News EU slaps Intel with record £948m fine

Probably the most important question to come out of this:- How will it affect us, the consumer? Sharp rise in Intel prices?

"Intel takes strong exception to this decision. We believe the decision is wrong and ignores the reality of a highly competitive microprocessor marketplace...There has been absolutely zero harm to consumers. Intel will appeal."

Just because there's no harm to consumers doesn't mean that harm isn't done?

 

"Intel never sells products below cost,"
LoL!

Whatever intel says, there must have been some shady deals going on back in P4 age. I've seen so many crappy P4 based PCs at schools, offices etc. despite AMD was offering cheaper or faster CPUs(but OEM's were selling AMD based PC's for unreasonable higher prices)

 

I thought the EC was saying that Intel didn't just force customers to avoid AMD if they wanted a discount, I thought they were saying Intel wouldn't sell to them at all.

Either way, it's not the most water-tight of defences is it? Intel can't just turn around and say "The EC is wrong!". They must have done something to incur a billion pound fine.

 

Do most of you miss the point why is this fine ? Market can be competitive now, maybe... But this is not about 2009, this is about the time when the whole thing started, when Intel was simply requesting HP, Dell and other PC makers to use Intel only. And in that time yes, consumers and competitors were harmed by that.

Just to quote wikipedia :
In July 2007, the European Commission accused Intel of anti-competitive practices, mostly against AMD.[71] The allegations, going back to 2003, include giving preferential prices to computer makers buying most or all of its chips from Intel, paying computer makers to delay or cancel the launch of products using AMD chips, and providing chips at below cost to governments and educational institutions.

 

Amazing statement, thanks for posting.

His argument against this ruling seems to be in the form of two points -

1. "AMD 'appears' to be doing well financially. No Harm No Foul, right...right?"
2. "The economy is in the toilet, so you shouldn't be fining us..." Seriously? Everyone is feeling the crunch so this should allow rules to be ignored/broken?

Out of curiosity has AMD filed a complaint in the US or any other territories? If so has there been any significant outcome?

In my opinion (a layman with no legal training) this case seems far, far more serious than the EU judgement against Microsoft and I'm glad the fine also reflects this.

 

If Intel appeals the €1bn goes into a trust to earn interest, and then gets dumped in the EU Membership fund. Which means bigger EU budget! o/

 

NuTech, they got fine in South Korea, in USA they are under investigation.

 

I can't decide if they're incredibly sure of themselves or if they're just being stupid..

 

Another reason to Love the EU and its protections of its citizens!

As to the question about filing in the USA, let's remember that the last 8 years the show was run by people who held the Rule of Law in contempt AND tried to justify torture.
It will be interesting to see if, under the new administration, corporations will have to actually abide by the many American anti-trust laws on the books.

Yours in EU Plasma,
Star¤Dagger

 

Bruce Sewell (deliberately) misunderstands that just because a felony has been committed years in the past, and just because the victim happened to survive the attack and more or less prosper (which I wouldn't call what AMD is currently going through), there still has justice to be done and punishment to be executed. Furthermore he is talking Intel out of having committed clearly illegal deeds, labelling it "being competitive": It is hard to believe the EU would have fined Intel w/o having clear and convincing evidence of what Intel has been fined for. So STFU Intel, hand over your money and let AMD go from your immoral financial stranglehold. You have good, competitive products - apparently you just cannot live with not being the sole ruler of the silicon world and being in a position to press everything on the customer you would like to. Get some of the business morale back you have sacrificed to your loathesome greed.

I very much hope Intel's appeal will fail and AMD will be able to charge Intel with some mighty big compensation.

 

I believe there is multiple lawsuits and investigations going on in the US-Federal, Delaware and NY at least.


EDIT:

DO you mean enhanced interrogation?

 

Serves them right.

They need to pay something for all of those shitty late P4 boxes around the world because consumers couldn't buy anything else easily.

 

Is that some kind of sarcasm, or are you serious about calling waterboarding "enhanced interrogation"?

(I think the further, but you can never be sure about that with Americans ... )

 

seems to me amd will always struggle to put out as many chips, they dont have as many fabs anyways. as far as antitrust goes and holding the market to ransom i disagree. people buy intel procs because they are cheap and powerful, not because they dont know amd exist

 

TBH, this whole thing says more about the EU for going after Intel instead of the companies that AGREED to play by Intel's rules.

If any of the OEM manufacturers had the balls to tell Intel where to stick it and went with AMD, Intel wouldn't have been able to get away with it.

There's no point pointing (¬_¬) the finger at big bad Intel when companies actively let them get away with it in the first place.

It's a bit like saying a bank robber is bad and demanding he repay what he stole when the bank manager left the safe and doors unlocked, rang the police and told them them to ignore any robbery.

IMHO, with this case and Microsoft's, it appear the EU's ego has gone to it's head. It's helping David beat Goliath, even though it knows that David will be just as bad and naughty.

 

Both statements posted here (in the news and in the comments) are laughable at best. He is completely skirting around the issue at hand, which is that Intel was essentially ensuring less AMD sales by offering financial incentives for their OEM customers not to stock them or use them in their machines. No matter how much bitching you do about the bad economy or AMD's supposed lack of damages will actually change anything. But, of course, what are they actually going to say? The proof that they did it is there, they can't just deny it, and a "we disagree with the court" hardly sounds impressive.

 

I just hope that the juge simply dubles the fine, or just says 10 of the 37 bill in turnover. 3,7 billions now that would give them some serious problems.

 

FatMikel, you totally missed the point. Those big companies were also the victims, even if it doesn't look like that. If you will get the CPU for $80 and your competitor for $70, you are forced to make similar agreement with Intel too, or you are out of the business. And if Intel wouldn't make such offer, no one would did that at all.

So yes, that's why we are talking about big bad Intel and not about big bad HP/IBM/Dell/whatever.

 

It's not about people who're buying direct from Intel (parts) it's about people buying pre-fabricated systems. When you walk in PC World, what's thrown at you? Intel, Intel and some more Intel. What do Dell stock? Nothing but Intel really. The majority of the market is dominated by Intel and if they achieved this by price fixing or financial incentives then AMD deserve compensation.

 

And what would that be good for? I'd rather have AMD get another 1 billion Euros from Intel in compensation, and I don't want Intel to be ruined. Intel makes good products. All I want them is to behave. They have > 75% market share in the CPU market and big annual net income, that should really be satisfying enough.