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
But as i have said before the EU is a load of rubbish and is just after money as per. No real leadership just beaurocrats getting to much money for very little work and even less concern in his policys and actions for the working class man.
The profits and the major public product exposure they have far outweighs any fine the EU in its wisdom can dish out. Ok a lot of what we are saying here is specualtion as we dont know the particulars of the case but imo i doubt it would ever come to that. Im not arguing the point just stating my opinion, a lot of what is said in situations like this is misread its not my intention to flame :).
I don't want to write long stories so I'll make a short "sketch"...
nVidia wanted true QPI, true... for free? NO! Not for free, but for a license FEE as they did with the Core platform and as it should be in a business world.
Did Intel accept? no!... and yes, they were entitled not to.
Why they didn't? Because they've seen QPI as a way of LEVERAGE! You know what that action is called in legal terms? EXTORTION!
What to leverage?... Well, what did Intel LACK in the desktop market that would appeal to so many users? Common, take a guess! It would improve their position in a critical market, that's for sure!
The answer is SLI! ... on an already CrossFireX enabled product! What would a gamer want more than a full-option-mainboard?!?!
You want to know why you're worng... not misinformed, we've been there and you wanted to argue, but plain wrong?
The following... all of them!
If Intel was in a deal with nVidia regarding the Nehalem chipset license, which NV never got since they were legally threatened by Intel, stating they don't have the right to produce such chipsets... how the heck can you expect NV to bring such controversial products on the market?... since you've wondered why you haven't seen any nVidia made Nehalem chipsets you've implied nVidia has that right.
And the NF200 thing didn't came up, it was NO next big idea, as you've implied which is also a wrong... it's an OLD chip, which is available to any mainboard manufacturer, and if Intel wanted SLI they would have had to increase the price of their motherboards which already costs more than it's worth... thus they devised a cunning plan of extorting nVidia. :D Sounds malefic... :laugh:
And you keep on babbling about i7's amazing launch time... did you've missed the news that it didn't had such a great launch or what?... the i7 launch wasn't so important and seeing how NVISION is the place where nVidia likes to show off... the bad thing was that the 09 edition was scraped, but it didn't matter as they didn't had anything new to present anyway! Caved?... LOL ... right!... In the recent presentation of NV, the marketing director Tom Petersen said that a basic C2D in SLI is enough or even better compared to a single vga i7 setup as to what games concern! Not only that, but it's also cheaper! Wouldn't that be contradictory? Why license SLI for Nehalem when you can counsel users what to buy, and not only that, but tell the that they can do it cheaper too!
If gamers will be limited to using AMD CPU's in the future... they WILL use AMD CPU's in the future because as great as Nehalem and i7 are, a GTX300 will always be better!
So I don't see why they "caved"! What I see was FRAUD... in a matter of speaking!
Technically, I cant say that such practices are legal, but by using QPI as a leverage.. they might have crossed the legal fine line.
I see you like to spin things up to prove a point and that is a waste of my time... so I'll be making my last comment to you, cause it's pointless arguing with a guy that contradicts himself. What I mean: From my point of view... that's exactly why your families business are allowed to do that and why large corporations like Intel are not!
Thank you twilyth!
Any other way, the large amount of books, music and movies will ensure that the english language remains dominant.
P.S my asian mushroom speaks english anyway.
Last year they made 8.2 billion dollars. A billion euro fine would come out to 1.33 billion U.S. tender (according to google). That isn't exactly a slap on the wrist; that is 16% of their earnings. That is extreme compared to Microsoft's fines. Look at this: www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY08/earn_rel_q2_08.mspx
Microsoft made 16.37 billion dollars. They got fined 1.4 billion. That is only 8.5% of their annual earnings. If you look at it objectively, that makes Intel's fine TWICE as heavy as the one imparted on Microsoft.
Not "pocket change" at all. Not one bit. What is even worse, is what happens to the company's creditors when the stock starts to drop? www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:INTC
Intel will have to raise prices to make back that lost 16%, PLUS their projected growth earnings for next year. Let's say their annual growth is 7%. That means that they need to recoup 23% of 8.2 billion dollars. That is 1.88 billion dollars. 1.88 billion divided by how ever many chips they ship equals the fallout cost to the consumer. Even if they ship 20 million chips in a year, that comes out to $90 extra that we have to pay. And that is just to keep the investors on board with projected growth, never mind actually being profitable and making back the lost cash.
If this fine actually gets levied against Intel, the fallout will suck so bad for consumers. Sure, theoretically it gives AMD a better price edge:toast:, but realistically all it does is piss off OEM vendors. Imagine the look on Dell's face (no pun intended) when they realize that they have to find a way to subsidize another $90 off of every model, out of thin air:twitch:.
Unless I am totally missing something . . .
Really? They never got it... www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2008/08/29/nvidia-has-a-qpi-license/1
Who's wrong here again?:laugh: If you read here, after nVidia realized that they would not be able to get an i7 chipset out for launch due to not having the proper licensing, they decided the next best thing would be to have motherboard manufacturers include the NF200 to enable SLi.
You are right in one respect, in that motherboard manufacturers(not Intel as you claim) did not want to increase the price of their already too expensive motherboards. It was the motherboard manufacturers that stopped nVidia here, not Intel. It not having a great launch has nothing to do with the discussion, you are the first to bring that up. The issue was the time of the launch, and by the time nVidia had a license to QPI, it did not have enough time to produce a chipset for the i7. Which is why they had rely on their backup plans to get SLi on i7. Not really, as the people running i7 setups are the people that must have high end. It was extremely important for nVidia to have SLi available for i7 when it launched. Otherwise, all the people buying the i7 at launch would be using ATi cards, and nVidia would have lost a huge amount of money. "Good enough" isn't something most i7 users are used to using as a standard for performance. Now you've lost me...CPUs are not GPUs...why are you comparing them... I've explained why they had to cave and enable SLi natively for the x58 chipset. Intel only had a small hand in it when they held up nVidia on making a true i7 chipset. There are several things that cost nVidia time, and time was the deciding factor:
1.) nVidia's assumption that their old licences applied to the new i7 platform.(This was nVidia's fault)
2.) Negotiations between Intel and nVidia for a new license that covers the i7 platform, and any other platforms with an IMC.(You can argue this was partially Intel's fault, in that they could have been unreasonable in an effort to slow down negotiations, but without actually being at the negotiation, it would be nothing more than speculation.)
3.) The motherboard makers telling nVidia they wouldn't use the nf200 chip due to costs.(This is nVidia's fault, nVidia should have come up with something that didn't cost others more money)
All of these things cost nVidia time, time they didn't have as the i7 launch was approaching quickly and they needed an SLi solution by launch. So they had to cave and allow SLi on the x58 chipset without an NF200 chip. I see you like to piece together your inaccurate remembering of the facts to form a bunch of speculation, to accuse a company you don't like of things they did not do.
And I never contradicted myself, you just fail at reading and comprehension, obviously.[/QUOTE]