May 12, 2009
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Over the past several years, Intel has often been accused of monopoly abuse and is currently under investigation
by the European Commission, the same organization that fined Microsoft in 2007 for monopoly abuse as well.
Now some industry observers are saying that Intel will be found guilty this week of abusing its monopoly
position to stifle its competitors.
Intel will probably be found guilty of 2 violations in which it abused its dominant position in the microprocessor
market to hurt rival AMD.
These violations sound very similar to what Microsoft used to do.
Intel told computer manufacturers what percentage of their PCs could carry AMD chips. NEC was allowed to ship about
only twenty percent of their computers and laptops with AMD chips, while Lenovo notebooks and Dell products had to
be 100 percent Intel!
For its part, HP had to produce 95 percent of its business desktops with Intel CPUs.
Some industry insiders say that Intel even offered rebates to PC makers to further restrict the use of chips
from its main rival AMD, or not to use them at all.
In a similar manner, Intel also coerced PC retailers to only sell computers with Intel chips in them. Both of
these actions are illegal in the European Union.
But it even gets worse.
Additionally, Intel paid PC makers to delay or completely eliminate products with AMD chips in them. The EC will
characterise these as "naked restrictions" to the competition.
This is exactly what some want the EU to do: make sure there is a level playing field in the EU market. If you
want to sell your products within the EU, you had better follow the rules to be sure it's a fair game, or else get
out of that market.
It will be interesting to see how this story unfolds itself in the next 10 days, when EU courts are expected
to rule on the case.
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Source: eWeek.
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