Read more.The fine was levied back in 2009 for abuse of market dominance.
Read more.The fine was levied back in 2009 for abuse of market dominance.
Intel still trying to get out of this? I would hope that there is scope for adding on additional interest for delaying the payment of the fine for several years. I don't think there is anybody left that doesn't think Intel engaged in anti competitive behaviour when it had the inferior product.
I think the results of this are still being felt now in that the lost financial revenue for AMD past and present has meant that they have not been able to maintain strong competition to Intel in most areas and they still struggle to get big OEM's to push their products.
In fairness the EU should now hand over that money to AMD, you know, rather than just distributing among all the greedy politicians !
And Intel arguing that no long term harm was done, from my perspective is an utter lie. AMD's R&D department must be miniscule now because of the lasting damage Intel did.
Intel actually paid the fine years ago - they've just been trying to get it back, and have not been delaying any part of the process, other than some regulator or another padding his pocket. If this commission had any credibility, they would turn the fine over to AMD - although that might look bad, considering AMD already successfully sued Intel for the same thing, and was already paid.
AMD's problems at that time weren't anti-competitiveness. It had a LOT more to do with them buying a struggling GPU company, and a couple of dead end processors of their own. Yes, they had the edge on Intel on parts of the consumer market, but they squandered that advantage, and still haven't made it up. And please don't try to say that some exclusivity deals in Germany destroyed their business.
Kanoe (13-06-2014)
Pretty shoddy behaviour by Intel, and personally, the "defence" stated in the article is at best paper thin.
Given that - as pointed out elsewhere yesterday - Dell are pretty much an Intel-only shop these days, I've got to wonder if some "incentives" are still being offered.
Of course, AMD could help matters by giving us a proper replacement to the FX series. I'll be looking to - finances permitting - replace my ancient PhenomII at the end of the year and it looks like Intel is the only game in town. I've only still got it because of the help given by Cat-The-Fifth earlier in the year!
While I agree to an extent with that second sentence, I don't agree at all with that last line. Did you read the part in the article that said:
As I understood it, these deals were not limited to Germany, but covered the EU (might even have been global deals). I suppose if you take a very strict view then perhaps the PC makers could be accused of accepting bribes - but that's pushing the point to ridiculous extremes.It is judged that Intel breached competition rules when it tried to impede rival AMD back in 2009, by giving rebates to PC makers Dell, HP, NEC and Lenovo for buying most of their computer chips from Intel.
The decision itself used words like 'almost' and 'could be' - hardly definitive, especially for a legal judgement that's purely punitive, with no benefactor other than the commission itself. You'll have to forgive me - I am an American, after all, but if it were MY government, much of which I had no hand in electing, basically telling me over and over, in multiple ways, just how stupid or unable to make a choice on my own without having my hand held, I'd be offended.
Most people that actually know and care about the difference between AMD and Intel already know, and knew then, how to acquire it. People don't walk into the local WalMart, or KMart, or pick a similar EU based store, and make a choice based on a processor company, or video - they buy them based on price. The majority of us here are builders - we prefer the hands on approach to just about every detail we can control. We don't go to box stores for any of our parts - at least not willingly.
And while I can't speak for the EU, WalMart and similar outlets are where the primary sales of Dell and HP take place. NEC is a non-player, and Lenovo is 'high end' business, and seldom (if ever) bought over the counter. Lenovo is/was IBM, and has ALWAYS been Intel prejudiced. The term wasn't Intel compatible - it was IBM compatible, with the Intel chips inside.
HP is considered by a lot of people to be some of the dirtiest players in the game - they probably approached Intel and came up with the 'rebate' scheme to begin with.
And that Michael Dell would take what amounts to kickbacks and bribes is far from shocking - he's screwed over many local governments by skipping out on deals made to employee local folks, build new factories, etc, in exchange for reduced/zero tax incentives. When it comes down to it, the only OEM that embraced AMD full force was Gateway. Look where they are now. But don't look too hard - you won't find anything anymore.
