Saturday, May 2nd 2009
Intel to be Slapped with Greatest Fine in EU History
It is predicted that silicon giant Intel may face the greatest fine for its alleged anti-competitive practices, in a case heard in the European Union. Intel is currently being investigated for irregularities including encouraging hardware vendors not to use AMD products, and offering discounts. Legal analysts estimate the fine to be well over 1,000,000,000 EUR, over double that of what is heading Microsoft's way. In a statement to the New York Times, says Howard Cartlidge, head of the EU competition group at law firm Olswang in London, "I would be surprised if the fine isn't as high or higher than in the Microsoft case. Technology markets are where the European Commission has perceived particular problems due to dominant companies."
The ongoing trial in EU runs parallel to similar anti-competition trials in Japan and Korea, where Intel is found guilty. It is a joint effort between EU and United States Federal Trade Commission investogators. Despite previous convictions, Intel maintains that it has done nothing wrong and is confident of being found innocent. Says Intel spokesperson Robert Manetta, "Overall, Intel's conduct is lawful, pro-competitive and beneficial to consumers." Naturally, AMD begs to differ. Sources in AMD reveal that Intel conducted anti-competitive practices throughout, to maintain an 80-20 competition. The number took very little change even when AMD was at the peak of technology advancement over Intel.
Source:
TechConnect Magazine
The ongoing trial in EU runs parallel to similar anti-competition trials in Japan and Korea, where Intel is found guilty. It is a joint effort between EU and United States Federal Trade Commission investogators. Despite previous convictions, Intel maintains that it has done nothing wrong and is confident of being found innocent. Says Intel spokesperson Robert Manetta, "Overall, Intel's conduct is lawful, pro-competitive and beneficial to consumers." Naturally, AMD begs to differ. Sources in AMD reveal that Intel conducted anti-competitive practices throughout, to maintain an 80-20 competition. The number took very little change even when AMD was at the peak of technology advancement over Intel.
142 Comments on Intel to be Slapped with Greatest Fine in EU History
If 9 out of 10 companies buy a product at price and get a discount of 20% for not acquiring the competitor's product as well, and that remaining company gets 0% discount, just the batch price because it wants to serve its clients every option that there is... how do you think it would be able survive? The other 9 co. can just add a 19% profit and that would mean a clear loss for that single one company.
In this situation, and in my view... that's far from fair business!No, you're misinformed! AFAIK it was QPI for NF200less-SLI-enabled Intel boards! This way, the mobo manufacturers could choose if they want SLI for 5$ through a soft mod, no SLI at all or the alternative, a 50$ to 100$ NF200 version (price depending on manufacturer) that would enable SLI. That was the deal... but once Intel got their 5$ mod, NV got nothing!Don't be one of those sorry kids that eats this kind of BS... it's really sad when people do that!
I've heard a enough that AMD dies, goes bankrupt, gets bought, goes tits-up or gets blown up because of financial problems in the last 8 or so years... so far, they are pushing products that a lot of us can afford and are glad it's still here to make a difference.
What happens with the money remains to be seen... so far people can speculate all they want about EU... the show's not over!
i can still order from us stores
if anything the EU promotes competition... why do you think they are trying to stop an intel monopoly?
without amd, intel would be sitting on $500 multi core P4's at 6ghz LOL
Your ideas are flawed in that you don't take into account the fact that Intel had competition. It isn't an issue of if they didn't take the discount, then they would have to sell Intel products with lower profits. They just better be buying AMD products at competitive prices to what Intel's products with the discount. It is competition, if AMD wants to compete, they need to offer their products to the companies at competitive prices.Actually, you are misinformed. The NF200 thing didn't come up till about half way through the ordeal.
At first, nVidia wanted to make true chipsets for the i7. However, to do that they need to use QPI, which they need to license from Intel. NVidia wanted Intel to allow them to use QPI for free, Intel would have no part of that. And Intel is in the right here, they spent a huge amount to develope it, they aren't going to give it away for use for free, especially not to a company just so they can develope a competing product. By the time nVidia finally caved and agreed to pay licensing fees for QPI it was too late for them to get a chipset out before launch, in fact we still haven't seen a chipset from them.
Of course this would have screwed nVidia, because it would mean that they would not have an SLi solution out for the i7 for a large amount of time, and poeple would be using Crossfire exclusively. So nVidia's next big idea was to simply have motherboard manufacturers put NF200 chips on any i7 motherboard that they wanted to support SLi. The backfired because the manufacturers told nVidia they wouldn't have enough time to develope boards like this in time for the i7 launch, and they also told nVidia they would likely not produce many boards with the NF200 chip due to the extra cost.
This is finally when nVidia gave up on having one of their chips on every SLi board, and finally just allowed manufacturers to qualify the board for SLi by simply paying a small licensing fee and sending nVidia samples for SLi qualification.
You should not be punished, and not have to follow special rules, simply because you are a bigger company. The same rules should apply to all companies, large or small. Otherwise, who is to decided what company is big enough to be considered big? The governing bodies are purposely not establishing guidelines on what companies are big, and which aren't. So they can extract as much free money out of as many companies as possible.
Laws and rules like this need to be an all or none issue. Either enforce the rules for all companies, or none. You don't get to selectively choose which companies you will suddenly start enforcing the rules for. You can suddenly decide you will enforce the rule for a single company just so you can get some money out of them.
Is it fair that, none of the OEMs will use Company A's products, because the dominating Company X decided to pay these OEMs not to use them? Thats whats going on. Thats just abusing your market position, its like a person paying people to take up places in a competition with limited places so that you cant participate, because you'd be a threat to their victory.
AMD and Nvidia were busted for price fixing, The memory makers in Korea were busted , the LCD makers in Taiwan. They all seem to be sheisters and they are all involved to some degree.
I really dont think any of us know exactly what went on. Surely the evidence we have gathered helps sway our opinions but we should never forget that the masses are indeed sheep.
I have seen too many times, a poor quality, stupid product mass produced and sold, and dominate market share. Probably as many times as i have seen shady business actions.
I think i have heard too many Binderberg conspiracy theories and just felt like adding that the money ending up in the banks hands is what the final outcome will be. U.S is a dry-well, lets drain everything via E.U. That being said, it wont matter if Intel did or didnt when 3/4 of the worlds population is DEAD. . . ( Dont mind me, i just thought i'll spin this off until we get an outcome. )
. . . If i was Intel, i would have made sure AMD was dead by now and have total Monopoly in the industry, killing any uprising competition YEARS ago. This would lead to hostile takeovers of everything remotely related. Anyone that opposes, will have no technology. - - Lucky hey!
I suggest we use the french next.