Monday, October 22nd 2007
F.T.C. Chief Balks at Intel Inquiry
The head of the Federal Trade Commission has rejected requests by lawmakers, other commissioners and a small rival company to open a formal antitrust investigation of Intel, the world's largest maker of computer microprocessors, for anticompetitive conduct, government officials and lawyers involved in the proceeding said. In recent weeks, regulators in Korea and with the European Commission have separately accused Intel of antitrust violations by offering large discounts to computer makers in exchange for their not using products by the rival company, Advanced Micro Devices, which has struggled to compete and has waged a global antitrust campaign against Intel. Japanese officials made similar accusations in 2005. The trade commission has been conducting an informal review of A.M.D.'s complaints for more than a year, gathering thousands of documents from Intel and its customers. But the commission's chairwoman, Deborah P. Majoras, has rejected requests to elevate the inquiry to a formal investigation, which would give staff members the authority to issue subpoenas and compel testimony from executives of the companies involved.
The action by the foreign regulators and the debate at the F.T.C. is part of a fierce and protracted legal, political and public relations battle between Intel and A.M.D. over the global market for microprocessors. The fight between the two - over an industry that generates annual revenues of more than $225 billion - is among the largest antitrust matters pending before American and foreign regulators. Besides lobbying regulators around the world, A.M.D. has sued Intel in a federal court in Delaware. A trial is scheduled to begin in spring 2009.
Read the Full Story
Source:
The New York Times
The action by the foreign regulators and the debate at the F.T.C. is part of a fierce and protracted legal, political and public relations battle between Intel and A.M.D. over the global market for microprocessors. The fight between the two - over an industry that generates annual revenues of more than $225 billion - is among the largest antitrust matters pending before American and foreign regulators. Besides lobbying regulators around the world, A.M.D. has sued Intel in a federal court in Delaware. A trial is scheduled to begin in spring 2009.
Read the Full Story
9 Comments on F.T.C. Chief Balks at Intel Inquiry
The issue is whether PRICES were offered to OEM that were below cost. I'm sure that's not the case... just take a look at RETAIL prices and see how, after launch, the price of a chip plummets. So what happens with OEM pricing? Basically, an OEM price is a FUTURES CONTRACT about shipping large quantities of CPU in 3-6 month time. But already, Intel has a pricing strategy, where prices WILL BE (say) 30% lower for the same chips as priced today. So all Intel is doing is letting the OEM "buy in the future" at the "future price".
I'm on intels side on this one. :nutkick:
Tip to AMD: Get your chips out on time to remain competitive... and make them performance competitive. People pay a premium for a better part... so make a better part. STOP WHINING about Intel offering A BETTER PART AT A LOWER PRICE :nutkick:
Are they going to start suing nVidia for making better GPUs aswell?
It's about time the AMD shareholders made a few AMD executives fall on their swords.
Want to win, make a better product or present a better price point and be able to deliver. Global capitalism FTW!
{edit} ROFL
{/edit}
It's no surprise. Any asshole in the U.S gov't can be bought. Hell, a lot of the time they do it for free just to have fun screwing you over.
now, I dont fault intel, I mean, thats just smart business. I really think if AMD did it, they wouldnt be complaining about it....
btw, you dont see AMD only systems anywhere, even when they were top dawg....just think about it.
I'll state one of the worst. Intel would threaten any OEM that considered using AMD by severing chip supply or jacking prices so it would be unprofitable for them.
It's like reverse extortion :) They strong armed everyone for years and years.
Remember the Athlon XP days when AMD was raping intel on price/perf. (as you said was the reason why AMD is faltering)?
In 2001, AMD enjoyed 21.8% market share, but by the 3rd quarter of 2002 they had slipped to 11.6 %, and only climbing back to 21.4% as of January 2006. Now tell me, how did that magically happen? How can you lose that much market when you are #1 in price/perf. (actually both overall, man those P4s are junk). Tell me, I want to know. AND WE ALL KNOW how amd continued to stomp intel with the Athlon64 line, yet they gained jack out of it.
It doesn't take a genius to understand what occurred.
;)
They'll do whatever is best for the company. nuff said.