Wednesday, May 13th 2009
Statement by Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini on EC Ruling
Paul Otellini, Intel Corporation president and CEO today issued the following statement regarding the European Commission decision on Intel's business practices:
"Intel takes strong exception to this decision. We believe the decision is wrong and ignores the reality of a highly competitive microprocessor marketplace - characterized by constant innovation, improved product performance and lower prices. There has been absolutely zero harm to consumers. Intel will appeal."
"We do not believe our practices violated European law. The natural result of a competitive market with only two major suppliers is that when one company wins sales, the other does not. The Directorate General for Competition of the Commission ignored or refused to obtain significant evidence that contradicts the assertions in this decision. We believe this evidence shows that when companies perform well the market rewards them, when they don't perform the market acts accordingly."
"Intel never sells products below cost. We have however, consistently invested in innovation, in manufacturing and in developing leadership technology. The result is that we can discount our products to compete in a highly competitive marketplace, passing along to consumers everywhere the efficiencies of being the world's leading volume manufacturer of microprocessors."
"Despite our strongly held views, as we go through the appeals process we plan to work with the Commission to ensure we're in compliance with their decision. Finally, there should be no doubt whatsoever that Intel will continue to invest in the products and technologies that provide Europe and the rest of the world the industry's best performing processors at lower prices."
Intel's Position on the AMD Antitrust Case
Since the 1990s Intel's principal competitor has been on a concerted campaign to get regulators and courts around the world to prevent Intel from competing aggressively in the market. The aggressive marketing campaign by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has included numerous complaints to regulators in multiple jurisdictions which all stem from the same set of allegations and source. It has included a private lawsuit in the U.S. and two in Japan. By all accounts the U.S. lawsuit could become one of largest antitrust cases in the history of U.S. Courts.
AMD's objectives are clear; it is seeking price protection and wants to become more successful by deterring Intel from aggressive competition. Stripped of hyperbole AMD's complaints around the world accuse Intel of competing too aggressively by offering customers attractive prices and marketing, and technical support to win their business.
The microprocessor market is fiercely competitive. That competition has resulted in tremendous benefits to consumers worldwide by providing continuous improvement in technology innovation, performance and capability at consistently lower prices. Intel believes in competition and has never shied away from it. As you will see from information contained on this site Intel believes it operates well within the law.
More information about Intel and "Competition in the Innovation Economy" is available here.
Source:
Intel
"Intel takes strong exception to this decision. We believe the decision is wrong and ignores the reality of a highly competitive microprocessor marketplace - characterized by constant innovation, improved product performance and lower prices. There has been absolutely zero harm to consumers. Intel will appeal."
"We do not believe our practices violated European law. The natural result of a competitive market with only two major suppliers is that when one company wins sales, the other does not. The Directorate General for Competition of the Commission ignored or refused to obtain significant evidence that contradicts the assertions in this decision. We believe this evidence shows that when companies perform well the market rewards them, when they don't perform the market acts accordingly."
"Intel never sells products below cost. We have however, consistently invested in innovation, in manufacturing and in developing leadership technology. The result is that we can discount our products to compete in a highly competitive marketplace, passing along to consumers everywhere the efficiencies of being the world's leading volume manufacturer of microprocessors."
"Despite our strongly held views, as we go through the appeals process we plan to work with the Commission to ensure we're in compliance with their decision. Finally, there should be no doubt whatsoever that Intel will continue to invest in the products and technologies that provide Europe and the rest of the world the industry's best performing processors at lower prices."
Intel's Position on the AMD Antitrust Case
Since the 1990s Intel's principal competitor has been on a concerted campaign to get regulators and courts around the world to prevent Intel from competing aggressively in the market. The aggressive marketing campaign by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has included numerous complaints to regulators in multiple jurisdictions which all stem from the same set of allegations and source. It has included a private lawsuit in the U.S. and two in Japan. By all accounts the U.S. lawsuit could become one of largest antitrust cases in the history of U.S. Courts.
AMD's objectives are clear; it is seeking price protection and wants to become more successful by deterring Intel from aggressive competition. Stripped of hyperbole AMD's complaints around the world accuse Intel of competing too aggressively by offering customers attractive prices and marketing, and technical support to win their business.
The microprocessor market is fiercely competitive. That competition has resulted in tremendous benefits to consumers worldwide by providing continuous improvement in technology innovation, performance and capability at consistently lower prices. Intel believes in competition and has never shied away from it. As you will see from information contained on this site Intel believes it operates well within the law.
More information about Intel and "Competition in the Innovation Economy" is available here.
128 Comments on Statement by Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini on EC Ruling
Anyway, specifically speaking you should ask to all court judge's all over the globe, the reason and facts, why they decided what they decided.
I'm not an judge or lawyer, to be specific.
You should be older than what looks like from you post.
