European Commission Publishes Decision Concerning Intel's Abuse of Dominant Position

[FordGT90Concept]

Just a question. It has been thrown around about how much better AMD would be doing if they hadn't lost market share and money to Intel. How does this time line coincide with the huge amount of money they put out for ATI instead of reinvesting into their own company for R&D and publicity?

Second question. How much did they pay for ATI?

Core 2 Duo came out in June 2006.
ATI buyout ($5.4 billion but there was adjustments made since) was in October 2006.
Phenom (huge disappointment) came out in 2007.

December 2005-June 2006, there was a small economic slump coupled with rumors that Core 2 Duo eats Athlon 64 X2 processors alive caused AMD to decline during that period. Only the server market was strong for them then. AMD's decline really started in December 2005 because of this.

 

[WarEagleAU]

ATI buyout hurt them initially but I can say and I think most agree, they bounced back pretty great from it so far. Also, it has paid off for them, let's admit it.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

AMD's processor to graphics ratio was about 4:1 in terms of total equity. Today, it is about 2:1. Because of the buyout, and also their uncompetitive products, AMD's value halved. As such... some observations:
-The ATI buyout won't pay off until the GPU and CPU are one in the same (which was AMD's vision with the buyout).
-By buying out ATI, AMD forced Intel's hand into developing GPU-on-die processors. AMD doesn't have the capital to fast track the developement where Intel does. AMD effectively created competition for themselves when they can't afford to compete.

From those two points, I look at it as either not paying for itself until GPU-on-die processors come out or I look at it as a mistake in the first place. Which is the better answer will only be known if and when it hits the markets. ATI is simply too small to sustain AMD and the x86 industry.

 

[Benetanegia]

AMD and Intel were both offering $1000+ and sub $100 processors at the time. If it wasn't fair to the consumer in 2002-2005, it wasn't fair to consumers 1990-2001 and 2006-2009 as well. Again, the signs aren't present that Intel behaved anti-competitively.



Says the EU, South Korea, and that's about it. In both cases, the evidence is lacking.



If a monopolistic company uses their position to force a business to buy from another business at a much higher cost in order to drive that business out of the industry, that can be found as anti-competitive behavior under anti-trust laws. The business that went under, or got close to going under, would have to prove that the monopoly holder basically priced them out of market.



Is there any proof that this condition actually took effect? A lot of businesses drop down to only one supplier because it simplifies everything (support, installation, maintenance, logistics, etc.). Is there any proof that these rebates Intel offered were the sole reason these businesses decided to offer Intel exclusively?

We should also remember that in 2000 is when Intel and AMD parted ways in terms of motherboard sockets (Intel went to Socket 423/427, AMD stayed on Socket A). That introduced a lot of additional expenses in regards to building two types of machines; hence, the need to pick a side to remain profitable. There was a small economic crash in late 2001 following 9/11 which may have easily incited the computer industry to make the change to single-suppliers heading into 2002.

Oh, please stop, I won't read anything more from you regarding this subject, I just read the bold letters and is enough already. It's pretty clear you can't see a proof even if you had it in front of your nose.

We know you love Intel already, and we know how you think the bastards in the EU are stealing the oh poor boy Intel. HP, Dell and Lenovo are bastard liars and thieves too, because they have so much to gain with their allegations... (??????) And yeah everyone is so against poor Intel.

Giving the poor excuses as to why the vendors chose to buy only from Intel is LAME. Considering you have some of the proofs on the front page. You might be used to see the legal system making things up in the US (cough* weapons of mass destruction *cough), but this doesn't happen here, sorry. I don't know if this saying is known there or if this is the proper translation but: "Thinks the thief, that everyone is of his condition (nature)."

 

[Flyordie]

ATI buyout hurt them initially but I can say and I think most agree, they bounced back pretty great from it so far. Also, it has paid off for them, let's admit it.

Yeah,
They got the gating technology from ATI.
They got the EEPROM idea from ATI.
They got the power saving features used in Phenom II from ATI.
They got a CANADIAN engineering team from ATI.

Shall I go on?

