News EU slaps Intel with record £948m fine

So what would the money payed out from Intel be used for?

 

Ensuring that bananas conform to EU directive 12798342875963762886 and other useful stuff

 

Intel stops supplying the EU and they lose a massive portion of revenue which will be taken up by AMD. It'd be like saying "Here, have several billion dollars."

 

The whole story is about Intel's past doing and you rant about some lame progress that Intel needed badly so it wouldn't lose market share! Even if they created a new P III, they only succeeded by not letting AMD to compete in a fair matter! AMD64 was superior, but, as it was, without cash there was no significant progress! Where do you think AMD's cash comes from? Sitting around?

Looking intelligent has nothing to do with this... it's about character. There are people that like to do things the proper way and there are people that just don't give a f. Kinda like you... tell me if I'm wrong. You also like Bush!

If you like to write like a 10 year old kid, that's fine with me! Bush didn't mind to talk like one either and YouTube is full of that to back it up... but don't get all whiny on me for disagreeing. And there's nothing wrong with using a spellchecker... technology is made to help up do things faster and better. My punctuation is just fine... if you don't know what an ellipsis is, I suggest to look it up... oh, wait... you don't give a f. Then why did you reply to my post? To whine? You shouldn't have because I don't give a f. And this is one of the situations where it's actually required not to!

BTW, COSMIC BALANCE?!?!... since Bush got away, guess not!

 

Yeah... right

 

lol...wow. your punctuation is just as bad as his spelling was my point. as to the rest of your rant/calling people fags...show a little maturity. wtf are you talking about? and i didn't vote for bush, but that really isn't what this topic is about, is it? but hey, thanks for your contributions to the forum...

 

A kid like you wouldn't be able to recognize maturity... as for the rest, leave it! It seems as your single threaded neuron can't handle it!

 

Welcome to your 24hr ban JyX for flaming others. If you can't be mature, don't bother coming here. If you return and still can't be play nice with others, we'll show you the door.

EDIT: Didnt see which forum this was in.

 

im quite shocked at that statement from Intel... you'd think given how big the fine is the chap making the statement would have bothered to have a glance at EC competition law ( the relevant section they got done by is only about 6 lines long as well! and btw antitrust is an americanism), rather than spouting a load of ignorant crap.

edit: thought id add in what they actually are meant to have done:

Intel awarded major computer manufacturers rebates on condition that they purchased all or almost all of their supplies, at least in certain defined segments, from Intel:

* Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer A from December 2002 to December 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing exclusively Intel CPUs
* Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer B from November 2002 to May 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing no less than 95% of its CPU needs for its business desktop computers from Intel (the remaining 5% that computer manufacturer B could purchase from rival chip maker AMD was then subject to further restrictive conditions set out below)
* Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer C from October 2002 to November 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing no less than 80% of its CPU needs for its desktop and notebook computers from Intel
* Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer D in 2007 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing its CPU needs for its notebook computers exclusively from Intel.

Furthermore, Intel made payments to major retailer Media Saturn Holding from October 2002 to December 2007 on condition that it exclusively sold Intel-based PCs in all countries in which Media Saturn Holding is active.

 

Watched this live on CNBC today, and the CEO I think it was was very calm about the whole thing, and he stated in confidence that they will have a very strong appeal against this fine.

I personally don't think they will win a full appeal i.e. no fine, but it will go down a lot i.e. $100m.

 

As I said before:

So what? It's wrong and EVIL but as everybody does it this fine won't change much. Sadly...

 

How does this help anyone? They're saying competition got screwed because of Intel, but this decision is only going to screw over the consumers, as we will have to pay the fine through higher prices. Prices are at an all time low while performance is through the roof, no matter what the past, currently I see no problem and this fine will only punish the consumers.

 

It is a fine line to draw when it comes to a company that makes efforts to crush their competitors as opposed to beating them fairly in the marketplace. I'm not picking sides here, I am just opening the door for conversation. Is the EU overstepping its bounds by continually placing judgement against those companies like M$ and Intel that make larger profits than their competitors?