Heres the actual press release by the commission.
europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/745&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
I want those complaining to explain how this is competition. A lovely example of the ridiculous distortions created by Intel's practices raised in the link above.The conditions were such that firms werent allowed to even take free processors.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_First_Instance
EDIT: my quote:your quote:Again, sorry I didn't wanted to sound personal, just to make you read what you wrote and thought about it. That's all. I'm editing because I thought twice in what I wrote, I thought you deserved a better apologize.;)
Simple Q&A here which covers most of people's questions be that on this forum or anywhere on the web atm.
intel horrors surface:
The EU antitrust commission reveals terrible details surrounding intel business practices during the last years.
at that time AMD was so desperate finding all the manufacturers doors closed that had to resort to offer its processors for free but...
''For example, rival chip manufacturer AMD offered one million free CPUs to one particular computer manufacturer. If the computer manufacturer had accepted all of these, it would have lost Intel's rebate on its many millions of remaining CPU purchases, and would have been worse off overall simply for having accepted this highly competitive offer. In the end, the computer manufacturer took only 160,000 CPUs for free.''
europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/745&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
For those who STILL oppose this ruling, no offense, but PLEASE realise that BRIBERY IS AN ILLEGAL MARKET PRACTISE. * Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer A from December 2002 to December 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing exclusively Intel CPUs
* Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer B from November 2002 to May 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing no less than 95% of its CPU needs for its business desktop computers from Intel (the remaining 5% that computer manufacturer B could purchase from rival chip maker AMD was then subject to further restrictive conditions set out below)
* Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer C from October 2002 to November 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing no less than 80% of its CPU needs for its desktop and notebook computers from Intel
* Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer D in 2007 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing its CPU needs for its notebook computers exclusively from Intel.
If you dont understand, rebates for SECONDARY INDUSTRIES to NOT use your competitor's products is very uncompetetive. The Secondary Industry does NOT serve the consumer (i.e. Intel, AMD, any graphics card companies, basically component manufacturers). Competition is defined as a consumer response to the final product, avaliable from Tertiary firms, such as the OEM's retail branches. This applies to everything. Basically in order for AMD and Intel just to sell products, they need the use of Retailers. Anti-competetive behavior is defined as not allowing/limiting consumer response of your competitor's product. By using rebates, it is equivalent to a bribe, as the OEM gets funds returned; its "we pay you $XXXXXXX if you dont use AMD" reworded to "if you dont use AMD we will offer $XXX rebates" In any case they are still considered as bribes. Learn to accept someone else's opinion for once. It will improve you.
Have a think. Thanks to Intel, the poor performance of netbust architecture CPUs has caused some pretty bad damage to the market. You may go "as if", but its pretty clear. Take Windows vista for example. If AMD had a 50/50 market share with intel without these henious practises, the majority of users would be better off. I mean, users of slightly older K8 CPUs didn't have to bear the heartache that the majority, the consumer had, and if the majority used it, Vista wouldn't have been shunned so much. AMD would have had more money for R&D, and so would Intel, as Vista would have sold better thus a demand for more computers, and software, leading onto much more demand from the CPU market.
Instead Intel decided to take the easy and sleasy way out, and bribed manufacturers to kill off any competition.
In short, they didn't make a better offer, end of story.
The whole issue at hand, as I see it, is the fact that the EU gets to decide when a company is big enough to get nailed down, but the law itself is not clear. If the law stated: "Once above X % of the market share for Y months according to EU data, you're no longer allowed to do A,B,C and/or D", this is one thing. However, nailing a company for practices completely okay for smaller companies (Imagine the uproar if Intel would be giving out 1,000,000 free CPUs - Effectively "selling" them under-cost, or the lack of any care over the exclusive deals for selling Coke or Pepsi) is penalizing a company for success - This is discrimination, not law.
Either fix the law (And not retroactively, of course), or stop the BS. Finally, if AMD is the one so harmed by this, they are the ones that should be reimbursed by the decision, with a much smaller amount of the fine going into the EU coffers.
As for size of a company. It is very clear the size of Intel allows it to practice such uncompetitive behaviour. Whenever a firm is large enough to get away with such behaviour in open markets, they then should be monitored.If AMD are harmed, it is upto them to file a suit. The commission is paid for by taxpayers money and represents the consumer. It also attempts to correct the market for optimality so that in the future, consumers do not suffer.
The other role of the fine is to act as a deterrent. To tell other companies and Intel, that financially it isn't worthwhile using uncompetitive practices.
The funny thing is, even with perfect hindsight and this 1bn EUR fine, Intel would do the exact same thing. Look at where AMD are now compared to where they could have been. The extra profits Intel will recieve in the decades to come due to their practices will net them much more than the 1bn EUR fine.
Intel wont leave the EU market. Why would it? It makes no business sense. It'll lose too much money and other countries wont be happy paying the difference so Intels shareholders remain happy. If and IF it does, it'll be the shareholders demanding that Intel expand their operations back into the EU.
The Kentsfield-based Xeons are just much higher performance than the 65nm Opterons they were offering at the time.