Is Intel saying that when they were losing market share to AMD's X2 that they weren't doing things to manipulate and entice system makers to buy what they were selling? And now that they have gained back market share because of AMD's "lack of performance" that they no longer need to stoop to unsavory business practices?

That's what I thought they were saying.

It is true. Work hard, you get what you deserve. Intel worked their asses off and now have the market. AMD, you shouldn't have slacked off when you had the X2's.

Maybe you will jump back and maybe this time you'll understand what happens when you slack off.

Intel always had the market, even when their product was inferior. Working hard won't help you if the competition is cheating.

And what exactly is an unsavory business practice? aside from threats, last i checked if intel said here have our processors at a lower cost or even promised something else within their contracts that wouldnt be illegal. Advertisments are designed to maipulate and entice there isnt anytone complaining about that, only when they lie about what they are selling. I havent fully researched what intel has been accused of, but either way AMD should have taken a stronger stance against it if it was so damaging to their pathetic market share.

How stupid is Intel said that it believes that its business practices are "well within" U.S. law. Bribe:to give somebody money or some other incentive to do something, especially something illegal or dishonest...Now this is not within U.S. or Most country laws. It seems that Intel is afraid ofAMD. I only buy AMD/ATI.

How stupid is Intel said that it believes that its business practices are "well within" U.S. law. Bribe:to give somebody money or some other incentive to do something, especially something illegal or dishonest....Is not within U.S. or most country laws. I only buy AMD.

Intel did not do anything wrong. For example what about the coke and restaurant businesses? most fast foods only offer pepsi products only or coca cola products only, and do so because they receive heavy discounts on the coke. How is this different then what Intel chose to do with its Pentium 4? Yes, I agree, AMD could of been so much more, if only they would of done the same.

Sounds like a little sour graping. AMD fell into the same trap that Intel did, only they aren't as equipped to handle it so they go to the infamous stand-by of today: If you can't beat 'em... SUE 'em all!

Speaking of tiffs, I expect Intel to respond to Nvidia's shenanigans by using Havok and creating a Physics processor to incorporate into select Westmere or Sandy Bridge Cpus. This would jeopardize the viability Nvidia's acquisition of Ageia's PhysX technology. Then make a license deal with ATI so their cards possess a smoother interface with the new chip for an additional slam on the Green Machine.

If you haven't realized this is back in the A64 days when AMD was beating Intel. This has NOTHING to do with current performance of both of the companies chips.

The ACCUSATION of bribes is AMDs attempt to discredit Intel. People don't understand what the words Hard Work mean at Intel. I do, because I worked there. It is the hardest working company bar none. The workload is brutal. For one reason. They intend to succeed by trying harder than anyone else. If you simply observe the history of these two companies, the things they have said and done, one thing is clear. INTEL is an honorable company. AMD is not. AMD has been untruthful to customers and shareholders much of their history. They're still promising things they know they can't do. Among their many bad behaviors is this campaign to spew distorted misinformation about Intel, with the hope of stealing thru the courts what they couldn't win honestly in the marketplace. I can understand that they were very frustrated. At the time when AMD had a competitive product they couldn't win market share very easily...but it was more because of their history of subpar quality than the extremely agressive pricing of Intel. Finally, the market worked, and they won share. But then Intel buckled down. And there is NO WAY any other company (except Microsoft) could weather the kind of blistering pace they set. So, don't be fooled. The EU may hand AMD a gift because they're moving toward socialism, and don't believe in raw competition. But AMD doesn't deserve anything here. They're simply not as good as Intel.

Competition is good, but it should be fair competition. Unfortunately, what is "fair" seems to shift around depending on the power and influence of the competitor. If AMD had not been around to compete with Intel, we would still be stuck with Celeron and Pentium space heaters in our computers. I just hope that AMD can get its act together and come out with CPUs that can compete with Intels new processors, thus keeping the prices down, and the innovation up.

