EU files anti-trust charges against Intel
Six-year probe bares litigation
After years of investigation, the European Commission has issued formal charges against Intel today, for alleged anti-competitive business practices against rival AMD.
"I can confirm the statement of objections has been sent," EC spokesman Ton Van Lierop told Reuters.
The EU has been sniffing around Intel's business practices in Europe for six years, but the investigation got a second wind in 2005 when AMD formally accused its arch-rival of using illegal tactics to dominate the PC and server markets. AMD has also launched formal complaints against Intel in the US, Japan, and Germany — although no decisions have been reached in any of the areas.
Intel would not comment on the Commission's charges, but it's likely the company will have a statement prepared when the the official EU statement is filed tomorrow morning. The company has previously denied the charges.
In 2005, EC officials raided Intel premises as a part of their investigation.
"We have not been informed by the EC of the issuance of a statement of objections concerning Intel," AMD said in a statement. "On the basis of an initial press report, we await the EC's public description of its apparent decision to charge Intel with illegal monopoly practices that harm consumers, as well as Intel's response." ®
COMMENTS
Advertising works because....
When shopping for mobile processors intel had LV and ULV options that blew away AMDs specs when it came to power use. And lower power uses typically means lower heat.
Since we are changing a good amount of our fleet over to mobile Intel will continue to win there.
As for machines that live on the mains I have always been open-minded. AMD put out good chips but they have required a bit more power and cooling.
Adverts
Hehe, yeah I've always been an AMD boy for the well known reasons...
Joe Blogs tends to get sucked in by the adverts and not trust AMD because to them they dont have the branding.
Ask any one that goes for Intel if they think advertising works hehe
Amen
Shad,
Thank you for telling it how it is...
Intel cannot and has not made a superior product since the day Dec went under and laid off all of thier engineers and AMD hired them... Intel has been looking up ever since, and will continue to do so for all eternity.
Not only did Tom's hardware mobilize the internet against Intel for brutalizing OEMs, Tom's Hardware and Anandtech together brought Intel to its knees over the P3 1133 flop, Intel knowingly released a flawed, unstable and worthless 1133 chip, and used bully tactics to silence the critics, but Tom and Anand were having none of that, in an almost fairy-tale like David and Goliath the fought Intel and pressed on with their case, and after several months, with no holes to crawl in to and no more weapons to fire, Intel finally crumbled and recalled 80,000 CPU's.
if you think AMD is just whining, i suggest you open your eyes and look at history a bit... Intel has f*cked AMD long and hard for years, well before the release of the athlon, just read the court papers, Intel had paid AMD billions in settlements over the years for unlawful practices and breach of contracts.
heres a little math for you... what do you get when you cross a K6-3 and a Dec Alpha?
Athlon64 (and Intel screaming oh shit!)
RE: Knock Knock and a Crock
This is not the first time Intel has played dirty. Tomshardware guide was instrumental in mobilizing the internet community in the late 90's when Intel was threatening motherboard manufactures who made AMD based MBs with "support chipset delays" for the Intel line... it does not take a genius to figure out that nobody is going to risk 80% of their business for 20% of it.
This is just another example of of a long history. Intel is not a company with a lot of ethical scruples it seems.
And no, intel does not make better CPU's. Anybody who knows core architecture knows that Intel has being playing catchup with AMD for damn near ten years now (since the k5). They license and, if AMD and others are right, steal technology to maintain their lead in the marketplace.
The problem is 80% of computer users would prefer to ostrich themselves (burry their heads in the sand) and continue to pretend that they are not slaves to Intel spin (Kinda like Mercedes owners who tell you how perfect the car that spends 6 months of every year in the repair shop is).
@Chris
You must be living under a rock or something. M$ didn't get where it is due to it's products... It got there due to strongarming OEMs to inclued always pre-installed software etc... This included things like you ONLY install our OS and no other on ANY of your products... I'm guessing intel did the same thing... you want to sell our hardware sure but you only sell OUR hardware... etc...
