FTC won't ask Intel to break up
By Donald Melanson 
posted December 17th 2009 10:19PM
posted December 17th 2009 10:19PM
[Image courtesy Intel's Insides / NVIDIA]
posted December 17th 2009 10:19PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
meh, i don't keep up with the ftc.
NVIDIA is like a flea clinging to a big dog. The dog knows it's there and scratches to dislodge it, but it continues to hang on so that it can feed and remain a constant irritant.
Intel will eventually grow tired of this. When they do they'll stop scratching and start biting, ultimately swallowing NVIDA. And we all know what happens to things that we eat...
@Samurai Jack
They make us grow up to be big and strong like Popeye. Or is that just spinach? Anyway, eat your spinach.
@NeoJew Too subtle? Things we eat might make us stronger for a time, but ultimately it still turns to sh*t...
@Samurai Jack
What you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
@bf710901 Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed...
@Altairantares i feel the same way and no i didn't get up on the wrong side in fact i fell off the wrong side of my bed. nvidia is not just some small flea on a dog in fact Intel needs nvidia and nvidia needs lintel(we don't want to be forced to use AMD and god knows that Intel cant make a good graphics card to safe their life)
@bf710901
I see metaphors are beyond you. Very well, let me spell it out for your impaired intellect.
NVIDIA is insignificant to Intel, however they keep sniping at them because they want Intel to buy them. Intel could use the help on the graphics side, however, being the behemoth that they are they would destroy everything good about NVIDIA were they to actually purchase them.
Clear now? Good, because there's a lonely bridge somewhere in Europe that's missing its troll.
@Samurai Jack Nvidia makes enough by itself that a takeover by Intel would probably cost more than Intel can afford.
@Samurai Jack This thread is now moron approved.
Tl;dr
FTC just wants its CUT of the SLICE.
@One Love
What craziness....
A company that legitimately produces products and markets them to the point where they become a market leader and *of course* the government thinks that they have to step in.
Shame on AMD for thinking they need to use government strong hold to win a battle rather than innovation.
Shame on the government for having such an entity
And apparently shame on Intel for being so successful. However, I bet their shareholders would think differently.
@corecomps You left out shame on Intel for paying its purchasers to not use AMD, and threatening them with withholding technology from them if they do use AMD.
You really don't want one chip company running the whole market.
Intel may be anticompetitive, but they keep putting out a competitive product, so I'm down with it.
For such an "anti-competitive" company, they sure are turning out great advances and new products at an amazing rate for the past few years.
@paul34
lol I happen to be an AMD fan but I 100% agree with you. AMD's only saving point right now is their low cost integrated graphics kills Intel's crap. Unfortunately for Intel, they are likely to start down that road shortly with possible an absorption of NVidia to possibly jump start them.
@paul34 Perhaps their advances would be even greater if they felt the pressure bearing down. Who knows. But its a certainty they would not be as great as they are now without AMD around. Easy example: 64-bit extensions to consumer processors.
I would also like to suggest we should have had teraflop level x86 architectures like Larrabee long ago, and optical system interconnects by now. I'm being such a heathen today :[
@paul34
might have something to do with all the money they got from being anticompetitive which would allow more R&D whereas AMD has no money for that.
Of course that's merely speculation
ARM FTW
Wow, what's with all the intel support in these comments, it's not like Apple vs Psystar and Microsoft vs EU, intel has been known for a while to be breaking some laws, only thing surprising is how long it took the FTC to do something.
So what then a slap on the hand and a fine. Great job at protecting the consumer FCC.
My hope was that the FCC was going to force Intel to let Nvidia create chipsets for the i7, i9 and future cpu's.
@daytripper
FCC doesn't care... Now the FTC does. ;)
@daytripper
With the amount of trouble I've had with nForce chipsets over the years... no way.
Intel makes great products at the moment... but back when they were playing 2nd fiddle to AMD they didn't play fair. AMD was cavitating from within also, which didn't help matters, but their bottom line was still severely compromised by the monopolistic practices of Intel. Intel didn't lose anywhere near as much market share as it should have with its silly Netburst architecture and Pentium-4 zillion pipelined monoliths that required cooling systems the size of a small whale.
Intel are the leaders now, but in the early to mid 2000's they were not, and we would all be better off with a stronger AMD who would have most likely been in a better position today, with a stronger product offering and perhaps even in-step with the fabrication process of intel.
Monopolistic behaviour doesn't benefit anyone except the company performing the behaviour. Good for shareholders. Bad for pretty much everyone else. Intel should (somehow) be penalised appropriately for this behaviour. They'll just resort to such behaviour any time they are challenged and are bested. That's not good for the industry or the consumer.
I'm curious why engadget is not saying anything about tomorrow's operation chokehold. http://opchoke.com/ Even CNN talked about it
I think Intel is an unfair monopoly. FTC should break them into two. And give me one of the halves. I'd even settle for a 1/4. Maybe even a 1/100 if I HAD to.
Breaking them up is a bit much. However, I think invalidating every single one of their patents would probably send them a message.
I thought the U.S. was a free country with a capitalist economy. I guess Obama and his fellow commies are out to ruin the spirit and ideals of this great country.
@someone I know Obama is not part of this but forcibly creating competition is a step towards a government controlled economy.
@someone Actually most of the laws governing corporations are a result of corporations running amok and ruining the economy in the late 19th century. Then they had to change the laws because corporations were abusing loopholes.
@someone go die or in the least read a Wikipedia article on the role of the ftc before making such stupid comments though i prefer that you do the first one.
@someone You also forgot to shout fascism and Hitler. What kind of idiot are you?
Before you continue, realize that most of the anti-trust activities happened towards the early-20th century, well before Obama was born. While you're enjoying such socialist-born ideas as a police department and a fire department, realize that the United States has never been and will never be a "free market" system, Trust me, life would be hell if it were.
FTC is in Intels pocket, they do my work for the government for anything bad to happen to them.
It would be nice to see the FTC force Intel to open up the patents for new Nvidia chipset IGPU platforms. My GF9300 desktop mini-ITX board is pretty sweet.
Intel graphics chips make for nice target practice though.
Thanks for sharing your thought with us. Would like to hear more from you.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Extenze-Review---Enlarge-Your-Penis-Naturally-
by-Using-Extenze&id=3485598