Advanced Micro Devices is flying the European Union flag on its home page. A little gloating going on?

And if the image doesn't convey the message, the caption does: "European Commission finds Intel guilty of breaking antitrust laws, harming consumers."

That's not all. AMD's Break Free page is a treasure trove of information on the EU case and Intel's alleged bad behavior. "Read the European Commission's Press Release Detailing its Ruling Against Intel" and "Read the European Commission's Questions and Answers Detailing its Ruling Against Intel"--are a … Read more

In a conference call this morning, Intel CEO Paul Otellini responded aggressively to the allegations attached to the $1.45 billion fine levied by the European Union.

The fine was levied because EU regulators determined that Intel had violated antitrust legislation and engaged in anticompetitive practices to exclude competitors from the market for x86 (Intel-compatible) processors, the Commission said in a statement Wednesday.

Otellini began with an opening statement, citing the Commission's allegations of the chipmaker "granting conditional rebates, where the conditions just weren't just volume-based but allegations about exclusive dealings or in one case exclusivity on retail shelves."

"Intel strongly disagrees with this decision. We do not have those kinds of conditions in our contracts. Our contracts are straightforward. They're consistent worldwide and they're volume-based: the more you buy, the less you pay," he said.

Otellini said Intel will appeal the decision. "We intend to appeal this decision to the (EU) Court of First Instance. We believe a significant amount of evidence was either ignored or disregarded or both by the case team that would refute the allegations," he said, adding: "We intend to abide by whatever was written in the decision as we go through the appeal process."

Responding to a question about the evidence that Intel showed to the EU, Otellini said that OEMs (that is, PC and system suppliers) have stated they were no exclusive deals. "There are a number of documents that refute what was claimed here. In some cases, OEMs made statements that they were not exclusive deals and they were not under conditional terms and those documents were not allowed either into the case file or used properly by the case team in making a determination," he said.

He continued: "The process is originating from a single complainant--AMD. None of the customers complained as part of it or joined the complaint," Otellini said. "I don't see any consumer or competitor harm happening here." … Read more

Netbooks had a rocky start last year in some markets, Intel's marketing chief said at the Intel investor meeting Tuesday.

"In the first period--June, July, August of last year--there were some in the retail channels that were shipping (Netbooks) as notebooks," Sean Maloney said in a question-and-answer session that was streamed over the Web. "They were running ads that had a continuum of notebooks and had this Netbooky thing in there--it was called a notebook. They had very high return rates and a couple of these guys had return rates in the 30 percent range, which … Read more

At Intel's investor meeting Tuesday, CEO Paul Otellini discussed how the company is moving to system-on-chip technology in a big way.

Otellini began by saying that the market outlook remains positive. "A little better than we expected. So far, so good." He said he was "more firm in my belief that we will see seasonality in the second half," alluding to Intel's expectation that the PC market should pick up in the second half of the year. Otellini added that Gartner's forecast of a PC sales decline between 9 and 10 percent in … Read more

Nvidia is looking to its Tegra chip for growth and Windows 7 for new opportunities.

Speaking during the company's earnings conference call Thursday, Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said one the company's biggest opportunities is graphics-specific applications on Windows 7. (Nvidia earnings summary here.)

Huang waxed enthusiastic about a technology he called "DirectX Compute"--which taps into the hundreds of processors inside many of today's graphics processors. "Finally it's possible to do video editing...that's not excruciating," he said. "This is going to be one of the major usage models … Read more

On Thursday, Nvidia reported a first-quarter loss, as revenue fell 42 percent from last year. But the graphics chipmaker said inventory was easing.

The company announced a net loss of $201.3 million, or 37 cents a share. Last year in the same period, the company posted a profit of $176.8 million, or 30 cents a share.

Revenue was $664.2 million, down from $1.15 billion for the same period last year. This was better than the analysts' average estimate of $534.4 million, however.

Adjusted net loss was 9 cents a share. Analysts had expected a loss … Read more

Intel's "rock star" ads will try to show that Intel is more than just microprocessors--a theme of its broader ad campaign to launch on Monday.

One of the first Internet-based ads focuses on Ajay Bhatt, an Intel Fellow who was one of the principal engineers behind the development of USB, a crucial Intel technology used in virtually all PCs today. (Intel engineers in the ads are personified by hired actors. "Several of the engineers we're personifying confided that acting isn't within their comfort zone," said Sandra Lopez, Intel's global consumer marketing manager … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices' server roadmap is solid but its mainstream mobile lineup is languishing.

First, the good news. These days AMD is walking the talk. This is a radical change from the AMD of 2007-2008, which always seemed to have a hopper full of Intel-vanquishing paper processors that, if they did materialize, disappointed.

Fast forward to AMD's Tuesday earnings announcement, when the company said it was actually moving up the introduction its most sophisticated processor, the six-core Istanbul, to June.

And AMD has proved its silicon mettle at large server customers such as IBM and Sun Microsystems--the latter's … Read more

Qualcomm has delayed its second-quarter earnings statement because of advanced settlement discussions with Broadcom, the company said Wednesday.

Qualcomm is delaying its earnings statement until Monday due to discussions with Broadcom "regarding a global settlement of all disputes between the parties which, if reached, would have an impact on the Qualcomm's financial results for the fiscal second quarter," the company said.

Revenue and operating income for the second quarter of fiscal 2009, excluding the potential impact of the Broadcom agreement, met or exceeded prior guidance, Qualcomm said.

In related news, on March 16, the U.S. District … Read more