INQ Microsoft subpoena story triggers AMD press blizzard

Last Friday, we dug out the AMD subpoena before anyone else - obviously including AMD spinners themselves, so sending them into a paroxysm of spinola when they woke up.

We filed this story, which includes the subpoena in question, at 11.33AM, British Summer Time (BST) on Friday. BST is eight hours ahead of California time.

Perhaps Michael Silverman, AMD spinner in charge of the antitrust case, reads the INQ because at 17:07 PDT he initiated a blizzard of emails to the world+dog - but not to the INQ - saying the following:

Friday 14/04/2006 17:07
Just a quick note to let you know that AMD served Microsoft with a subpoena for document production yesterday. As a reminder, Microsoft was on the original list of those third parties who would be subpoenaed. Therefore this is not a surprise to them. Yesterday's subpoena is the first sent to Microsoft for the production of documents. This is a routine subpoena much the same as the many other subpoenas that were served on other third parties.

The subpoena is attached for your convenience. The specific types of documents we are seeking from Microsoft are described beginning on page 8 of 10 under the heading "Documents to be Produced."

We have no comments at this time beyond what is already in the subpoena.

Best
Michael Silverman

This is far from being a routine subpoena however - because the documents it's requesting go right to the heart of the antitrust dispute. The AMD spinner said that Microsoft "was on the original list of those third parties who would be subpoenad". Hmm. By this he presumably means AMD's list. Who else is on AMD's list, Michael?

We wonder why Michael didn't send us a copy of this email - which we first heard about when we got an email from an, er, Intel spinner, asking us how come we'd got the story so many hours ahead of the Wall Street Journal etc. Had we had an email from AMD, because it had been sending out a blizzard of emails to the world+press+dog?

The answer we gave was, er no, we'd already dug it out while AMD and Intel spinners were probably sleeping sweet dreams about spinning in sinny old Sunnyvale and satanic old Santa Clara.

How infuriating for spinners, eh? By the way, if like the INQ you are a member of the press and didn't get the letter from Michael because you're not on the "A List", I'd suggest you drop him a line and ask to be spammed too. Why don't you suggest you've never been so spinsulted in your life? µ

Here's the timeline of the Microsoft-Intel-AMD subpoena stories on Google. µ

See Also
All the AMD-Intel antitrust stories that are fit to print