[quote= The Washington Post]The Obama administration sued chip giant Intel on Wednesday over a decade-long run of actions allegedly designed to stifle competition, opening a new front in the battle that big technology firms have been waging for years against antitrust challenges in Asia and Europe.
The Federal Trade Commission lawsuit resembles past cases brought against Intel by Japanese, Korean and European Union regulators over rival Advanced Micro Devices, and it adds new allegations that Intel rigged its microprocessors in a way that made it difficult for a competitor, Nvidia, to provide consumers with superior graphics abilities for computer games and video.
Intel denied the allegations, saying that it "competed fairly and lawfully" and that "its actions have benefited consumers."
The lawsuit marks a major step for President Obama toward fulfilling his 2008 presidential campaign promise to "reinvigorate antitrust enforcement." At the time, he criticized the Bush administration for "what may be the weakest record of antitrust enforcement of any administration in the last half century."
Other key antitrust tests lie ahead. The power of Google, Comcast's proposed takeover of NBC, and the market share of the makers of mobile phone handsets are all under examination by the Justice Department, the Federal Communications Commission or the FTC.
The technology industry, which has also been wooed by Obama, has been striving to resolve a string of antitrust actions in the United States and abroad. On Wednesday, the European Union ended its decade-long antitrust investigation of Microsoft after Microsoft agreed to market rival browsers as well as its own Internet Explorer. On Nov. 12, Intel paid $1.25 billion to rival AMD to drop antitrust and patent lawsuits as well as complaints filed with agencies, including the FTC. Many technology analysts were also cheered by the administration's decision to let software giant Oracle acquire Sun Microsystems, despite Oracle's dominant position in business software.
But the FTC on Wednesday alleged that Intel had used bullying tactics and payments to get computer makers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard to use Intel chips instead of those made by AMD. The FTC complaint, the culmination of a one-year investigation, said "that Intel fell behind in the race for technological superiority in a number of markets and resorted to a wide range of anticompetitive conduct, including deception and coercion, to stall competitors until it could catch up."
The agency added that "Intel's anticompetitive tactics were designed to put the brakes on superior competitive products that threatened its monopoly."
The FTC isn't seeking monetary damages from Intel. "We are frankly more focused on conduct," Richard Feinstein, director of the FTC's bureau of competition, said in a news conference. Such remedies could include forcing Intel to share intellectual property with competitors.
The case could become a key test of antitrust law. Forged during the Progressive Era a century ago, antitrust legislation was designed to tame steel and oil monopolies, and was later applied to shoe and beer makers.
But under the influence of University of Chicago economists and others, courts began to worry about the harm antitrust enforcement actions could do to innovation and ultimately to the consumers they were supposed to protect. Over the past 15 years, federal courts have made it harder to show abuse of monopoly power and to win suits for treble damages. Judges taking a more skeptical view of antitrust actions have ranged from federal appeals court judges Richard A. Posner and Frank H. Easterbrook to Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer.
Applying antitrust to the tech sector has been particularly thorny because of falling prices, constant innovation and technology that often changes faster than it takes to litigate an antitrust case. Yet rarely have so few companies stayed so dominant in their fields as Microsoft, Intel, Oracle and now Google.[/quote]
Anybody else suprised? I would have expected Nvidia to be sued if anything, not Intel.
I guess I've been out of the ring but I don't get what Intel did. What did they supposedly do to these microprocessors?
Obama what the fuck are you doing.
[editline]10:06PM[/editline]
"Many technology analysts were also cheered by the administration's decision to let software giant Oracle acquire Sun Microsystems, despite Oracle's dominant position in business software. "
This pissed me off the most. It's almost obvious that will over time kill off MySQL for their own product.
Well at least they're not seeking money in the suit according to this article.
This isn't the first time Intel has been in hot water. They need to cut it out whatever it is they keep doing to get in trouble.
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;19002073]I guess I've been out of the ring but I don't get what Intel did. What did they supposedly do to these microprocessors?[/QUOTE]
You could read the damn quoted text and find out.
:saddowns:
intel has already been sued god damn :crying:
Intel barely even has a monopoly. It only controls roughly 2/3 of the market, and that's only because the Core 2 Duo/Quad series was so much better than what AMD was offering at the time.
[QUOTE=ButtsexV2;19003219]Intel barely even has a monopoly. It only controls roughly 2/3 of the market, and that's only because the Core 2 Duo/Quad series was so much better than what AMD was offering at the time.[/QUOTE]
You obviously have no concept of how much 2/3 actually is do you?
well it was more so that they made companies sell Intel only.. iirc...
The law suit isn't because of a monopoly, there isn't one.
It is because of dirty business tactics. Someone seriously needs to knock Intel on their ass.
