Intel: Friend or foe?

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develop and promote a non-Intel PC platform and held secret meetings in Chicago. Disagreements ensued, and the coalition eventually fell apart.

Charges hard to prove
With all the disparate factors involved in every deal, it is difficult to determine whether any particular Intel contract was the result of unfair manipulation or concessions made to a formidable negotiator. Sources say many of Intel's partners and customers--powerful companies in their own right--have been able to hold their own at the negotiating table.

That is what happened when IBM had planned to come out with a ThinkPad in Japan with a chip made by Transmeta, according to independent accounts by two former Transmeta executives. IBM canceled the project after Intel agreed to give it preferential allocation on desktop business processors, the Transmeta executives said. (For its part, IBM has said it did not adopt Transmeta chips because of performance issues.)

Manipulation can also go both ways. A former Cyrix executive once said Ben Rosen, the longtime chairman of Compaq, used to call him every few months and ask him to sit in the lobby. The reason: Intel sales representatives were coming to visit, and Rosen wanted to make sure that they saw one of their competitors on site. In return, Compaq adopted Cyrix for a few computers.

"When you're in the process of putting together your PC lineup, you negotiate up until the last moment," one former high-ranking computer executive said. "It's not like no one pretends there isn't competition out there."

In the end, the most formidable challenge for AMD may be Intel's skill in walking the line between tough competition and take-no-prisoners hostility.

Other business factors that have nothing to do with hardball tactics or antitrust issues often influence decisions. A former Gateway executive, for instance, said the company stopped using AMD chips in 2001 because the computer maker wanted to streamline manufacturing and inventory.

Reasons such as this make it difficult to prove long-standing patterns of unfair practices in many businesses. A central charge of AMD's lawsuit is that Intel uses a war chest of marketing dollars and rebates to edge out the competitor. But these kinds of incentives are used throughout the electronics industry--even by AMD.

In addition, according to one source within the company, Intel does not use some of the more aggressive rebate vehicles. So even if Intel is judged a monopoly, AMD must still show that Intel unfairly exploited conventionally accepted financial incentives.

Complicating AMD's claims further is the fact that computer makers and retailers love these funds. Intel generally offers four types of financial aid: volume discounts; Intel Inside funds for advertising; market development funds for promoting specific products, such as Centrino; and rebates, which, like volume discounts, are related to sales. Without these incentives, making money on PCs would be a harder proposition for many.

"You don't make money on hardware," one source said. "You make it on bags and batteries."

Some have speculated that AMD might eventually angle for a lucrative settlement, but that outcome would hardly be guaranteed. Although Digital and Intergraph obtained substantial settlements, their cases revolved mostly around patent infringement, not antitrust issues.

Patent cases are generally more threatening than antitrust disputes because a successful verdict could mean an injunction barring Intel from selling chips. AMD is not alleging patent infringement and likely never will because Intel has a royalty-free cross license to its rival's patents.

In the end, the most formidable challenge for AMD may be Intel's skill in walking the line between tough competition and take-no-prisoners hostility.

Unlike executives at Microsoft, whose trial proceedings sometimes had the feel of cathartic therapy for angry PC manufacturers, Intel's dealmakers "are more likeable in their approach," according to once source who worked with both companies.

Even some of Intel's adversaries refer to the company's sales representatives with a good-natured acronym--"FIGs," for fill-in-the-blank Intel guys.

Others, however, remain bitter even after obtaining multimillion-dollar settlements from the company.

Despite repeated denials by Intel, former Intergraph CEO Jim Meadlock insists that the chipmaker withheld technical information and products in trying to force his company to sign a patent cross-license.

"They destroyed our hardware business. We were on Windows NT and, at the time, there was no alternative," he said in a recent interview. "They put tremendous pressure on you. It was tough to get someone to testify against them."

[Walt Connery]

Charges very easy to prove...

...despite flowery language employed by Intel spokepersons to the contrary...;)

All AMD needs to do is to produce the agreements in which any companies have been given any sort of renumeration (rebates, discounts, ad subsidies, or kickbacks) by Intel for either of the following or both:

(1) Buying Intel cpus to the exclusion of anyone else's cpus ("anyone else," of course, being AMD)

(2) Agreeing to limit their purchases of AMD cpus to an arbitrary percentage of the total number of Intel cpus purchased during a given span of time.