 

[PP Mguire]

Yet they are still poor......:shadedshu

 

[LaidLawJones]

Try it in this light. Intel saw that AMD was about to make/had made a major purchase that they really could not afford. I say they could not afford it because it left them no cash reserve. If Intel gambled/knew that their new chip was going to beat the new AMD, they might not have known by how much, then Intel saw an opportunity to drive the competition to their knees.

Was what Intel did legal? BY EU standards, a very definite no. Was what Intel did common? You bet your Intel stock it is. We are playing with billions and billions of dollars here. The fine by the EU was a calculated risk.

We should all be thankful that all it resulted in was people getting a slow or overpriced cpu. Usually this kind of practice has far worse results culminating in a body count. Companies of this size play by nobody's rules and they do not care what the result is as long as there is a profit.

I am not picking on Intel. Their are more than a few multi multi billion $ companies out there that have real blood on their hands and are still doing very well.

Can AMD compete? The first saying that comes to mind is "If you want to play..."

 

[Flyordie]

Yet they are still poor......:shadedshu

Lets see...
ATIC has the UAE backing it... and AMD owns a decent chunk of change of GLOBALFOUNDRIES... so I doubt AMD is "poor". ATIC would gladly invest $$ into AMD if they were in fact truly in trouble.

 

[PP Mguire]

Then they should, cause Intel is still moppin them up with their new CPUs.

 

[WarEagleAU]

Yet they arent poor they dont have the cash reserves as Intel, Shall I go on? If you want to throw bait at something, that is one thing, but "poor" in this case is really not having Intel money.

ATI and AMD have benefited each other, we can go on about that. Id say more ATI than AMD, because the chipset is really what AMD got from them. Fusion, the first announced and probably first planned GPU on the Chip design probably wont get up in time to compete with Intel. Anywho, Im done with this topic, but thank you all for a very enlightening discussion on this and I thank you all also for your input and points of view.

 

[kid41212003]

There's really nothing new about this, this happen alot in business, big fish eat small fish, dirty tricks, ect...
There is no clean business.

But I'm not sure who exactly gonna benefit from this beside AMD?

 

[pr0n Inspector]

Keep it coming guys, don't let the nerd rage stop!

 

[FordGT90Concept]

We know you love Intel already, and we know how you think the bastards in the EU are stealing the oh poor boy Intel.

I only "love" three companies: Systemax, Klipsch, and Lite-On. Lite-On because I never had a product of theirs fail when so many competing products have; Systemax and Klipsch because of their execellent customer service. It only takes one bad experience for the "love" to fade away.

And yeah everyone is so against poor Intel.

I'm against businesses, big or small, being bullied by governments.

 

[PP Mguire]

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Oh, but it looks so sunny! Or is that partly cloudy?

But I'm not sure who exactly gonna benefit from this beside AMD?

AMD isn't directly benefiting. They would have to file their own suit using the EU ruling as precedent.

 

[Frick]

Says the EU, South Korea, and that's about it. In both cases, the evidence is lacking.

Aaaanndd that's why this happened in the EU. EU laws obviously say Intel did bad things. The evidence is not lacking, not here. In US or aussie laws? Probably.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

By "evidence is lacking" I meant most of it is based on hearsay. There's a lot of hearsay but little of it provides grounds for a $1+ billion fine; hence, evidence of wrong-doing is lacking.

 

[btarunr]

The moment a governing body intervenes in a market, it is no longer "free." Free markets only exist in theory.

Incorrect. The government intervention here isn't to set/modify policies, it is to investigate and penalize an offense. Every 'free-market' relies on the law of the land to resolve corporate disputes, prevent laundering of money and resources, and ensure the market is running smoothly.

Testimony ≠ heresy. You don't need a affidavit signed by the murderer and the victim to certify that you saw a murder taking place.

 

[Melvis]

WoW i didn't realize intel pulled that stunt with so many companies :shadedshu

So now does this mean that AMD can sue intel for compensation? since they had lost alot of money/sales in that time period?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Incorrect. The government intervention here isn't to set/modify policies, it is to investigate and penalize an offense. Every 'free-market' relies on the law of the land to resolve corporate disputes, prevent laundering of money and resources, and ensure the market is running smoothly.

The definition of "free market" varies today form what it did when the term was first coined. The same goes for laissez-faire. USA nor EU is a free market seeing how both governing bodies responded to this latest financial crisis. Again, I can't name one "free market" where a government only intervenes in cases of antitrust and fraud.