I'll admit I'm an Nvidia bigot, and have been for a long time. But I was also an AMD bigot for almost as long, until Intel came out with the Core2 series, and completely blew AMD out of the water on a performance per dollar basis. Combine that with the fact that I don't need to upgrade a motherboard each time a new/updated CPU comes out (unless I completely change architecture), it's a no brainer. AMD went from T-Bird to total trash in less than 2 years - that had nothing to do with anti-competitiveness, and everything to do with straight up lousy engineering and poor business decisions. And I wouldn't be surprised if the decisions announced today turn out to be bad in the end as well.
This isn't something Intel did in 2009, this is an appeal against a judgement handed down in 2009 over stuff they pulled a decade ago.
At that point Intel was pushing the god awful Pentium 4, and was stating that the 64 bit future was with the Itanium. Now those were bad engineering and business decisions. The Athlon and then Athlon64 ran circles around what Intel had.
The bit that I don't get is how Intel are handling this now. They use to be really good at this dirty stuff. They slapped down AMD, got caught, paid the fine(s), and that bought them the time the needed to get Core-2 out of the door. The fine is bad publicity, and if they just paid and walked away it would all be forgotten in no time. Instead they insist on dredging this stuff up. They can afford the fine, they should just let it go and enjoy the monopoly that they bought.
Edit to add: AIUI, Intel are not contesting that they did wrong, they are contesting the size of the fine.
Pretty sure the nod to the T-Bird was acknowledgment that this was well before 2009 And in reality, the only people that give a rat's butt about this are those of us that spend our time on the tech sites. Joe and Jane consumer couldn't care less, so long as their box store, discount computer boots and they can play the latest version of Farmville. And somehow, I doubt the publicity will make the least bit of difference - people are going to buy what they are going to buy, and that's the bottom line. Personally, I think the news that workers were jumping out of Foxconn manufacturing buildings while making Apple products was far worse publicity, and it doesn't seem to have hurt them in the least.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Intel...9-279474.shtml
^^ from 2012 - intel had NOT paid the fine in 3 years , and IMO they still haven't paid it.
edit:
http://www.dailytech.com/Intel+Loses...ticle35051.htm
bare in mind intel have already paid both AMD and NVidia for the same thing - they haven't actually paid out to the EU YET.
Xlucine (15-06-2014)
Oohh, that's why that was always playingThe second strategy was the “marketing spin.” Practically, if a computer manufacturer advertised a product based on an Intel processor, Intel would require them to play the “Intel jingle” at the end of their commercial clip.
http://www.fool.com/investing/genera...that-eu-f.aspxRelax, Intel already paid the fine
Many in the investment community cited this development as a potential negative catalyst for Intel. However, Intel paid the fine long ago and was simply appealing the European Commission decision. That $1.4 billion -- which represents about 14% of the company's trailing 12-month net income -- has already gone poof. At worst, Intel wasn't going to get its money back, and at best the company would have added about $0.28 per share back to its balance sheet
Note the bold?In an email to eWEEK, Intel corporate spokesman Chuck Mulloy said the company is disappointed in the decision, adding that "we have said all along that the EC erred in many areas. After we've studied the decision, we will evaluate our options and decide what to do next. Intel already paid the EC's fine, in 2009. We have 70 days to appeal to the European Court of Justice, which is responsible for correcting erroneous interpretations or applications of EU law."
http://www.eweek.com/pc-hardware/int...n-eu-fine.html
Softpedia was wrong 2 years ago, and they're wrong now. But it's always fun to dogpile...
Intel did NOT `pay the fine` in 2009 , yet alone in 2012 - otherwise softpedia could be sued for slander....
notice they wernt then - so intel did NOT PAY.
So Motley Fool, one of the most highly regarded stock advisory sites on the internet, blatantly lied? And not to be pedantic, but it would be libel, and not slander... and I doubt Intel is going to pay attention to a blog post, any more than they would come here, see your post (or the EU commission coming here and seeing mine) and sue either one of us for libel.. Google both Intel paid EU fine, and Intel not paid EU fine - see which one actually nets results.
Here's another one - from Ars Technica... read the last paragraph. I guess they're lying too...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...d-by-eu-court/
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