New York attorney general files antitrust lawsuit against Intel
By Nilay Patel 
posted November 4th 2009 12:09PM
posted November 4th 2009 12:09PM
No matter how it tries, Intel just can't shake those pesky antitrust monkeys off its back: the attorney general of New York today filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against the chipmaker, saying it unfairly prevented AMD from competing under state and federal law. That's pretty much what the EU just fined Intel $1.45b for in May and exactly what AMD itself is suing Intel for in Delaware, so we're guessing things are a little busy for Chipzilla's lawyers right now -- and it's just going to get worse, as the smart money says this is all just a precursor to the Federal Trade Commission dropping the hammer sometime soon. Hey, maybe this would be a good time to for Intel to distract everyone with some USB 3.0 chipsets?
@ Wwhat
I could be very wrong (I'm not a lawyer, talk to Nilay), but I think what Cuomo is trying to do is get Intel to pay a hefty fine and change their practices to increase competition in the market. Intel knows that if this goes to court, they are done for; Cuomo's office wouldn't have done what they did unless they had a ROCK SOLID case. So, they're basically forcing Intel's hand, and unless Intel wants a prolonged legal battle *that they WILL lose*, they're going to have to pay the price, literally. Additionally, this sends a strong message to companies like Dell, HP, and etc, basically telling them to stop doing what they're doing or they're next.
@ poached
I see where you're coming from, but I disagree. Sure, I bet New York could benefit from this case (though, once again, I could be wrong), but it seems to me that Andrew Cuomo is doing this to satisfy is unquenchable thirst for justice. If he's only doing this for profits, why'd he go after Spitzer the way he did? Why'd he challenge Facebook to improve their security and protection of minors? Why'd he go after not only United Healthcare of New York, but also United Healthcare in general (the entire company)? Why'd he press charges against universities and lenders around the entire country?
I'm not a Democrat (not a Republican, either), and I don't live in New York (I live in the "NY of the South"), yet I firmly believe that this guy has justice at heart. If I'm wrong, I'd be totally let down, but his office's history speaks for itself.
Everybody love everybody
You must be new to the internet, 'the creator of pure hate' :/
I don't really care about these lawsuits...but in related news, my barton xp 2500+ is still running strong and kicks ass.
I'm typing this from my Athlon XP 2400+ ... running 24/7 for the last 6 years!
Or as it's called these days: walking ;)
I'm typing this from my 2 year old Turion TL-56 laptop that WOULD still be kickin' if not for the ass-tastic nvidia chipset/integrated graphics combo that's been a thorn in my side from the day I bought it (back when I was a dumb kid who didn't know any better)
Hopefully I'll be getting an HP dm3z with the Turion Neo and Radeon 4300 sometime in the near future....as a companion to my dream Phenom II/5870 rig that I want to build
*buys lottery ticket*
Bravo guys. I recently resurrected an old Athlon XP-M desktop and put Windows 7 on it. The little engine that could.
Even the Intel fanboys should realize that intel getting slapped hard is a good thing for the economy and you as a consumer. There is no doubt that intel has been bullying vendors and that hurts you as a consumer. You see, if intel has a monopoly they really have no drive to innovate. Innovation and competition is good, which is exactly why AMD needs to win this lawsuit and survive.
Joe,
While an even playing field sounds altruistic. The reality and in the bigger sense .. having courts or governments decide how the consumer is best served actually adds thousands to the cost for the consumer. Your views are respected and shared by many but consider how disruptive government is to free enterprise.
@sugar
The 'free enterprise' you envision is what destroyed the economy and what makes the world a scary unlivable place, every game has rules else it's not a game but a disaster, and every game with rules needs some refereeing, and it's shown to help enterprise (by not having things collapse and become worthless for instance) to have basic fairness rules, it's now well tested and established and clear to the meanest intellect.
And yet another lawsuit throw down at intel's feet. Sometimes I really do wish they had come better competition. It'd do us all a favor.
don't see how can Intel get away with these compelling evidences:
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/11/04/what-did-cuomo-find-in-intels-emails/?mod=yahoo_hs
this one is the best:
Specifically, the Dell executive who served as Intel’s informal liaison to Dell management wrote the following analysis:
"If we play this right, we walk away with a 3-year contract that drives structural Dell advantage in cost, supply, and influence….PSO/CRB [Paul Ottelini, Intel’s CEO, and Craig Barrett, Intel’s Chairman] are prepared for jihad if Dell joins the AMD exodus. We [will] get ZERO MCP for at least one quarter while Intel ‘investigates the details’ – there’s no legal/moral/threatening means for us to apply and avoid this."