I doubt Intel actually needs to do shit like this. Their processors are way ahead of the competition.
[QUOTE=j00g0t0wnd;19003295]I doubt Intel actually needs to do shit like this. Their processors are way ahead of the competition.[/QUOTE]
Not everyone is made of money. Consumers, especially these days, want to spend less. AMD rules the budget market. Intel just bribes OEMs to only sell Intel PCs or by making more Intel than AMD PCs.
At the end of the day OEMs will make money either company they sell with. They just make more with Intel cause Intel is bribing them... allegedly.
So, you are right. They don't [b]need[/b] to do this, but not because their processors are superior.
I fucking love AMD. And this is another reason why. I dunno about you guys but I find that AMD + NVidia is faster and better than Intel + NVidia or even Intel + ATI according to the claims made. So I see that Obama is doing something good, at least in my opinion. No offense guys, just an AMD Fanboy.
[QUOTE=Leat;19003382]No offense guys, just an AMD Fanboy.[/QUOTE]
yeah, which is why we ignore your opinion
I love AMD chips. :fuckyou:
[editline]09:49PM[/editline]
But I like Intel too. Who to choose!
[editline]09:50PM[/editline]
Actually I am running on an Intel Core 2 Duo setup, I really like it too. Sucks to see this sort of thing happen to Intel.
[editline].[/editline]
I choose Intel. :biggrin:
I'm an intel fanboy, but i have to go budget which is why I bought AMD. Don't get me wrong, the Phenom II 965 i have is way better than my pentium 4, but i still wish i had an i-7 :(
-snip-
[QUOTE=Funcoot;19003260]You obviously have no concept of how much 2/3 actually is do you?[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it certainly isn't a monopoly. Not that it has anything to do with this thread, anyway.
People who are saying Intel are way ahead of AMD, consider this: Unfair competition means they make more money, means they can pump it on research, means they can come out with better processors.
So you could say that their processors being better was one of the benefits of that unfair competition. But I'm just speculating, no one but them can really tell how it happened. I'm just saying that even if they have better hardware now doesn't mean they can't compete unfairly, and that previous unfair competition could've been the reason why they're so far ahead today.
[QUOTE=Funcoot;19003283]The law suit isn't because of a monopoly, there isn't one.
It is because of dirty business tactics. Someone seriously needs to knock Intel on their ass.[/QUOTE]
They already have been, they paid out one and a quarter billion to AMD for all their complaints. Now Obama's going after intel as well, while intel has done nothing wrong. If intel makes good CPUs, so be it... they've earned their market position. Now, whether or not they set up their hardware to perform differently based on the presence of competitors' hardware is another story, which requires further investigation.
thy have a monopoly really so can't say I didn't see this coming
Good for the FTC. I've seen first-hand what Intel does (I worked for them for a time) and it is dripping with antitrust violations.
I say intel gets what's coming to them. They keep on pushing their hardware onto manufacturers and giving them sweet deals on frankly substandard CPUs. I'm not playing sides here, I have no affinity for AMD at all here, I just think that Intel needs a big ol' boot planted in their ass, especially when it comes down to licensing their technology.
They are gonna be kicking themselves in 5 years anyways for sticking with the slow and expensive x86 architectures while ARM comes in from behind and makes a killing making superior and cheaper Cortex processors for the mobile market.
Anti-trust laws are communism in a way... how ironic...
intelicant
I don't get it mate, how is it ironic that a left wing politician does things similar to communism?
lrn2ideology dammit
Intel is k, they have about 1777777777 quadbillion dollers.
Nyway we need bush back
WAR AND INTEL!
(btw i rated myself dumb)
go obama!......is what i would be saying if i was metally retarded. What is next in this conquest of stupidity?
[QUOTE=Alyx;19006665]Anti-trust laws are communism in a way... how ironic...[/QUOTE]
Only in so far that they aren't capitalism.
[QUOTE]Well at least they're not seeking money in the suit according to this article.[/QUOTE]You know for a fact that they're going to ask for damages. Just because they aren't telling the tabloids that they are asking for money, doesn't mean that they won't.
[QUOTE]This isn't the first time Intel has been in hot water. They need to cut it out whatever it is they keep doing to get in trouble.[/QUOTE]So what they need to do is cut their sales down to a level closer to AMD's? That definitely won't happen.
[QUOTE]They already have been, they paid out one and a quarter billion to AMD for all their complaints. Now Obama's going after intel as well, while intel has done nothing wrong. If intel makes good CPUs, so be it... they've earned their market position. Now, whether or not they set up their hardware to perform differently based on the presence of competitors' hardware is another story, which requires further investigation.[/QUOTE] Obama is going completely socialist and is aiming at hurting the big companies in America. It's too bad Intel has to be his first big target(#60-70 on Fortune 500).
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