the technical specs of future products? Last time I checked, it's not illegal to keep your competitors in the dark.
Also, read the linked article, and I saw no statement there insinuating that this is what the suit is about. Just that "Intel abused its market influence to freeze out and punish competitors."
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HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
Why should Intel (or anyone else) *have* to give competitors an inside track on the technical specs of future products? Last time I checked, it's not illegal to keep your competitors in the dark.
Intel produces a lot more than CPU chips -- and it's known that incompatibility with motherboards' chipsets is a serious problems for competing processors. Not to mention "secret" and "patented" CPU connectors (slot 1, 2 ...)
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
IIRC, in that case, Intel was being accused of licensing their technology to various other companies, then refusing to deliver the info unless those companies gave up trade secrets that were germain to areas Intel might want to enter, but were not part of the original license agreement. Kind of like what Microsoft has done with some of their licensing agreements ;).
I know that this was the crux of the matter with Intergraph; I'm not sure how AMD & Cyrix fit in. In any event, the case wasn't about Intel being a monopoly; it was about them using their market muscle to avoid fulfilling their contractual agreements. I hope that's still all it's about.
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
What some of you seem to be missing is this, whenever one is granted a patent that information must be kept in the US Patent office for all to see. Including one's competitors. If you get a patent on one technology and use that to hide the development of another you've violated both the spirit and letter of the law.
Even though Pepsi and Coke don't have to release their entire formulas, they do have to list ingredients. Intel may not have to explain how they've implemented MMX and Katmai, but they do have to tell what they are.
LK
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
4-5 years ago AMD controlled 30% of the 486 market. Today they have a CPU market share appriximately the same as Apple's complete unit Market share.
AMD and Cyrix have made considerable progress recently, however Intel still dominates the market.
This is in large part due to consumer ignorance, for example most people that I deal with think that a celeron 333 is "faster" than a Pentium II 300.
Intel has done their best to flood the market with chips at various speeds and arcitectures in order to confuse the unsavvy public.
LK
Monopoly does NOT mean 100% market share. It means enough market share to dictate terms to customers or control essential services. That can happen with less than 100% market share, but would definatly require a strong majority.
For MS, the case is very strong. If MS chose to charge an exhorbitant license fee to any given VAR, they would be seriously crippled or even bankrupted. Let's face it, Linux is good, and if you specialise in servers, you'll do well preloading Linux only. In the desktop market however, you'll loose most of your customer base that way (sad but true).
The case for Intel is a bit harder to judge. It is possable to sell AMD only hardware so that is not the issue. As I understand it, the Intel suit is based on them having the market power to patent slot1 and dictate that motherboard manufacturers license the patent in order to use Intel CPUs. Furthermore, was it unfair monopoly style competition to block AMD and Cyrix from proiducing a CPU compatable with slot1? In an open market, a move like that should be close to suicide (witness Apple and closed standards in the '80s, the MicroChannel archetecture etc.)
This does NOT stifle innovation. Intel is free to improve their CPUs all they want. If they really need slot1 to produce a better CPU, fine. They do not, however, need to prevent AMD from producing a slot1 CPU in order to improve their own CPU.
err, no. intel wants you to keep on upgrading, it's the only way they can survive. they are very smart, and realise that low margins/high volume and a constant upgrade cycle/path are key to long-term success. and it's worked, and jealous, incompetent competitors want to government to help them.
you have absolutely no idea what 'fascist' means, do you? easier for you to post nonsense than think for yourself, isn't it?
the only supporters of socialism are those who are stupid, dishonest and lazy and hate folk who aren't.
My best wishes in this battle against low-lives who want to rape your investment in R&D. I'm amazed at how some people think that stealing the product of others' work is a Good Thing.
Intel is under no moral obligation to give anyone its specs.
Eugene
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
Intel has a monopoly basically. They drive (READ- control) x86 processor innovation. They will be broken up. Which will be a good thing.
Ex Machina "From the Machine"
xm@GeekMafia.dynip.com [http://GeekMafia.dynip.com/]
Monopoly means 100% market share. M$ only has about 95%, and Intel has a lot less than that. Neither is a "monopoly."
Does anyone else think that the article says something different from the summary, or is it just me?
echo Prpv a\'rfg cnf har cvcr | tr Pacfghnrvp Cnpstuaeic
Last time I checked, there was no law that said that an industry leader (read: dominant company) has to give specifications to smaller companies. The last time the government tried this (In the defense industry, the government made all blueprints of the AIM-9 missile public domain after 2 years.) the original developer went bankrupt when a competitor just waited for the design to become public domain, then started manufacturing it for half the cost because they didn't have to shoulder the R&D cost.
Is the government trying to bring this brilliant idea to the computer industry now?
While we're at it, why don't they just force the writer of the best Operating System to release the source code??? Oh, wait, that's already been done...
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Maybe I'm the only one who ever payed attention in any kind of economics course, but as we move into the 21st century I hate to tell you, but most of the economies are now tied together. So you can sit around waving your made in the u.s.a. tag all you want, but unless we some how take a role in the world economies there won't be much inovation and growth of buisness.
Intel is far smarter than Microsoft.
Just look at Microsoft's defense - Bill Gates suffering sudden inexplicable memory loss.
Just look at the dumb tape that Microsoft botched.
And look at how Microsoft let incriminating memos and email sit around for people to find!
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Looks like ABC got the slashdot effect. Only the header seems to download. Must be on M$ webserver.
How do you check what kind of web server a site is using?