AMD versus Intel actions four plus years on
ALMOST FOUR YEARS AGO, the first antitrust shots were fired between AMD and Intel. At that time, I said to wait and see how this evolves, knowing that the final outcome could be a long time in coming.
Today marks what I would consider to be nearing the end of that long time. The full 542 page phone book of a ruling is not published yet, but there is a large and growing body of evidence in the public view. A lot of the questions that were open in 2005 are now answered.
Stepping back a bit in time, shortly after the first antitrust actions were announced, I did some digging on the whole rebate, bundling, blocking controversy. I had been told about the practices again and again for years, so I was pretty sure they were real. Calls and emails dug up what I would consider ample evidence that the practices were quite real and widespread. That said, it was all hearsay, but there sure was a lot of hearsay if you so much as scratched the surface.
Step one was easy enough, finding cases of alleged wrongdoings. Step two was significantly trickier, so tricky in fact that unless you were an antitrust lawyer up to date on geopolitical happenings and leanings, you couldn't address it. The underlying question is simple enough, though. Assuming that Intel did do the things alleged, are they actionable? The answer is far from simple.
It brings up questions like, is Intel a monopoly? Is a monopoly in x86 chips enough, or do you need a monopoly in CPUs, semiconductors or something else? Are the actions, unpalatable and unethical as they seem, against the law? How about if it is done across international borders? Those coupled with the usual caveat of hearing only one side of the story, or in this case, one-tenth of one side of the story, make things a mess.
So we sat and listened. Patiently, paying attention to the details, and watching things unfold. They did, with all the speed of a governmental hearing run by octogenarians on sleeping pills. Three of them so far, with three more still in process.
One thing most people don't recall is that Intel to date has lost in Japan, lost in Korea, and now lost in the EU. It's batting zero for three. AMD has not lost a single ruling yet. From a legal perspective, this rather odd order was done for a very, very good reason. The lawyers at AMD are earning their money.
Why the proceedings were approached in this way is a long story. The short version, much of which is speculation on my part, is that most of the alleged wrongdoing by Intel was done with an intention to not document the acts, or at least to not document the illegal parts. In some cases, you get two people, lets just use a hypothetical meeting between Mike and Craig.
How can you prove that, if it happened at all? You can't, it is your word against Craig and Mike's, and they won't likely stand up under oath and admit, "Yes, we colluded to violate antitrust laws and defraud the consumer." Well, almost everyone wouldn't admit to something like that, and both of these guys are likely to have not only a willingness to break the antitrust laws but also the desire not to get caught at it, along with above average intelligence to get to their respective positions.
So, you look for secondary sources, things like emails and memos. If Mike, again hypothetically, sends an email an hour later to purchasing saying, "I just negotiated a 10 per cent discount on everything Intel, so drop that AMD order," that would be a good place to start. The problem is that if you are smart enough to cut deals like this, you are also usually smart enough to not blab about it. Instead you have lunch with the purchasing head the next day and chat about the weather.
If you want to find incriminating evidence, you have to dig and dig through mountains of emails and documents from multiple Fortune 500 companies. To narrow your search, you start small. You not only start small, but you start small in cultures that are much more regimented in their business dealings and require more documentation.
That is why things went from Japan to Korea, then to the EU. Japan documents dealings much more thoroughly, and Korea does so almost as well. The EU is more tenuous, and the US is so hit or miss that anything goes. The trials mirrored this path of most to least evidence, using what they found in previous cases as stepping stones.
Basically, Intel got slapped down in Japan and then also in Korea. Intel disputed this, and says that it will appeal in both countries. Intel admits nothing and will loudly proclaim that it has been wronged. Three times. Under three different justice systems. With three different sets of evidence. All of which are wrong, unjust, and will undoubtedly be overturned eventually, but haven't yet. Just you wait though....
The EU ruling was likely augmented with some evidence found in the other two actions that established patterns of behavior. In its conference call yesterday morning, Intel was quick to point out that there was a lack of evidence about some things. I believe that is exactly why the three cases were brought in the order that they were.
