1. Yeah you need evidence of a murder. In this case all you have is a bunch of witnesses who stand to benefit if a "murderer" is fined. As you can see the point I am trying to make is there are no rules in love, war, or business.
I do not know if Intel broke the law. All I am saying is this whole thing seems very fishy and the size of the fine and its circumstances solidify that. You guys are so thirsty to assume guilt on Intels part you do not question the accusations or its benefactors. This sounds to me like abuse of a judicial system for profit.
2. If they benefit then its not blackmail. Its a contract. OEM's made good money off of this. They are just as much at guilt. To use the murder analogy that you guys are so fond of the OEM's were accessories to the murder. Why are they not fined? What do they get out of this deal? If the EU wanted to they could charge the OEM's with industrial espionage. After all they knew it was against the law and they went along with it to get a good deal then flipped on Intel to get an ever better long term deal. They played Intel and the EU. WHY ARE THEY NOT CHARGED?! There is more proof of this than of any Intel wrong doing yet you still paint them as the victims.
3. I'm sorry but I have no clue what you mean by this.
Uh, I dind't see this one. Let's try to explain it in a civic way:
1. It's not fishy to me at all. First of all there are lot's of evidences here, plus many many others that are never going to be public, because those are the testimonies of the executives involved. Just because a bunch of e-mails is everything we got, I don't know how you assume there's nothing more. They can't tell who gave their testimony, because Intel and even their respective companies could retaliate. Also the fine is small, very small in comparison to what the law permits and considering the charges it could very well have been greater. The law says a maximum of 10% of annual revenue AFAIK. That would have been around $4 billion max and more than $2 billion considering the charges. Also that law has not been invented for Intel, many companies have been convicted under this law and all of them paid and probably proportionally much more than Intel. Intel crearly obtained a better treatment on this one, because they are big.
2. They didn't benefit in comparison to the prices that Intel would have needed to offer them in a free market situation. They just didn't. It's the example of the gun on your head all over again. Of course you benefit from giving all your money and keeping your life instead, but nothing hides the fact that they never gave you the better deal you could have: keep your life and your money.
3. Means that a thief thinks that everyone is a thief, I said this not calling you a thief, but as a reference that what you have seen on your gevernment doesn't happen everywhere. Your government might be a thief, and sure as hell that mine is too, but that doesn't happen in such high levels, and you wouldn't involve US companies like HP, Dell. If they wanted 1 billion they don't need to do anything special like that. They can just charge us a 0,5% more and that's it, they would get that billion and then some. No one would complain about a 0,5% when the budget has been increased a >>>5% every year, I think now stands at about 150 billion euros. They could increase foreign company's operation costs... There's a lot of things they could do to get a billion, other than fining Intel, because they spend more than that billion every year, looking for anti-competitive cases and proofs. Also take into account that Intel will pay that billion by installments, so it's a very small amount of money compared to what they could get in a less public maneuvre.
PD Maybe I'm wrong, but I remember reading that 40% of the fine was going to AMD for damages and some more to other affected companies.
