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AMD Sues Intel

G

govtcheez75

Platinum Member
Taken from Marketwatch.com

AMD sues Intel over antitrust issues
By MarketWatch
Last Update: 4:34 AM ET June 28, 2005

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Advanced Micro Devices has sued Intel Corp. for allegedly using illegal inducements and coercion to dissuade companies from buying AMD chips.

AMD (AMD: news, chart, profile) filed a suit late Monday in a Delaware federal court alleging Intel (INTC: news, chart, profile) has used improper subsidies and threatened retaliation against firms using or selling AMD products.

"Everywhere in the world, customers deserve freedom of choice and the benefits of innovation -- and these are being stolen away in the microprocessor market," said Hector Ruiz, AMD chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer.

Japanese regulators had previously found that Intel abused its monopoly power, while the European Commission is also probing Intel on antitrust concerns.

An Intel spokesman told the Wall Street Journal he hadn't seen the suit and that it believes its sales practices are fair and consistent with antitrust law.

AMD's complaint lists examples of what it characterizes as bribes, threats or intimidation by Intel involving 12 computer makers, nine distributors and 17 retailers.

Customers cited include International Business Machines Corp. (IBM: news, chart, profile) , Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ: news, chart, profile) , Dell Inc. (DELL: news, chart, profile) , Sony Corp. (SNE: news, chart, profile) , Toshiba Corp. and Gateway Inc. (GTW: news, chart, profile) .

AMD said it's been completely shut out from Media Markt, Europe's largest computer retailer and a division of Metro AG (DE:725750: news, chart, profile) , and Office Depot (ODP: news, chart, profile) , which declined to stock AMD-powered notebooks.

Intel ended Monday down 24 cents at $25.86. AMD ended down 52 cents at $16.65.

 
AMD's press release is located here.

According to the complaint, Intel has unlawfully maintained its monopoly by, among other things:

* Forcing major customers such as Dell, Sony, Toshiba, Gateway, and Hitachi into Intel-exclusive deals in return for outright cash payments, discriminatory pricing or marketing subsidies conditioned on the exclusion of AMD;
_____o According to industry reports, and as confirmed by the JFTC in Japan, Intel has paid Dell and Toshiba huge sums not to do business with AMD.
_____o Intel paid Sony millions for exclusivity. AMD's share of Sony's business went from 23 percent in '02 to 8% in '03, to 0%, where it remains today.

* Forcing other major customers such as NEC, Acer, and Fujitsu into partial exclusivity agreements by conditioning rebates, allowances and market development funds (MDF) on customers' agreement to severely limit or forego entirely purchases from AMD;
_____o Intel paid NEC several million dollars for caps on NEC's purchases from AMD. Those caps assured Intel at least 90% of NEC's business in Japan and imposed a worldwide cap on the amount of AMD business NEC could do.

* Establishing a system of discriminatory and retroactive incentives triggered by purchases at such high levels as to have the intended effect of denying customers the freedom to purchase any significant volume of processors from AMD;
_____o When AMD succeeded in getting on the HP retail roadmap for mobile computers, and its products sold well, Intel responded by withholding HP's fourth quarter 2004 rebate check and refusing to waive HP's failure to achieve its targeted rebate goal; it allowed HP to make up the shortfall in succeeding quarters by promising Intel at least 90% of HP's mainstream retail business.

* Threatening retaliation against customers for introducing AMD computer platforms, particularly in strategic market segments such as commercial desktop;
_____o Then-Compaq CEO Michael Capellas said in 2000 that because of the volume of business given to AMD, Intel withheld delivery of critical server chips. Saying "he had a gun to his head," he told AMD he had to stop buying.
_____o According to Gateway executives, their company has paid a high price for even its limited AMD dealings. They claim that Intel has "beaten them into 'guacamole'" in retaliation.

* Establishing and enforcing quotas among key retailers such as Best Buy and Circuit City, effectively requiring them to stock overwhelmingly or exclusively, Intel computers, artificially limiting consumer choice;
_____o AMD has been entirely shut out from Media Markt, Europe's largest computer retailer, which accounts for 35 percent of Germany's retail sales.
_____o Office Depot declined to stock AMD-powered notebooks regardless of the amount of financial support AMD offered, citing the risk of retaliation.

* Forcing PC makers and tech partners to boycott AMD product launches or promotions;
_____o Then-Intel CEO Craig Barrett threatened Acer's Chairman with "severe consequences" for supporting the AMD Athlon 64^(TM) launch. This coincided with an unexplained delay by Intel in providing $15-20M in market development funds owed to Acer. Acer withdrew from the launch in September 2003.

* Abusing its market power by forcing on the industry technical standards and products that have as their main purpose the handicapping of AMD in the marketplace.
_____o Intel denied AMD access to the highest level of membership for the Advanced DRAM technology consortium to limit AMD's participation in critical industry standard decisions that would affect its business.
_____o Intel designed its compilers, which translate software programs into machine-readable language, to degrade a program's performance if operated on a computer powered by an AMD microprocessor.
Click to expand...
 
uh, well if i was intel i would be trying to supress AMD too. theyre probably going nuts right now figuring out how they are (currently) behind in the processor wars...
 
This doesn't supprise me at all, Intel stoped be attractive (except in notebooks) since they've had a P4, the last intel chip I've owned was a P3 733 @ 825, netburst has been a failure at least from my point of view as a DIYer. And if I want to rec. a prebuild AMD system I'm suck w/ low end crap from the big guys or speciality stores.
 
Originally posted by: govtcheez75
Originally posted by: Pabster
Repost, probably the first of hundreds.
Click to expand...

I did a search and didn't see anything. Sorry if it's a repost.
Click to expand...
Don't feel bad, it's a repost from another forum is all, and the only reason Pabster said anything is that he's damage control for Intel, and he wants nothing more than for us to stop talking about it.
 
AMD better have something better than the Japanese ruling which was baffling. Ruling Intel was using monopolistic practices because they were offering rebates and discounts to OEM's in return for reduced usage of competitors products is illegal? Since when? Had Intel threatened companies to not use competitors' products without offering anything in return, or threatened to no longer sell them Intel products, that would have been monopolistic abuse. Handing out discounts for exclusivity (EA's deal with the NFL) or preferential treatment is one of the most commonly used legal business practices in the capitalistic world to gain/maintain market share.

We all know Intel is giving a sweatheart deal to Dell to keep them from using AMD or anyone else. Good luck to AMD trying to claim there is anything illegal about that in court.
 
Getting Intel's bitch OEMs to testify against Intel will be tuff.

They are more than happy to let Intel take all their potential profits.


Then again, there's Carly Fiorina...
 
AMD has a superior product rite now, and Intel can't handle being the number two guy. 🙁
It's too bad really, I'd love to see AMD and Intel have about equal market shares.

We would see the stiff back and fourth competition that nVidia, and ATi have. IMO Both companies have excellent products.
 
RE:"AMD has a superior product rite now"

Yup.

The only CPU sector Intel might have an advantage is the Notebook Centrino power consumption.
AMD wins on the desktop performance, on gaming, on desktop power consumption, dual core, 64 bit performance and in the server market with the Opteron.

Intel Prescott based stuff is pretty much the dregs.

A testiment to Intel marketing, AKA arm twisting, illegal anti trust activities.
 
Originally posted by: fatty4ksu
The little brother (AMD) going to mommy about the big brother (Intel)

Hilarity.
Click to expand...


It looks like the big brother is gonna get a spanking.

Troll :roll:
 
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