If you can document practices in nine circumstances that resulted in a certain behavior, and the tenth time you see that same behavior but don't have paperwork, and the behavior is not a common industry practice, it doesn't take much to draw a conclusion. While I am not sure that there isn't plenty of actual documentation here, the more you have, the better off you are. Anecdotally speaking, AMD sure seems to have compiled a lot of evidence.
The hardest jurisdiction of all in which to pursue an antitrust case is the US. Business practices here are much more lax, our government is blatantly purchasable - ask Microsoft about its antitrust lawsuit - and most regulators have had better things to do lately, like keeping the financial system from totally collapsing.
Well, that was the case until January, when things may have changed. Earlier this week, there were serious rumblings emanating from Washington about tougher enforcement of antitrust laws, but as usual, it may very well be more hot air and political posturing. In any case, the wind is shifting away from Intel toward AMD as the next three cases start heating up.
Those cases are a US antitrust action, a similar case in New York, and a civil lawsuit brought by AMD against Intel. Things are going to get ugly for Intel when you can document behaviors in several jurisdictions, but not in others. When you subpoena certain things and you get the answer, "I'm sorry your honor, the dog ate my email," things get bad.
Spinning the answer, while expected, doesn't usually sway the courts. One other bit to think about is that email has two sides, and if the emails went out of Intel, those might be discoverable in a subpoena to a third party or company. While I have no idea if such things exist in these cases, given the sheer volume of documents I would be shocked if there were not such things, on both sides.
If Intel can't find them, and some turn up via some OEMs, Intel will have a lot of hot-shoe tap dancing to do in front of a guy in black robes. Given the number of people who were jumping up and down waving their hands at AMD lawyers begging to be subpoenaed, I would expect at least a few fireworks in the US. Yes, IBM Opteron server engineering teams, I am looking at you.
Given what has come out, I was more than a little surprised at the Intel press conference yesterday. Most people focus on Intel's almost farcical denials of any wrongdoing. As we noted above, how many courts need to slap it down before it admits to anything? The answer is all of them, because if Intel admits anything, no matter how obvious it is, it hamstrings its appeals, so that part is understandable.
The parts that got me were Otellini's claim that AMD was "more vibrant than ever," that Intel had evidence that was excluded after nine years of the process, and most ludicrously that there were no customers that complained.
AMD vibrance isn't claimed by anyone who doesn't talk to their shoes and act as if the shoes talk back vigorously. To say that at a press conference is insulting to the intelligence of the audience. I honestly expected better from Intel, it was a sad sight.
The evidence exclusion claim is curious as well. The EU action was go around number three, with four and five in process as well. What mystery evidence popped up this time? Why was it not relevant to the Japanese and Korean actions? How does it destroy the preponderance of evidence that the EU Commission presumably found? As we said in 2005, let's wait and see, but I will be officially skeptical until proven wrong here.
Lastly, we have the bit about no one complaining. The EU lists a bunch of third party OEM complainants, Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo, all of whom spoke up. The Media Saturn group also chimed in, hardly a corner store. These were the companies that were willing to stand up. There are probably others that didn't for one reason or other, but I think OEMs representing slightly over half of worldwide PC sales make up a fairly representative and persuasive sample, don't you?
We understand that neither Intel nor AMD got a heads up from the EU about what the decision would be, or at least they didn't get enough of one to organize press briefings beforehand as is the norm for events like this. We also don't doubt that neither side had seen, much less read or analysed, the ruling before the press conferences were held.
Once again, Intel looked really silly when it claimed that it didn't know of any customer complaints. It is the third paragraph of the press release, here. I will cut Otellini some slack for having had a horrible night. He was likely woken up at two in the morning and force fed bad news, then told to smile for the cameras. I will cut Intel some more slack for a hastily scripted press conference filled with both annoying piranhas and slow English majors, that takes bravery to do. I won't cut Intel any slack for failing to read the press release before standing up and taking questions from the press.
After four years of watching the cases unfold, all the open questions have been answered to my satisfaction. I can now say that, until proven otherwise, I think what Intel did was wrong, unethical, and illegal. It is zero for three now with three more to go, with a seemingly steep uphill climb from here.
