Sources Say EU Will Find Intel Anti-Competitive 210
Anarchduke sends in a Reuters story quoting unnamed sources who say that the European Union has decided to find Intel anti-competitive. The finding should be announced in the coming week. "...the Commission will say Intel paid PC makers to delay or scrap the launch of products containing AMD chips. The Commission will characterize the payments as 'naked restrictions' to competition, the sources said. ... Intel set percentages of its own chips that it wanted PC makers to use, the sources said. For example, NEC Corp was told that 20 percent of its desktop and notebook machines could have AMD chips, the sources said. All Lenovo notebooks had to use Intel chips, as did relevant Dell products. The figure was 95 percent for Hewlett-Packard's business desktops, they said." Previous infractions by Intel include giving illegal rebates to computer makers back in 2007 and paying retailers not to sell AMD-based computer systems.
Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Interesting)
Are there any plans to punish companies that went along with this? Sure, they could argue they were strong-armed into it by Intel but that's no comfort for AMD and the sales they'll have lost.
Tell me who actually pays? (Score:2, Interesting)
So the EU fines Intel.
Exactly who is paying the fine?
Uh, people buying Intel products. As such it means people all over the world will chip in their pennies to pay the EU for Intel's violation.
A better solution than taking money, banning their product for a set time. That is how you truly stop this type of anti competitive behavior. Fining them just means anyone buying the product has a new embedded tax. Locking them out gets the shareholders pissed and makes heads roll. Can you imagine the grief caused by having your major new processor line forbidden from sales? Suddenly vendors look elsewhere for product and possibly for future contracts because your past actions have now interfered with their business.
Being a government entity in need of cash I suspect the EU will fine them less than they fined MS.
Re:Tell me who actually pays? (Score:5, Interesting)
Another alternative would be to force the companies named to use a minimum 50% AMD chips averaged over the next five years.
Extra costs for them, loss of market share for Intel. Seems to me like justice is done all round (I consider the companies almost as guilty as Intel for their complicity).
Yes the price of computers would undergo a hiccup as they retool for different chips but that's not _really_ any different then Intel being fined billions of dollars.
Re:Skype (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't understand why companies like Skype or NBC agree to these types of deals. If an Intel salesperson came to me and said, "You must limit how many calls an AMD processor may receive" or "You may only have 20% of your computers at NBC be powered by AMD", I'd tell the salesman to go fuck off. Intel has no right to come into the offices of Skype or NBC and boss them around.
The only reason I can think Intel got away with such dictatorial demands is because Skype is small, and NBC depends upon Intel advertising to survive. i.e. Fear of losing money.
Re:Skype (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't imagine Intel sent a sales rep in one day to speak to anyone that lowly.
Far more likely that these deals were agreed on the golf course by senior executives.
Re:*SNIFF* They're finally growing up! (Score:5, Interesting)
>>>part of me is a little sad for the young Intel full of potential that got bullied [by Microsoft] into the position its in today.
Young Intel? Bullied? Funny.
Intel was the most-powerful computer company in the late-1980s and throughout the 1990s. Microsoft was just one of dozens of software companies and had no real power until it released Windows 95 and squashed the competition (Os/2, GEOS, DR-DOS). You mis-characterize the situation when you call Intel a puppet of MS. Intel was the goliath of the industry, having ridden the IBM PC platform to 95% dominance.
Re:EU needs more money (Score:5, Interesting)
3) The company is American
The 'anti-american' card you guys keep playing is getting old.
Was the AT&T breakup anti-American? Was the United States v. Microsoft case anti-American?
There is a selection bias here. If a Belgian supermarket chain or a Dutch bank gets slapped by the EU anti-trust commissioner, it doesn't make the headlines on Slashdot, so you will never hear about it.
Fact is, Slashdot reports mainly on technology related things that might interest American readers. The technology monopolies and near-monopolies in the last few decades have mostly been American, so if one abuses its monopoly, it's likely to be an American based company.
The European market is actually a patchwork of independently grown and recently connected markets. Some companies you have never heard of have local (near) monopolies, and face severe anti trust restrictions in those markets. None of this would be news that belongs on Slashdot.
Re:*SNIFF* They're finally growing up! (Score:5, Interesting)
You must have missed, that intel already was well-known for doing that, ten years ago, when AMD wanted to get mainboard manufacturers to make some boards for the then new Athlon CPU. I remember this, because I bought an Athlon 850 back ten. And there were only 4 companies on the planet who offered a board. And way too late too. Which was because of intel's practices.
I also remember, that it was before 2001, because I moved at the end of 2000 and then already had my new computer.
Give the Fine to AMD (Score:4, Interesting)
This offers two benefits: the first is that Intel gets hit in the wallet where they need to be for their actions. The second is that AMD recovers some of the money lost due to Intel's actions, thus encouraging actual competition by allowing AMD to survive. As a side benefit of this action, ATI would also survive, thus ensuring that Nvidia has effective competition in the graphics card market,
Re:EU needs more money (Score:4, Interesting)
It appears that not everyone agrees with this: ...
4. Tendency for industry competition to evolve into monopolies and oligopolies
Martin J. Whitman [wikipedia.org]
it's important to remember that "monopoly" when used here doesn't mean 100% of the market, but (like MS) enough of the market that it might as well be 100%, or at least large enough that they can exercise anti-competitive behavior. Some might suggest that Walmart is already influencing the market: I don't know if they're actually anti-competitive, and there are certainly other retailers, but let's face it, they have no artificial monopoly protections such as patents and yet they are still dominating the market. Unchecked (and if nothing else changes) they could easily grow to encompass the majority of the retail market... personally I happen to agree with Mr. Whitman: there needs to be some regulation on business to ensure that there continues to be competition. It's somewhat counter-intuitive, and it's certainly not what Big Business wants people to believe