F.T.C. Chief Balks at Intel Inquiry

[Polaris573]

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.

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[lemonadesoda]

I have to agree that this APPEARS to be a bogus claim.

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.

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

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.

 

[Darkrealms]

There are companies all over the world that do exclusive contracts. Hell the US government bids contractors and goes exclusive with whichever makes the "best" product per application.

Want to win, make a better product or present a better price point and be able to deliver. Global capitalism FTW!

{edit}

It's about time the AMD shareholders made a few AMD executives fall on their swords.

ROFL
{/edit}

 

[TheGuruStud]

Nothing to see here move along.

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.

 

[kwchang007]

Sorry AMD...but Intel hasn't done anything wrong here. I mean are you kidding me...it's buisness and if you don't have the superior price to performance ratio...not the other companies fault.

 

[WarEagleAU]

Ill play devils advocate. I sincerely doubt Intel was offering future OEM prices. That is just ludicrous to say. I do believe, they were strategizing and offering their chips at below market prices for the sole purpose of gaining a foot hold and not letting AMD come in on their turf. Its been evident when Dell was strictly Intel, even when the Pentium 4 sucked by comparison to AMDs Athlon chips, were much higher and way hotter. Thats a good example of why its possible intel did it.

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.

 

[TheGuruStud]

Sorry AMD...but Intel hasn't done anything wrong here. I mean are you kidding me...it's buisness and if you don't have the superior price to performance ratio...not the other companies fault.

Apparently your memory is failing. I could fill an entire page up (AMD can do several pages with their info) of what intel has done wrong.

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.

 

[kwchang007]

Apparently your memory is failing. I could fill an entire page up (AMD can do several pages with their info) of what intel has done wrong.

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.

Looking from the eyes of an enthusiast...perf/price matters most. Remember the p4 actually held brief superiority before clock speeds started slowing down. Also, remember that before the c2d came out AMD was scrambling to get more chips out (the whole thing with outsourcing and increased prices). As far as Intel only systems, it was Dell's (and whoever else did it) fault for taking that bluff. Look at them now, they're not Intel only and doing fine. Intel wouldn't be stupid enough to cut off/raise prices extraordinarily. They'd lose more and more market share (think about it Dell was the largest at the time...if Intel cut off supply they'd be screwed).

 

[Cold Storm]

Think of it this way, Intel, was a processor that people knew for only the Doc. type of processor. M$ loved Intel for the fact that it was smooth for its whole Office suite. Then AMD came and started up working with the whole "Graphical" concept of gaming and graphics. Intel then sees that to make them the future of processors that it needs to go with what people want now and comes up with this whole line. I've always been a AMD person myself, but my next computer may be an Intel unless AMD can come up with something to sell me to buy their new processors.

 

[Mandown]

PROC WARS!!! I love it. nothing better then to see two people fighting to the death. It never gets old. Of course they did it what company would just sit on they're asses and go "I hope we do good" lol i mean c'mon. I bet AMD would do it if they hadn't already. If it gets more sales whats to stop them. pay anyone enough and you can have the world.


They'll do whatever is best for the company. nuff said.