I have several problems with this situation:
1) AMD had a small lead for one generation in SOME applications. It never had anywhere near an across the board lead over Intel. Easiest way to prove this is go back and look at the multitasking and multi-threaded performance of their chips. They were horrible. They won the crown in gaming here on the Internet because they had the best single application scores, but never by much. This single generation lead does not make converts quickly, either in the manufacturing field, nor the buyers field for businesses. The only ones quickly converted were the bloggers and the enthusiasts who built their own systems. There is no evidence that would sugest they SHOULD have had more of a bump in sales than they did for that one generation. There is a reason you have heard the phrase "No one ever got fired for buying Intel."
2) AMD never put in the money for advertisement that Intel did. Without that advertising investment the average buyer would probably not know AMD even had a competing chip. So, again, other than the enthusiast and bloggers there was no demand for AMD's processors. Without that demand, where was the incentive for any system builders to gamble on lesser known processors for their systems?
3) You are very quick to blame Intel but where is the backlash towards the OEM's? They are the ones who made the decisions to buy Intel chips. Regardless of the incentive, do you really think they would have stayed with Intel if they thought the AMD's would sell better at a cheaper price? They were not under threat of not being able to buy Intel chips. However, they were under threat of maybe not getting such great deals on the chips as compared to the price you or I would have to pay. Which would be the same on AMD's side when they offer the discounts they inevitably would to such OEM's.
Looking at the above problems with the suit by the cash strapped state of New York, this appears to be nothing more than a political maneuver (hey look we're doing this for you, the consumer so that you can get revenge for buying stuff cheaply) combined with a blatant money grab at someone with deep pockets.
Wow, this is weird. I never (yes, never) had this perception of Intel. Whether it was unfounded or not, I always had the impression that AMD was scummy and cheap, whereas Intel was superior.
I really appreciate all the insightful comments that have been made to clarify exactly where things stand. These sure are interesting events, but I would still hate to see Intel be hit very hard.
Pretty Much what Cornelius said. I mean it is an 85 page document. In the document it states with evidence, that Intel mounted a campaign to limit AMD's entrance into certain markets for its processors like the business area. What Intel did was basically say they needed to have an exclusivity agreement with Intel, and any company wishing to use AMD processors would be "taught a lesson." In order to avoid ani-trust issues and laws they changed it to "volume agreements."
HP, DELL, and IBM in this case had customers wanting low-cost AMD offerings. But, they hesitated to offer these processors/servers cause they feared Intel's wrath.
Intel has it coming, I can't help but feel NY is trying to get on some of the antitrust and cough large settlement it stands to benefit. keep posting. Will be visiting back soon.
(http://www.r4-ds.com.ar/)
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the huge chip fab plant AMD is opening in upstate NY - which is a huge coup for the area and a centerpiece of an economic growth package in high tech which has been being massaged and nurtured for the last several years for the capital region of NY.
I don't think, that without Intel's behaviour AMD would have a 50+% market share, but it might have prevented AMD from achieving 25-30%. As it looks right now especially during K7 times (before Northwood took off) and K8 times it seemed difficult for AMD to get traction in the market. Having seen how in Germany the largest electronics chains are totally avoiding AMD CPUs for years (thanks to some special contracts) I think that such things lost a lot of sales for AMD simply because those many customers just looking for a PC or notebook have no other choice than taking 100% Intel. And also the type of systems bought by companies depends a lot on what the seller offers, which has been influenced in the shown way.
So 25-30% market share for AMD (and a resulting ~67-73% share for Intel) doesn't look like a gigantic change, but this could have meant:
- 50 to 100% more sales ($2-5B per year)
- possibly somewhat higher ASPs
- at least $1-2B additional operating income per year
- reduced debt by some billions
- no necessity for a fab spinoff with resulting costs and legal issues - also thanks to better fab utilization
- more money for R&D, which might have resulted in better execution and less failures or problems (like Barcelona's TLB bug)
- a better ROI for all shareholders
- no Galleon deal based on a spinoff ;)
- better marketing
- better CPUs arriving earlier
and so on..
Just some thoughts.
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