Could Intel be right? Sure. Could three different justice systems have been duped by a conniving AMD? Sure. Could Intel power to victory in the next three antitrust cases? Sure. These, and thousands of other scenarios are possible, but at this point it is up to Intel to prove its claims. Until then, AMD's claims seem to be the correct ones. This should all be settled some time before the year 2059. µ
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GG Charlie. I think you have summed up what every man and his dog has known for quite some time.
Global TV news just went and let Intel say what they wanted, without saying how it really is. This let Intel keep it's shiny image somewhat intact to the average joe.
Global TV needs to be honest and open about this. It needs to inform it's viewers of the truth that Intel is a convicted monopolist deliberately doing all it can to artificially put the prices up and screw joe public.
Joe Public always gets screwed, if it wasn't for all the corruption then we'd only have to pay half our taxes.
Oh come on, what evidence is the EU talking about?
The EU has processed 10th of millions of Intel documents and did not find any hard evidence for "exclusivity" or "no-AMD" or similar.
EU's verdict is based on hearsay, chatter and AMDs clamour.
The EU firmly wants to believe what they do believe.
The Intel case to me shows that the EU Commission in the embodiment of Nelly Kroes is reaching back to methods and ways of argument used in medieval times.
Nelly Kroes as prosecutor AND judge seems to endorse methods that were preferred back in the times of which-hunting and and also prouds herself of burning Intel's money
("Intel Now "Sponsor of the European Taxpayer""). Hmmmm.
Since Nelly K. just could not find any real and hard evidence, she suspects that exactly this is an exceptional sign of devilishness.
If she can't find any evidence in tenth of million documents, Intel MUST be hiding it and keep it secret (which is proof of witchcraft).
Nelly K. insists to see what she wants to see.
Since she can find any Intel contract that proves her point, the lack of this IS THE proof of Intel's witcheries in her eyes.
Oh my God, I thought we were through this.
What is up next?
People like you crack me up Fred.
Japan does an investigation, concludes Intel clearly in the wrong.
Korea does an investigation, concludes Intel is clearly in the wrong.
EU does an investigation, concludes Intel is clearly in the wrong.
BUT THEY FORGOT ABOUT DETECTIVE FRED. HE HAS THE REAL STORY.
Hysterical.
First: suppose I have my company, I received an offer from AMD that I could buy 100 AMD CPU 1000USD each and I call Intel and it offer 100 simmilar Intel CPU at 980USD each, 20USD down from first offer. No CPU is sold at a loss, so what should I do? Blame Intel for discount?
I usually have this approach at aquisition, not to much because I don't like buying below cost (it's my choice) at telecom offerings. It's competition, not anything alse.
Second: so EU, a public organisation, condamned Intel (a private company) for discounts and dishonest business practice IN HIS RELATIONS TO PRIVATE COMPANIES!
Please suppose that I am an japanese carmaker (or TV, or anything else), I invest heavily in robots and automation and I buid very good cars in my country. I went to Germany to open a shop, I saw that local brands are more expensive and lower quality. But import tarrifs are at 30%, so I was screwed from the start.
So, can I fine EU for anticompetitive measure? Because a state organisation impose a tax than is anticompetitive. Or maybe I can ask Japan to fine EU???
Bottom line, if Intel coerced somehow it's fine to pay. But from Charlie links I saw only FUD, not real facts...
And at last: don't cry for Intel, USA will cover with a bailout or a rich government contract. Also don't cry for EU officials, like every politician they are only for their own group interests...
The thing that bugs me most is that the "fine" levied by the EU is payable to them, not to AMD. Yes, I know, this is not the civil suit, but why would governments profit from Intel's illegal practices? AMD has been hurt, to the brink of death in fact, not European governments,
Not even the slightest doubt on the rightness of EU rulling:
It's a 1.5B$ fine, not 1M$, not 10M$, not 100M$ but 1500M$!!!!
Like Tip O' Everest, Intel IS On TOP Today. Path Screwn with bodies & Abadoned equipment.
Yet, IT IS END OF X86 ERA.
AMD Wasn't So Dumb, Doing iA64. First Opteron Servers, then Desktop, NOW. Who Cares If Intel Had Monopoly on Single Core, It WAS Lousey Product.
Todays PT Barnum needs iA64, just off get go. 7/64. Maybe ultee' cann't count to billion on One Hand, Yet reasoning Is Obvious. Its OLD Tort & of Little Value Today.Nillions Love Ultee'.