 

Given Intel's profits that is a remarkably cheap price to pay for taking out their primary competitor out at the knees. If AMD survives the recession, I hope for the sake of competition, the worst case for Intel is that they will hold the lions share of the market for at least 5-10 years and all the profits that come with it. I'm not knocking AMD's ability Intel has a tech lead for the time being. That fine is chump change.

 

If Intel were allowed to get away with this you would pay more. Look at the recent Intel price drops, from the goodness of Intel's heart, NO, it's AMD with a competitive product, yes I know it's not high end, putting the squeeze on Intel's cash crop the mid to low market. The high end is bragging rights, not for profit.

 

actually hes right, look at the History of AMD, they have made more technological break throughs then Intel, Intel simply sits back sees what AMD is doing and then copies it for themselves however I will admit that sometimes they do improve upon what AMD came up with but ya for the most they have made far more break through then intel has and thats simply fact despite how much you argue it. Of course Im speaking of the CPU market, not joint projects, when it comes to joint project Intel tries to get a hand in just about everything so they can take a little bit of credit of it.

 

Wow. The EU regulators are doing their JOBS. You can see quite clearly what happens in banking when there is not enough oversight, you get a recession and almost a meltdown.
Regulation by the people's representatives (in this case antitrust commmissions) is not only a good thing, it is a required thing.
Capitalism works on the idea of competition (exclusion), whereas democracy works on the concept of inclusion and protecting the rights of all of its citizenry. Without government to step in and slap down the largest abuses, the corporate world would run amuck and take the rest of society with it. Frankly I hope the banking melt down will lead to a new round of measured regulation in the US as has already been the case in the EU countries.

On a related topic. It was almost 2000 years ago that Cicero stated "Salus Populi Suprema Lex Est" "The Welfare of the People is the Supreme Law". This quote should be used in ALL affairs regarding governance, if a law, regulation or idea can not pass this simple test then it should be dismissed. I daresay that 99% of the laws passed for the welfare of corporations would not have been passed.

Yours in the People Plasma,
Star¤Dagger

 

I don't like bullies, whether in the playground, international diplomacy or corporate thuggery. So I hope this is just the beginning and the outcome actually hurts. Because it won't make a difference unless it hurts. Really HURTS. Otherwise corporate bullies never learn.

The reason that the OEMs weren't prosecuted as well is because they were surely victims of Intel pressure as well. Agree, or no product. No CPUs, no chipsets, no networking devices.

And there was never a choice to go along. AMD could never have made enough CPUs to supply all of a large OEMs needs. Look what happened with the Dell deal from a while back. Retail K8 AMD CPUs started to dry up as Dell soaked up supply. No matter how superior an AMD chip is, Intel will always hold the majority of box sales. That is why there are so many craptacular P4 monstrosities out there.

People all talk about the K8/A64 generation of competitive AMD CPUs, but AMD has had competitive or superior CPUs since before the 486 days. Intel Overdrives topped out at 100MHz with AMD belting along at 120MHz and 133MHz with the 5x86

386/486/5x86 - K6 (thanks NexGen! <wink>) - K7 - K8 (the only hiccup was the K5 dog).
And these are the generations covered by the Intel "rebates" (or "coercive bribes" as they should be known) that stifled competition at a time when AMD should have been able to grow their market and manufacturing capacity.


Just to clarify a few questions and comments.

* This is an EU fine for illegal practices. None of the money goes to AMD. AMD is seeking monetary damages through a civil action.
* As I understand the process, Intel MUST pay the money within three months. If an appeal is successful, they get the money back from the EU. Although this is what is supposed to happen, how Microsoft got away with their stalls I can't explain.

 

Frankly, the EU could have done better. It is not EU regulators you have to worry about. Iceland and the UK are excellent examples of individual member banking regulators either being too cosy with the banks (Iceland) or too deregulated (UK).

 

Greetings!

Almost two years ago:
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=136997