AMD Files Antitrust Complaint Against Intel in U.S. Federal

[phenix]

This is important for all of us I think.

Here is another link to follow the news story.


SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- June 28, 2005 --AMD (NYSE: AMD) announced today that it filed an antitrust complaint against Intel Corporation ("Intel") yesterday in U.S. federal district court for the district of Delaware under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, Sections 4 and 16 of the Clayton Act, and the California Business and Professions Code. The 48-page complaint explains in detail how Intel has unlawfully maintained its monopoly in the x86 microprocessor market by engaging in worldwide coercion of customers from dealing with AMD. It identifies 38 companies that have been victims of coercion by Intel - including large scale computer-makers, small system-builders, wholesale distributors, and retailers, through seven types of illegality across three continents.


You can read the whole report here.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

These abuses are pretty what Microsoft were found guilty of, and even after years of wrangling, they just got a slap on the wrist. I hope Intel get crucified, and the US industry does something meaningful to put it's house in order.

It's one thing for a big company to compete through better products, pricing, and marketing, it's another when they use bribes, threats and blackmail.

 

[Frank]

I think the only surprising thing about it is, that AMD had the balls to publicly do this. There's nothing surprising in the report, I think most people in the hardware business were aware of those things.

I agree with BZB, I don't think anything will happen. How much money did Intel donate to the elections and such?

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I think the only surprising thing about it is, that AMD had the balls to publicly do this. There's nothing surprising in the report, I think most people in the hardware business were aware of those things.

I agree with BZB, I don't think anything will happen. How much money did Intel donate to the elections and such?

That's the problem - big business in the US buys itself laws through campaign donations and heavy lobbying, and then you get all these kinds of scandals. More importantly smaller companies and customers (who lose the benefit of market competition) suffer the most.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Lack of competition has made (In my opinion) the processing industry stale, the fact that theirs only really AMD and Intel really disheartening. Throw in the fact that AMD has this stigma that its only being used in Home Desktops and is a niche market. I'm happy Intel is being slapped down.

 

[compres]

The customers are somewhat guilty too, although Intel is most.

I say this becouse people are just too ignorant at times, out of aproximatly 10 people you can ask even today, 8 think Intel is the best CPU around. I know marketing works, but it is just dumb most people are paying hundreds of dollars on producs without even doing some research on their options(in this case AMD or Intel).

 

[3dilettante]

I've read discussion that this suit is timed to preempt a possibly negative quarterly financial report.

There's no real difference between the products of both Intel and AMD in the consumer market. Unless you are a gamer or a photo-editor, there's practically nothing you can't do with a chip from three years ago from either manufacturer.

The majority of consumers couldn't care less about the relative advantages because there aren't any. The x86 market is more heavily commoditized than aspirin.

 

[Pete]

Anand posted some thoughts on this, too, in his blog. AMD likely has a good case, but I have to think it's come to this b/c they haven't been able to execute as they wanted to.

Surely, if they offered a superior product than Intel, OEMs would've gladly dropped Intel for AMD and educated their customers accordingly? I'm guessing AMD's lesser manufacturing facilities also plays a part in their inability to break out, despite several generations of very competitive offerings

 

[digitalwanderer]

Surely, if they offered a superior product than Intel, OEMs would've gladly dropped Intel for AMD and educated their customers accordingly?

You'd think, wouldn't you? But it still hasn't happened after over a year of AMD's superiority. :?

 

[phenix]

Surely, if they offered a superior product than Intel, OEMs would've gladly dropped Intel for AMD and educated their customers accordingly?

You'd think, wouldn't you? But it still hasn't happened after over a year of AMD's superiority. :?

I think we should consider the timing of this lawsuit too. As you have said for more than one year AMD was delivering a superior product but couldn't win any OEM deal however until now they wern't complainting about it that much. The truth is they were not making a whole lot of AMD64 chips to sell to big OEMs anyway. Desktop performance market was good enough for them and this way they could maintain their pricing policy for a very long time.

As soon as they started to make much more chips they realized that they cannot easily win big OEM deals because Intel doesn't want to lose market share or OEM's donet thrust them anymore. Before they couldn't gain any market share and they didn't inteded to (since they couldn't produce many hammers anyway), now they aim for market share gain but they cannot. That's I think the real reason behind the law suit they filed.

And the funny thing about all this is they desperately need to gain market share by big OEM deals or they will not be able to keep their prices high enough and remain profitable. It is definitely a though time for them. If they lose their prices will go down and they may go down too.

 

[jb]

Anand posted some thoughts on this, too, in his blog. AMD likely has a good case, but I have to think it's come to this b/c they haven't been able to execute as they wanted to.

Surely, if they offered a superior product than Intel, OEMs would've gladly dropped Intel for AMD and educated their customers accordingly? I'm guessing AMD's lesser manufacturing facilities also plays a part in their inability to break out, despite several generations of very competitive offerings

Hmmm Maybe but I dont really think thats all of the case. They had just won this lawsuit in other countries so maybe that was part of their plan. Prove that Intel was guility of this in other places (where it probably was easier to prove) then when they try that here in the states it would be easier then going the other route (proving in the states first then other countries).

And I don't see OEMs wanting to do that extra work to show one was "superior" than the other. That would cut into their profits...and if Intel is GIVING them cash on the side...well that is too large of acut in the profits. OEMs are not going to want to go that extra mile unless they will make money off it. I don't see that the return would be worth their investment...

 

[nutball]

Surely, if they offered a superior product than Intel, OEMs would've gladly dropped Intel for AMD and educated their customers accordingly?

Why would the OEMs do that if they were being offered free processors (or the cash equivalent) by Intel? OEMs are interested in money and money only. They're only interested in better tech if it gets them more money.