We knew AMD would be celebrating its victory over Intel and its record $1.45 billion fine doled out by EU over violation of antitrust rules, but we figured that just meant a very fancy cake and maybe a trip to the local zoo. Nay, we were mistaken, as the chip maker has gone all out in creating an entire website dedicated to its victory. "AMD Break Free" is pretty amazing in its thoroughness, and you'll find all kinds of court documents, press releases, explanations of antitrust laws, and even a news feed to follow further developments. Of course, Intel's appeal is a sure sign this case will be drag on for a very long time, possibly even become overturned, and none of this apparent gloating is gonna help one bit in getting the company back into the top ten rankings for chip manufacturers.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

The verdict is in and it's huge. As expected, the EU is fining Intel a record €1.06 billion or $1.45 billion (Billion!) dollars due to violations of antitrust rules in Europe. The record fine surpasses that of the €497 million fine originally levied against Microsoft. The EU ruled that Intel illegally used hidden rebates to squeeze rivals out of the marketplace for CPUs. In a statement issued by European Union Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, the EC said,

Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years.

Intel was ordered to cease the illegal practices immediately and has three months from the notification of the decision to pay up. Of course, Intel will appeal and this will drag the litigation on for years as did Microsoft. Regardless, we'll bet that AMD, who raised the complaint against Intel back in 2000, will be celebrating come dawn in Sunnyvale.

Update: Intel has issued a formal response to the ruling saying that the commission "is wrong and ignores the reality of a highly competitive microprocessor marketplace," and that its practices have caused, "absolutely zero harm to consumers." Oh, and it will <gasp> appeal the decision. Hurrah for corporate lawyers!

[Via Canada.com]

There are many tried and true methods for beating your competition in the free-market. Product innovation seems to work as does a proprietary ecosystem of peripherals, media, and services that keep customers locked-in for life. Or you can take Intel's approach: pay computer makers and retailers "to postpone or cancel" products containing CPUs from AMD, Intel's chief rival. That's the allegation it faces in the EU which, according to Reuters, has completed its antitrust investigation and is preparing to announce its decision on Wednesday. According to Reuters' sources, the European Commission will fine Intel for the violations discovered over the last eight years and order changes to Intel's business practices. It remains to be seen if the related fine exceeds the $655 million levied against Microsoft in 2004. But given the EU's distaste for anti-competitive practices, we're not expecting Intel to get off easy -- self-proclaimed "rock star" status or not.

Truthfully, we're having a hard time coming to grips with this. For as long as we wished that these two would stop bickering, it's actually tough to swallow the fact that we'll never again be able to write about "yet another lawsuit" between Qualcomm and Broadcom (in theory, anyway). After nearly three full years of fighting with pencils, papers and soulless words, the courtroom throwdowns are finally ceasing. In a shocking development, the two rivals have entered into a settlement and multi-year patent agreement that will "result in the dismissal with prejudice of all litigation between the companies, including all patent infringement claims in the International Trade Commission and US District Court in Santa Ana, as well as the withdrawal by Broadcom of its complaints to the European Commission and the Korea Fair Trade Commission." The exact terms of the deal are posted after the break, though you should know that Qualcomm will have to shell out $891 million in cash (ouch!) over the next four years. The lawyers may be out of work, but you can rest assured that there's no shortage of abhorrence between these frenemies.

While some companies like Connectland have already offered up their own solution to the problem of multiple cellphone connectors (seen at right), a European Union commissioner now seems to be taking the idea one step further, and is starting to push the notion of one standard cellphone connector to rule them all. According to Telcompaper, European Commissioner for Industry Günter Verheugen recently said in a German interview that he has had his patience tested after giving the cellphone industry several chances to develop a single cellphone connector, and he's now not excluding "severe measures" to force them to reach a solution. His main concern, as you might have guessed, is the waste that results from folks needing a new charger for each new cellphone, although the cellphone industry obviously sees things a bit differently, with the EICTA's Tony Graziano saying that Verheugen's demand is "legally and technically impossible" due to differences in voltage and battery requirements within the European Union. In any event, it seems that some actual regulations are still quite a ways off from becoming a reality, and Verheugen still insists that he'd prefer to see the industry arrive at a standard voluntarily.

[Via Tweakers.net]

Gulp, here we go again. The European Commission is accusing Microsoft of unfairly dominating its competition by bundling Internet Explorer with its Windows OS. Yup, the very same argument heard in the US courts more than a decade ago after Netscape saw its 86% market share plummet in the face of a bundled IE. The commission, which already fined Microsoft $1.35 billion for anti-competitive practices in early 2008, has published the following preliminary view on the matter:

"Microsoft's tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice."

Microsoft has 8 weeks to reply to the charge. It's worth noting that while Apple bundles its Safari browser with OS X, Apple commands a much, much smaller share of the operating system and web browser markets globally, particularly outside of the US. The EU's ruling does, perhaps, shed some light on why Apple's App Store is suddenly stocked with a variety of browsers for the hot selling iPhone, eh? Regardless, we have a feeling that the Norwegian cats behind Opera are feeling pretty smug right about now; Google too, as it kicks back licking its Chromium chops on the road to dominating "The Cloud."