Testimony ≠ heresy. You don't need a affidavit signed by the murderer and the victim to certify that you saw a murder taking place.

At least with a murder, you have a corpse as proof of wrong-doing. No corpse means a near impossible trial for the prosecutor to win. In this case, AMD would be your corpse but as we all know, they are alive and well.

Even if there is a witness to a crime, the defense can question the reliability of the witness (sanity, whether or not the individual was present at the time of the crime, ulterior motives, etc.). Many potential murders have walked despite there being witnesses.

 

[btarunr]

The definition of "free market" varies today form what it did when the term was first coined. The same goes for laissez-faire. USA nor EU is a free market seeing how both governing bodies responded to this latest financial crisis. Again, I can't name one "free market" where a government only intervenes in cases of antitrust and fraud.

Then by your perception, 'free-market' is utopia, and it doesn't exist anywhere. American and European definitions in this context don't differ, since there are anti-trust and monopoly-abuse cases in the US too.

At least with a murder, you have a corpse as proof of wrong-doing. No corpse means a near impossible trial for the prosecutor to win. In this case, AMD would be your corpse but as we all know, they are alive and well.

Even if there is a witness to a crime, the defense can question the reliability of the witness (sanity, whether or not the individual was present at the time of the crime, ulterior motives, etc.). Many potential murders have walked despite there being witnesses.

Right, here the emails are the corpses, and their recipients/senders validating them.

 

[Benetanegia]

At least with a murder, you have a corpse as proof of wrong-doing. No corpse means a near impossible trial for the prosecutor to win. In this case, AMD would be your corpse but as we all know, they are alive and well.

Even if there is a witness to a crime, the defense can question the reliability of the witness (sanity, whether or not the individual was present at the time of the crime, ulterior motives, etc.). Many potential murders have walked despite there being witnesses.

Now you even seem to defend a murder that walks away because the legal system sucks. :shadedshu
You have no limits as to how far you can go to defend a convicted company just because it is from the US? Shame.

Right, here the emails are the corpses, and their recipients/senders validating them.

Wow I just realized that maybe that's something we had to explain. I thought that everyone here was able to understand that the e-mails were not the proofs themselves, that they just where the reason why the investigation started and subject to validating them through interrogations with the involving parties.

Of course you don't convict someone based on e-mails, but once having them you search the one who wrote it and interrogate him. If he confirms wat it seen there you have a case...

 

[FordGT90Concept]

American and European definitions in this context don't differ, since there are anti-trust and monopoly-abuse cases in the US too.

Indeed, however, I can't name one US Anti-trust lawsuit that amounted to extortion like this. You have Microsoft getting pinned with anti-trust which basically just required a 3rd party to review their source code for anti-competitive behavior to Standard Oil which got broken into dozens of smaller, regional corporations. I can't name one time USA collected a fine under anti-trust law. Again, highly suspicious.

Right, here the emails are the corpses, and their recipients/senders validating them.

And how many servers did those emails pass through? How many revisions have they undergone in the years since their authoring? I thought all the agreements Intel made were oral so why are there emails at all? Why is AMD still around if Intel is as guilty as they say they are?

Now you even seem to defend a murder that walks away because the legal system sucks. :shadedshu
You have no limits as to how far you can go to defend a convicted company just because it is from the US? Shame.

The legal system is the best man could come up with. I see few ways of improving it.

It has nothing to do with it being a US founded/operated company.

Of course you don't convict someone based on e-mails, but once having them you search the one who wrote it and interrogate him. If he confirms wat it seen there you have a case...

Again, Intel says we offered rebates, some people go "ooo discount" and other people go "anti-trust." When you're looking at a $1+ billion pot of gold, it's hard not to cry wolf. It's asinine to believe this ruling wasn't made with greed at its core.

 

[btarunr]

Just because there's another country/entity running the lawsuit, and the penalty is so huge, some of you are resorting to this jingoistic stance. Calling it an 'extortion'. The investigation is done, verdict out, time to pay up. Those 1.6 B EUR is far less that the money they would have made in perpetrating this crime.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Those 1.6 B EUR is far less that the money they would have made in perpetrating this crime.

There's no evidence of that.