. . . should the money go to AMD?
I say it should go to VIA!
The money doesn't go to AMD ???
The EU is not there to defend AMD but its citizens.
The fine money goes to the EU government on behalf of its citizens who were ripped off by Intel’s unethical shady deals.
Your analogy couldn't be farther from the truth.
The fact is, Intel is GM, and AMD is……Hyundai. You are a dealership selling GM exclusively, but you want to give customers a choice by selling some Hyundai. GM tells you “I will take $1000 off each car if you only sell GM” What do you do?
This is using size to hurt the smaller guy. Some call it free market practice, verdicts of three investigations said otherwise.
Mircea, from the EU's summary of the ruling. It found intel had:
1) Paid resellers and OEM's both fully and partially hidden incentives on the condition that they delay or cancel the release of products using AMD processors.
2) Offered rebates with the condition that the reseller/OEM limit the number of AMD processors used to a percentage of intel processors, artifically setting AMD's marketshare.
3) Threatening resellers with chipset and processor shortages if resellers didn't take the rebate.
The fact is, Intel knows only it can provide enough processors to satisfy the entire industry, so by offering rebates with the condition that resellers only sell 5 or 10% AMD based computers, it knows the resellers have to take the rebate because it needs Intel processors. As an example, say company X wants to buy 1000 processors, with 700 intel processors at $100 each and 300 AMD processors at $50 each, as dictated by market demand. AMD can supply a maximum of 350 processors. Now lets say intel offers a rebate where they'll sell 900 processors for the price of 600 if the reseller only buys 10% AMD processors. Effectively intel is offering intel processors at $66.7 each, still $16.7 more per processor than AMD. Now if the reseller takes the rebate, the total cost is $65000 for the purchase, without the rebate its $85000. So its cheaper for the reseller to take the rebate. But its anti-competitive because even if AMD gave away their processors for free, its still cheaper for the reseller to take the rebate and only 100 AMD processors. If instead it was a volume rebate where intel sold 900 processors for the price of 600 with no conditions based on its purchase of a competitors products, then AMD could still compete by cutting their prices, which is competitive and legal.
If I was a betting man, I would put money on AMD to win each of the three remaining cases.
The EU is completely correct in fining Intel. It's an American company, sure, but it does business in their economic zone, which means it must abide by their laws. What gets me, as others have noted, is that the EU is pocketing the fine. That is insane. Certainly, a percentage of the fine should go to the government, insofar as they need to recover expenses. But the bulk of the fine should go to AMD.
AMD got caught with their pants down when Core 2 came out. But if they had the funds to run major concurrent designs, then maybe it wouldn't be taking them so long to get back on their feet. A billion bucks would go a long way to solving that particular problem.
...you can buy all the justice you can afford.
Microsucks has demonstrated that you can be convicted for countless violations of anti-trust law, continue violating law and never pay a dime. In fact in America you can actually commit murder and get away with it if you have enough high priced paid liars working for you.
So if Intel gets convicted in the U.S. it will be a surprise. If Intel is actually properly fined and punished for their crimes, it will be a miracle.
@daamit. I still don't understand. If I was an exclusive dealer for GM and I have huge rebates (GM isn't the right example, because it's prices are AT A LOSS for small cars and big for trucks) what is the problem? It's a common practice to be loyal to one brand and if the company tries to stimulate you more, IT'S NOT ILLEGAL!
@tom. My company was an IPI (aka Intel Product Integrator) before I switch to services and software. There rebates was POS and make no difference at all (like 5%). Nobody asked me directly or indirectly to not sell AMD. So 1)2) and 3) are not true.
It's interesting your last words. I don't think that Intel did such big discounts for resselers, because the official channel sells only Intel CPU and big warehouses chooses CPU from different sources, even from grey market, not only from official. My purchase prices from official channel were higher than sell prices from such resseler, and the official channel knows well this. Maybe youre right and Intel sells at dumping price (somehow) to grey market.
Bottom line: from lower prices citizens from EU were not ripped off. If Intel is guilty, this money most go to the real benefitors: AMD and VIA.