The issue at hand here really isn't whose chip is better than whose. The issue is if Intel offered rebates to OEMs to use Intel chips rather than AMD ones. The South Korean FTC has recently found Intel guilty of anti-competitive practices (source: http://www.betanews.com/article/So [...] 12685989). Intel was offering OEMs chips for cheaper than what Intel could actually produce them for, trying to use their large capital to force AMD out of the market.

Can everyone that's not familiar about why this anti-trust case has been put forward not voice their opinion? Please? If this case was about who has/had better gear, then saying AMD is a sore loser because there current hardware isn't up to scratch, would be totally relevant. As it happens, it's nothing to do with that. Note: This case was filed WAY before they released any Barcelona or 65nm related products.

'Been there', I don't think anyone is saying that Intel isn't a hard-working company. Considering it's annual profits and it's products of late, that'd be a hard case to make... BUT it seems like as hard working as Intel is, (if it's proven true) the company also prefers not to have any direct competitors and tries to dispose of them illegally. If they played by the rules, then tough bikkies to AMD. If they didn't, then I hope the FTC gives them the maximum penalty allowed for trying to f**k with competition, ie: innovation.

I am an AMD supporter, because we need them, but I'll happily buy an Intel CPU if I think I can get a better deal on it- it is a buyers market.

Why do people naively assume that the technically best product must always be the dominant one in the market place? There are just a few more factors than simple performance in purchasing decisions.

How about supply stability? (Ask the channel about that one after AMD started selling to Dell) How about technical support? How about advertising support? How about platform support? (Which AMD did not have at the time)

The way AMD whines we had the best product therefore we should have had increased market share illustrates EXACTLY what is wrong with AMD. They are an engineering company... there is more to business than simply engineering the best technical product. Until AMD realizes this they will always be a distant second (I think they started to realize this with their purchase of ATI and ther acknowledgement that the ability to sell a turnkey solution was important).

Remember folks best product doesn't always win - if that is their argument then they will lose abysmally.

"If AMD had not been around to compete with Intel, we would still be stuck with Celeron and Pentium space heaters in our computers"

Why do people keep saying this (or similar thingsto this). Let's suppose Intel had 100% of all CPU biz - there would be no need to innovate further, right?

Of course not - the only way to grow when you have dominant market share is to grow the OVERALL market (or branch out into new things). If Intel stopped innovating, then businesses and consumers would stop (or slow) their upgrade cycles and Intel's business would drop off. Anyone who says innovation would stop is ignorant to the market aspects. Now the pace of innovation may change, but to say it will dramatically change is absurd - if it slowed to a crawl Intel's profitability would fall precipitously.

Personally, I always thought that Intel was a successful as they were from a combination of hard work AND unsavory business practices, with the combination being about 75-25, respectively.



Actually, the best product does always win sooner or later, unless there is market manipulation. If AMD can prove that they had the best products on the market at certain times and at the best price/performance ratio, and computer makers and OEM's were STILL giving them the kiss-off...... it makes things look extremely bad for Intel.
If that is the case, I personally would be looking at Intel with the old 'leery eye', wondering what in the world is going on there.

AMD is done...they have no hope of catching Intel... The best product always wins in the end. Core 2 Duo blew AMD out of the water and they've never recovered. AMD will always be in the "low end" or "Budget" PCs from now on. ATI has gone down the drain too since AMD bought it.

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What I can't believe is when Intel fan boys say this is not true or Intel has done nothing wrong. LOL LOL LOL. Proof is in the pudding.

The FTC's two-year investigation had been considered "informal" until that point, and Intel, which is already fighting antitrust charges in the European Union and was fined this week by antitrust regulators in South Korea, said it had been cooperating.

By opening a formal investigation, Intel said, the FTC will be able to get access to documents revealing Intel's communications with certain customers -- documents Intel couldn't voluntarily provide because of a protective order that is part of a sweeping antitrust lawsuit AMD filed in 2005 that isn't expected to go to trial until 2010. AMD don't give up.

From everything I've read, this goes back to when the Pentium-4s & Athlon 64s were top of the market. It unfortunately takes this long sometimes for government to react. I personally wouldn't be surprised if this is true considering there's a lot of companies out there that cheat knowing that often the smaller competitor goes out of business before they can even win the trial.