[Thanks, Marcus]

Man, the EU is really not too fond of Intel, is it? Adding to all the other antitrust charges filed against the chipmaker, the friendly grey suits at the European Commission have slapped on an additional three: paying a "leading European retailer" not stock AMD products, giving incentives to PC makers to switch to Intel chips, and paying an unspecified company to delay the launch of an AMD-based product. For its part, Intel is reacting like it always does when the Europeans get prickly: by steadfastly denying everything. Intel has eight weeks to file a formal response, but as with all of these cases, we wouldn't expect a resolution any time soon.

[Thanks, Ricky]

In the brave new world of GPS, Nokia and NAVTEQ are one as are TomTom and Tele Atlas. At least that will be the picture within 5 business days. With the European Commission's "unconditional approval" granted, Nokia can now close the deal on its planned, $8.1 billion acquisition of NAVTEQ.

What makes the whole thing a bit more interesting is that Google signed a long term agreement with Tele Atlas on Monday which gives it access to Tele Atlas maps for use in any of Google's mobile, desktop, and on-line offerings. A move likely to put Android in even greater competition with Nokia which opted out of the Open Handset Alliance. Good times.

Read -- EU approves acquisition
Read -- Google's deal with Tele Atlas

Not like we were really suspecting any issues or anything, but the European Commission has just made public its "unconditional approval" of Nokia's "voluntary tender offer for all the shares in Trolltech ASA." In other words, Nokia's acquisition of Trolltech is officially complete, with today being the final day in which the latter company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. Such a cute couple, don't you think?

Microsoft's no stranger to appealing antitrust decisions before the European Commission's Court of the First Instance, and it looks like it's saddling up for another go 'round: the software giant has decided to appeal that $1.3B antitrust fine handed down in February. Saying that it was only filing as part of a "constructive effort to seek clarity from the court," Microsoft has asked that the decision be annulled. Yeah, that seems pretty clear. As always, our suggestions that this be resolved with a GTA IV / CoD4 round-robin deathmatch on Live have gone unheeded in favor of tedious paperwork and months of delay, but we're still holding out hope.

[Thanks, Hosain]

Not even a week after hearing that Air France was forging ahead with an in-flight calling trial, the European Commission has now voiced its approval of using mobiles on planes in European airspace. After six months of deliberating, the decision was finally made to give airlines the choice of offering up services in order for guests to dial loved ones at 3,000-meters or more. The EU telecoms commissioner, Viviane Reding, went on to warn operators to "keep the cost of calls made on planes at a reasonable level," and of course, not all is clear just yet. For starters, the European Aviation Safety Agency still needs to green-light the whole ordeal by approving any hardware that would be used, and we won't be seeing any 3G action up high just yet. Still, at least one less hurdle stands in the way of you phoning home from over Europe (and simultaneously making enemies out of all your neighbors trying to get a few decent minutes of shuteye).

It may have won approval from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and NAVTEQ shareholders alike, but it looks like the EU's European Commission needs a bit more time to think over Nokia's acquisition of the company, and it's now launched an "in-depth" probe into the matter. According to Reuters, the Commission said that the "proposed merger raises serious doubts with regards to ... competition concerns," although it was quick to add that the decision to open the inquiry does not prejudge the result of the probe. Among other things, the probe will apparently attempt to asses whether the purchase would affect the cost of maps for other companies providing navigation services on cellphones. If all of this has a familiar ring, it should, because it wasn't all that long ago that the EU launched a similar probe into TomTom's similar acquisition of map-maker Tele Atlas.

As expected, the European Commission just did the obvious and made the EU's de facto DVB-H standard, standard. The move is expected to accelerate the deployment of mobile television services across Europe in the same way that GSM standardization in the early 90s gave Europe a head-start on backwater cellular locations like North America. So get outta Dodge Qualcomm and South Korea with your MediaFLO and DMB mobile television technologies, you aren't welcome around Brussels anymore.

It's a good thing Microsoft has tons and tons of money, because they keep finding themselves in a position where they've got to pay out -- big time. Such is the case today, where the European Commission has fined the monolithic company €899 million (or $1.35 billion) due to failure to comply with a 2004 ruling on monopolistic business practices. The Commission found that the folks in Redmond had been guilty of -- gasp! -- freezing out competition by not providing "vital information" to rival software companies. This isn't the first time it's had to pay, as the company already dropped $357 million on the case back in 2006. "Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision," said Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Perhaps Ballmer and co. saw this one coming when they went "open" last week, though we're fairly confident this kind of fine carries only the slightest sting for the software giant.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Echoing the reactions of many to Microsoft's decision to open things up this morning, the European Commission issued a statement this morning saying that while it welcomes any moves towards "genuine interoperability," it's not going to believe it until it sees it -- it's counted four similar announcements by Redmond in the past, with nothing to show for it. Of course, Microsoft is currently being investigated for antitrust violations in Europe, so there's a whispered belief that the new steps are a ploy to derail that process, but that's pretty doubtful -- and the EU's not having it anyway, saying that "Today's announcement by Microsoft does not address the tying allegations." For its part, Microsoft actually agrees, saying that it's opening things up on its own -- the move reflects both "the reality of our unique legal situation" as well as "new opportunities and risks in the connected world." That's certainly an interesting approach -- but we'll see how the EU reacts if and when Microsoft follows through on these promises.