But like MS case (haha, what a pile of crap, to include option in its ows SW for other browser, to publish its code), it becames a common practice for EU to put fines on big FOREIGN companies. Because of course, nobody from EU will fine Mercedes or VW for bad practice, and AMD became a local (Dresden) company...
Charlie, although your theory that AMD chose the venues in that order themselves is interesting, it doesn't hold up. AMD filed its case in Europe in 2000, well before it filed its cases in Japan or Korea. They just went through these courts much faster. Maybe they went through faster in these courts because of their greater documentation culture, but I don't think AMD had any choice one way or another what their order was.
When AMD did good, CPU price is HIGH, especially AMD CPU. Not long ago AMD dual core CPU asked for $300. Now AMD is not doing well, CPU price is actually lower, quad core (comparable to dual core at the time) price starts less than $200.
First well done Charlie.
mircea, those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The Intel business model is the same one John D. Rockefeller used to create the Standard Oil Trust. Rebates for exclusive dealing are number 1 on the list of prohibited marketing practices in the Standard Oil Co Employee Antitrust manual given to all management employees at all former Standard Oil Trust companies(Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Sohio(now BP), Amoco, Marathon Oil among others). I have one somewhere from my stint with Standard Oil (Ind) about 25+ years ago. Standard Oil did shipping deals with the railroads. Northern Railroad Trust got all of Standards business for agreeing not to ship oil for Standard's competitors like Texaco or Gulf Oil. In 1911 the US Supreme Court declared such business ties along with many others to be illegal. As a result the Standard Oil Co of New Jersey was broken up into 57 differing companies. The only way out for example is for Intel to show in 2004 IBM got the same or bigger discount on server chips than Dell because IBM sold more Intel servers that year than Dell did. If the reverse is true then the Supreme Court has said that that is a "badge of fraud". So you don't necessarily need emails or tape recordings to prove the point. That is what Certified Fraud Examiners do, find the badges of fraud. That is the way that IRS got Al Capone for tax fraud. They didn't show how he put money in a bank account or got paid, they showed how he spent the money. Then asked where did that much money come from on what he reported. You follow the money. If Dell got a discount that IBM didn't and IBM sold more cpus, Intel is toast. And since this happened when the US Government bought servers from IBM, Mr. Otenilli has some very major explaining under oath to do under DFARS. It is not yet 2011 so Intel execs have some heart burn.
If Intel had any sense at all, they would have an appointment with Christine Vance Monday morning at 8:30 to cut a deal.
It’s not a problem if customers could simply walk next door to buy another brand. However, Intel was (and virtually still is) the only game in town. Intel didn’t just use rebates to gain exclusivity of one dealership. It used them to gain exclusivity of the entire industry, leveraging its dominant market share to stifle competitor.
You can say it’s the nature of capitalism, and Intel did nothing wrong. I understand and respect your position. That’s why we have laws and courts, and the laws have spoken.
AMD didn't have the capacity to go much over 25% of the market because it DIDN'T have the capacity to fab that much!
Holy shit, people. You can say that Intel held AMD all you want and that's why they didn't get more. Unless they had more fab capacity, they were NEVER going to get anywhere close to a 50% marketshare.
Wanna beat Intel? Gotta fab like Intel. 1.5 fabs in Dresden isn't going to be able to compete and give 50% marketshare even under the best of circumstances.
Thank you Ed for you words, it was a real example of a monopolist action.
@daamit, in my opinion these facts that are over the Internet are just smoke. If you want a real monopolist behavior in your example, imagine that GM could do something really worse for my dealership, let's say delayed shipments if I will not be exclusive...
Intel did such things in past, please look at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/1999/03/intelcom.shtm and http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Business-general/Intergraph-sues-Intel-in-dispute-over-patents-Intel-appeals-judges-ruling-on-Intergraph.html
Short story: Intel stole patents from Intergraph and when than company asked for royalties, responded with trials an delayed shipments.
After 10 years of trials, Intergraph closed it's hw businees, but succeded in 300mil compensations settlement.