I personally hope AMD survives to put out more good products. Otherwise Intel may end up to be another Microsoft which would be extremely bad.

Does anyone else here think this was a dangerous statement to make. Now if AMD can prove that they were performing and executing, Intel's own words dictate that the market should have rewarded them.

People who don't know the case, should be aware that AMD has been pursuing this course for a while. It started when their A64 architecture wasn't getting the market share they deemed it deserved. It also references practices in the day of the original Athlon (effectively equal to the P3) and the 386 line.

There is no question that Intel is hard working. I know a few people at Intel who worked on the new divider architecture in Conroe. In fact, that simple fact is part of the reason they are in this situation. They expect just as much from their marketing and legal teams as they do from their engineers.

In today's market, we can look back and say that Intel's practices were questionable at best. Intel effectively admits this when they don't deny their practices, but rather contend that they were legal. The real question, as Intel contends, is whether or not these practices were illegal or even questionable years back.



This is the crux of the matter. If Intel can prove that there was no reasonable expectation for them to practice otherwise at the time, then they might win this case. If, however, it is found that their practices are not inline with other industry practices at the time or that there was a reasonable expectation that Intel should have acted otherwise, then they could loose. There is an unsubstantiated (as far as I know) rumor that Intel threatened to cut off their supply all together to certain companies if they decided to start selling AMD. If this is true, then the damage done may be greater than any reward AMD sees.



I'll skip the question on Intel's honor for now. I don't know about what AMD may have done to their shareholders, but I can comment a little on the inner workings at AMD and their customer relations. While the number of people I personally know who work at AMD totals to one, she and her friends claim that it is also a very hardworking company (at least at the engineering level). They'd really have to be to make up for the differences in resources. I'll look to Lucas Art Studios an example of a rather large customer that is now die hard AMD. Lucas initially approached Intel to build a distributed computing system for real-time special effects editing for movies. Skipping the details on Intel's part, they ended up getting it built by AMD. Long story short, Lucas stated that, due to customer relations with AMD, that they'd stick with AMD even if Intel took the performance crown.

The most dishonorable thing I know of that AMD did, was imply that they could fill a larger demand than they actually could. Though this could've bee a miscommunication between the fab house and customer relations, it is equally likely that AMD expected to have more money and consequently more fabrication capacity on their hands. Their is no reason to overbook on purpose as it would both alienate customers and lock AMD into a particular price when large demand and a small supply would raise the value of the processor. In such situations, it makes more sense to kindly inform customers that they can't get more processors at the previous price as demand has exceeded the supply. Intel has also run into supply issues in the past. For instance, before the AMD/ATI merger, they bought chipsets from ATI and distributed them to customers in place of their own to alleviate their chipset shortage.

The Phenom TLB error was properly documented and a bios level workaround was made shortly their after. Further, it was determined that only a small number of cases would be affected even without the workaround. Errata is normal in the industry and only rarely makes it to public eyes. Intel had a similar issue with the floating point divider in the Pentium. It had the potential to affect any program that used fdiv and no workaround could be made. Another less serious issue was found with the float to int unit in the PII. It was found by a third party and consequently wasn't in Intel's errata documents. The point is, AMD's handling of the Phenom TLB error was to industry standards. It wouldn't have gotten the publicity it did if it weren't for the high expectations for Phenom at launch.

Unfortunately for AMD, even if they win, they amount of money they are likely to net won't be anywhere near enough to make up for what they've lost. Because of their money woes, they've lost many high profile executives and more importantly, many talented engineers that will be hard to replace. Assuming they can replace all of those with equivalent talent, it will still take time to get into the flow of things. Further, they've already lost a lot of time in R&D due to lack of funds. Even with a huge fine, Intel may end up ahead. If Intel wins, then AMD will be further in the hole with lawyer fees.

What AMD does have going for it is they seem to have gone the right direction with their architecture. With more R&D, they may even be able to refine it to the point of competitiveness. Their new micro-architecture is supposed to very different from Phenom, though. I just hope it's not a move in the wrong direction.