News - AMD and Intel settle on antitrust and IP disputes

[HEXUS]

The firms have agreed to drop their respective legal struggles, including AMD's antitrust suit, in favour of a new five year cross license agreement.

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[nightkhaos]

Erm... good?

[Noxvayl]

I did not see this one coming. WOW...

Commend Intel for settling, I can only hope this means they realise the business practices they employed were wrong and have now learnt a valuable lesson. Plus $1.25 Billion in damages been paid to AMD means no more debt for them.

I look forward to good innovation coming from AMD now that they don't have severe money constraints. This should improve innovation in the CPU market where AMD has been lagging behind badly.

2010 and 2011 are looking promising now

[cleaverlch]

I did not see this one coming. WOW...

Commend Intel for settling, I can only hope this means they realise the business practices they employed were wrong and have now learnt a valuable lesson. Plus $1.25 Billion in damages been paid to AMD means no more debt for them.

Imo, Intel may have realised that settling now would be cheaper than waiting for the court to decide on damages... or AMD desperately needed cash.

[MonkFish]

Cheaper for intel to pay AMD $1billion nw than to pay $1billion in each market that the legal disputes are in. IMO they still need to be investigated for anti competitive practices as in the longer term everyone suffers due to them.

[scaryjim]

Erm... good?

I'd go beyond good. The only way this could get better for AMD is if Intel forget to do any R&D for the next 2 years, allowing AMD to catch up

Hopefully what it will mean is genuine development and performance tuning of Bulldozer and Bobcat before release, as AMD will have a stable financial foundation to base that on and have decent and profitable mid-range components already in the market place. The real issue for them when Intel released Core 2 was that they didn't have anything comparable, and they didn't have the resources to properly develop and tune Phenom before release - if they had we might have seen Phenom II months earlier.

As it is, it looks like AMD is going to have to take a back seat in the processor market for another year, in which case one hopes they'll be going all out for the graphics market (since they've already stolen a lead in that one!)in 2010 and pushing out some really fantastic CPUs / APUs in 2011. You never know, I might even have enough cash for a new system by then...

[MadduckUK]

for those of us that are idiots - what does a billion actually equate to? they paid 5.4 of them for ATI i know that much, so is it a drop in the ocean or a substantial amount? will it all go to paying off debts or will some be invested in future products?

so many q's

[nightkhaos]

for those of us that are idiots - what does a billion actually equate to? they paid 5.4 of them for ATI i know that much, so is it a drop in the ocean or a substantial amount? will it all go to paying off debts or will some be invested in future products?

so many q's

That's why I was a confused as well. I thought they were BILLIONS of dollors in debt, not hundreds of millions.

[Tarinder]

One billion is 1,000 million.

That should buy financial stability for a short while to come, you would think.

Trouble is, 2010 is pretty much a write-off in terms of processors, so let's look forward to 2011.

[kalniel]

Smart move on both sides. Intel needs AMD to remain a viable, yet inferior at times, competitor.

[scaryjim]

Smart move on both sides. Intel needs AMD to remain a viable, yet inferior at times, competitor.

Not only that, but by settling they avoid being found guilty of any wrongdoing - even though settling strongly suggests they were up to no good, legally they're clean as a whistle. If they'd be found guilty in any of those anti-trust actions, they'd've been open to attacks from all sides because there'd be legal precedent.

Also, while $1.5bn isn't exactly a drop in the ocean, it's an amount that is far more affordable for Intel to pay than for AMD to miss out on...

[drunkenmaster]

AMD are backed by the oil trillionaires investment group, Global Foundries owns 45% of AMD and AMD own 45%(or maybe 55%) of GloFo. Money is no issue, AMD already have more cash than Intel, by a large amount, theres just, afaik, no need to pay off the debt right now as its essentially on hold till 2011/2012 anyway.

THe money is a LOT, and in no way buys Intel immunity from processcution, not least because it was a government led case, not a civil case between AMD and Intel, Intel are still in do do as far as the USA government is concerned. Works out as win win for AMD, they don't need to throw millions at lawyers for 5 years of court cases to support the trial, they get a bumper payoff and the companies Intel were manipulating don't want the government poking their noses in so Intel won't be getting away with the same behaviour anymore anyway.

The money is great, it simply means the oil barons get to pay of a substantially smaller debt when it gets paid off, in reality, other than helping ease the appearance and size of their debt, it will make very little difference in day to day business for them. In terms of stocks price, well it went up a lot today after the announcement which is unsurprising, closed at $5.32 yesterday and is currently at $6.44. Smaller debt, however unimportant/easy it would be to pay off still looks good to people buying shares, they are in a stronger position than they were and the cross licensing agreement being renewed helps somewhat to cover any big new things to come.

I forget how much semi chartered was, something in the region of 4billion, on top of the roughly 2billion cash they handed AMD as the company split in two, and the 6billion for the New York fab straight away which will likely rise quite a bit by the time its finished. You're talking about 15-20billion being spent to get in the game by Global Foundries and the oil guys, 3-4billion in debt is realistically a drop in the hat. the majority of that 6billion for the New York fab is for equipment, not the building itself. Equiping a new fab costs in the region of 2-5billion depending on size and how close to cutting edge it is. Their likely upgrading several Chartered fabs to newer process's will cost billions also, aswell as Dresden in the future. They have the funding, and obviously the intent to push their business forward, thinking they'll let AMD fold over a mere 3-4billion, when they own 45% of the company is nuts.

EDIT:- http://www.marketwatch.com/story/des...iny-2009-11-12

New york states attorny basically saying, thats a settlement between the companies, our case has nothing to do with that settlement and they'll be reviewing the settlement themselves to see its all above board.



Basically the settlement is to stop the government finding Intel guilty, charging them a crapload then having AMD make a civil case asking for damages, when they basically know the verdict will go their way. This will no doubt agree no matter the outcome of the governments case, AMD can't sue them afterwards looking for damages. There could easily have been not enough proof to find Intel guilty in the current case, which would leave AMD without cause to sue for damages. So this is probably a number between what they'd get if Intel were found not guilty of anything, ie nothing, and what AMD could sue them for if they were found guilty ,which would probably have been a whole lot more than 1.25billion, but several years of appeals, hundreds of millions in research lawyers and time and its probably just not worth it.

[Phage]

Wow....
What does this say about intel ? Nothing good.

[Pob255]

However as Intel has already been found guility by the EU court it strengthens other clames.
It does sound like Intel are settling out with AMD simpily to reduce the total clames against them, so they can focus on fewer cases.
Getting marred down in litergation is not good for a company, they may of been able to win against AMD but long running legal cases don't do the stock price much good in the long run, means a short term hit for longer term stability.

Any news on the nvidia vs intel situation?
That's a case that could have greater impact current situation atm.