This is what I want to see fron Intel case in EU, business compensations for illegal actions, not a fine for discounts, because otherwise all these will be in vain for AMD...
in South Africa, you could get a Core i7 literally weeks after release date.IN SOUTH AFRICA, you pay more for the AMD phenomII 955 BE(when u find it) than a Core i7 920! Oh and I still can't find an AM3 Quad-core,(925/945 specifically) for anew build I'm planning. Another thing, the AMD 955 BE is rumoured to be high-pricedin South Africa because of it's rarity! WTF??!!
Might does not make right, nor does saying what you want people to believe 1,000,000 times until that’s all they can think about.
Intel claiming that it that it is doing nothing wrong is like that Iraqi Press Secretary saying that the Americans were not in Iraq.
You know, it's funny, Intel still thinks that they can make people believe that they are an honest upbeat fair company. I do not understand why they just do not come out and say, ok ok, yes we did all this stuff and it was wrong, sorry - it will never happen again. What are they trying to hide? Is so much of their business built on shady practices? If they say this will they end up unravelling their whole company? Or is it that it is the standard for a corporation today to deny the sky is blue (that is of course until they make it purple with pollution)?
Oh yeah and Fred, stop posting comments on the inquirer and get back to work trying to screw the customer. While you’re at it set your outlook email to archive instead of delete.
I just wish companies today would wake up and realize that just because you’re rich and big, doesn’t mean that you can do what you want. What always ends up happening in the end is progress gets slowed down to a crawl. Remember what happened after maBell got dismembered?
Mr. Zuma, the reason you can't find the Deneb chip is because the US government is buying all it can. Since NITRD funded the design of the chip for Cray's Cascade Superpetaflop machine they get first call. Cascade will be 4-6 petaflops or 4+ times faster than Jaguar which is currently the fastest computer in the world. The government also has the option to go back and recore the existing AM2 machines like Ranger, Jaguar, Roadrunner that are in the public plus there will be at least one new classified machine with the establishment of the 24th Air Force Cyber Command in San Antonio. The air Force Electronic Warfare Command is already here and NSA as well. So there are a number of classified machines to be upgraded as well. In the professionally accepted benchmarks, HPCChallenge and SPEC, Deneb enjoys a very substantial lead over Nehalam when using 64k page files or larger. These are benchmarks that represent real processing power not just clock speed. NASA is the only agency buying Nehalam right now.So until the US government gets through its procurement cycle supplies of AM3 will continue to be tight for anyone else.
Who's buying this crap again?
"it becames a common practice for EU to put fines on big FOREIGN companies. Because of course, nobody from EU will fine Mercedes or VW for bad practice, and AMD became a local (Dresden) company..."
Yeah, that's why Intel and Microsoft are the only not european In the top 8 fines (sorry but I couldn't find the other 2). These companies are: Microsoft, Intel, Saint-Gobain (French), ThyssenKrupp (German), Hoffman-LaRoche (French), Siemens (German), Pilkington (UK) and Sasol (German).
But, hey, don't let the truth ruin your paranoia!
Both Intel and Microsoft develop several of their products outside the USA, employ a lot of people outside the USA and make a lot of their money outside the USA. In fact, if Intel managed to pull back from the P4 hole it was thanks to their foreign (in this case israeli) teams.
In any case, the EC is fining intel for approximately 7% of their profits...
This EU fine is wrong for several reasons:
1. Money is being taken on behalf of consumers, but consumers do not get the money, nor they get told where it will be invested.
2. Fine is a way too high.
3. Will someone please sue ARM for being a monopoly in the embedded market?
4. We also need to retroactively sue Cray and IBM for being a monopoly in super-computers in the past.
5. AMD gains nothing from this.
What people don't understand is that this won't help consumers at all -- monopoly will simply be replaced by oligopoly or a cartel (remember DRAM manufacturers or ATI/NVIDIA price fixings?). This is just a scam by the bankers to extort money so they can line their pockets again.
You can find facts of Intel strongarming everywhere. When AMD launched Athlon, there's no mobo maker openly support Athlon. Tom's hardware reported this.
You can browse anandtech.com and looking for a report of strange case of the disappearing of balloons in Taipei, Taiwan years ago. The report was 1st day of Computex you could see dozens of mobo makers' balloons sponsored by VIA all over the city then the next day poof there's no single balloon left, disappered just like that.
Back then, if you visit the web site of mobo maker, OEM, etc. it would be hard to find AMD product in it let alone in the front page. Supermicro has Opteron mobos that they didn't put on their website and officially they didn't acknowledge the existance of those mobos.
Now if you compare Intel to GM or Ford then something is wrong with the logic. Now if you open Chevrolet dealership of course you have to sell only Chevrolet, in doing business you need the brand that's not yours, therefore you must conform to the owner of the brand. Acer, HP, Dell, Gateway, etc. are in the business of selling computer bearing their own brand, they are not an Intel's dealership obviously.
There is nothing wrong with giving a discount, and there is nothing wrong with customer prefer one vendor over the other base on price. But if you sell your goods below your cost to get rid of competitors now that's against the law, not that Intel sold their goods below cost and I don't think AMD accused Intel of doing that.
The problems of Intel practice is the strongarming of customer not in the discount itself, not in the how you qualified for it, but in the actual retaliation if you not conforming. Intel's standard practice is you are entitle to all discount and marketing fund if you buy the agreed upon quantity in time and (here is the part that is against the law in my opinion) your total sales at least concist of 90% Intel systems. However, the one thing that really against the law was the retaliation. There was some report that mentioned that Gateway once was willing to forego the discount and marketing fund and sure the retaliation was coming at once. Effective immediately, Intel wouldn't sell anything to Gateway, now if you were Gateway what will you do? Your actual market was 90% Intel and 10% AMD, you have a feeling that your sales next year will be 50% Intel and 50% AMD, but here you were even before your sales of AMD reached 11%, you won't get the parts to sell to your 90% market. Remember apart from CPU, Intel also sell you the mobo.
Of course when AMD filed a lawsuit suddenly all of the strange things above disappear, you could find AMD everywhere. What a coincidence right?
Your company was an IPI, so the question was how much was your business value to Intel? Were you selling AMD at the time? What was the ratio? Was it worth it for Intel to offer you this discount?
If we talk about OEM, we talk about millions or ten of millions CPUs and mobos every year for each OEM, and that is a lot.
Intel sell most of their products to OEMs, as a comparison, anandtech.com once reported that all mobos maker said that their sales for retail was more than 60% AMD, but at the same time AMD share of the CPU was only around 20%.
Just because nobody asked you directly or indirectly to not sell AMD, it didn't mean that OEMs had had the same experiences as you did, in fact they had different experiences alright.
AMD would argue (and probably will when their trial starts in March) that the reason it took so long for them to build a second fab was lack of revenue because of Intel's illegal behavior. The EU's findings go back to 2000, when (if you have a long enough memory) AMD had the best PC CPU available, the first CPU that ran at 1 gigahertz. So it wasn't AMD's lack of quality that was stopping them from selling.
Why is everyone hung up on where the penalty moneys are going? Certainly, in Commonwealth countries, actions taken under their respective Competition legislation puts the money in the Crown's, (or State's) pocket - usually "consolidated revenue". If you want the money for yourself, start a private action, if it's permissible in your country. You have to win the action, of course.
And Intel's (alleged) action is not properly termed "monopoly" these days - it's "abuse of a dominant position".
NOT a scintilla of evidence anywhere,just BULLSHIT & INNUENDO.
"Preponderence of Evidence",that CRAP wouldn't stand up in an English court, "BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT",supported by EVIDENCE,is what's required, NOT conpiritorial accusations from OEM's,who are just trying to jump on the anti-Intel bandwagon for a free lunch.
Where's the paperwork,the emails,invoices,purchase orders,discounts received(to the OEM's),
recordings et'c,not a shred, just hot air & bullshit,like the article.
Have you ever heard any retail customer complain that, there is no choice but, INTEL?
Of course not,the choice is always there,for the simple fact is,virtually all pc's are built, with componenets from various suppliers.
There is no 'monopolistic' behaviour in the market place,people choose what they want, NOT mft'rs.
Havent you heard of the expression, "you can take a horse to the water,but you can't make it drink"?
I choose what I will buy,not Intel & not AMD!
Do not, "empty vessels,make the most noise"?
Intel is not 0 for 3. There was no court action in Korea, EU, Japan. They were committees coming to those decisions. Intell will eventually have their day in a real court room.