Such purchase agreements are generally specified in detail as to the terms employed and should be child's play to produce if in fact they exist (as I believe they do.)

Despite Intel's comments trying to paint the AMD complaint as nebulous, vague, and just vacuous in general, I believe AMD's complaint is as black & white as it gets.

I loved the ZDNet editorial comment from unknown vendors saying in essence, "Gee, we love it when Intel rapes us because we are raped so subtly we hardly know it. When Microsoft rapes us we know it because they tell us all about it up front and we find it unpleasant."

Heh...;) When you really think about that self-serving remark it's highly amusing. The idea that Intel should escape consequences for raping and manipulating the markets as it has done, simply on account of the raping having been somewhat painless for the companies receiving Intel's money, is just too funny for words. That Intel proponents might ever think such a remark would generate some *defense* of their conduct in a legal sense leads me to believe that Intel is desperate not to have this can of worms fully opened and exposed.

Thing is, opinions are irrelevant. What counts is scrutiny of the routine purchase agreements Intel executes with the companies which buy its products. If those agreements show that Intel is paying the markets not to do business with AMD then AMD wins--open and shut.

In fact, I'd pretty much say that in the "court" of public opinin AMD has already won--as so much in its complaint is commonly known to lots of people in the industry. What's amazing to me is the amount of restraint AMD has had up until now, frankly.

[Walt Connery]

Charges very easy to prove...

...despite flowery language employed by Intel spokepersons to the contrary...;)

All AMD needs to do is to produce the agreements in which any companies have been given any sort of renumeration (rebates, discounts, ad subsidies, or kickbacks) by Intel for either of the following or both:

(1) Buying Intel cpus to the exclusion of anyone else's cpus ("anyone else," of course, being AMD)

(2) Agreeing to limit their purchases of AMD cpus to an arbitrary percentage of the total number of Intel cpus purchased during a given span of time.

Such purchase agreements are generally specified in detail as to the terms employed and should be child's play to produce if in fact they exist (as I believe they do.)

Despite Intel's comments trying to paint the AMD complaint as nebulous, vague, and just vacuous in general, I believe AMD's complaint is as black & white as it gets.

I loved the ZDNet editorial comment from unknown vendors saying in essence, "Gee, we love it when Intel rapes us because we are raped so subtly we hardly know it. When Microsoft rapes us we know it because they tell us all about it up front and we find it unpleasant."

Heh...;) When you really think about that self-serving remark it's highly amusing. The idea that Intel should escape consequences for raping and manipulating the markets as it has done, simply on account of the raping having been somewhat painless for the companies receiving Intel's money, is just too funny for words. That Intel proponents might ever think such a remark would generate some *defense* of their conduct in a legal sense leads me to believe that Intel is desperate not to have this can of worms fully opened and exposed.

Thing is, opinions are irrelevant. What counts is scrutiny of the routine purchase agreements Intel executes with the companies which buy its products. If those agreements show that Intel is paying the markets not to do business with AMD then AMD wins--open and shut.

In fact, I'd pretty much say that in the "court" of public opinion AMD has already won--as so much in its complaint is commonly known to lots of people in the industry. What's amazing to me is the amount of restraint AMD has had up until now, frankly.

AMD will lose either way......

Even if they do win the court battle, what are they doing to improve performance? I've run AMD processors for many years. I'm currently running dual MP 2600s and the problems I've always had with AMD is finding good boards to run them. Everything from Asus to MSI, gets decent performance, but gets whipped hands down by equivilent Intel chip/board combos. I'm currently building a new system and for the first time in 10 years I'm going to use an Intel base. I love you AMD, but you suck right now and I need performance today.

[System Tyrant]

Your joking right????

Motherboards for AMD CPU's have been giving Intel a black eye for awhile now. Although there isn't really a great performance difference overall between AMD and Intel theses days, but AMD usually comes out the winner.

I don't know what you are looking for in a system, but a dual core AMD CPU and nForce chipset (with or without SLI) is a good choice if you have the cash. If not, nForce or VIA make excellent chipsets for AMD CPU's.

If you can't find a good performing chipset for an AMD CPU, I'm sorry to say, but you just aren't looking. (I want to note I'm not trying to be offencive to you. Although I am sure I am sounding like a diehard fan boy. If I come across that way or sound rude please accept my apologies.)

My best answer to this is buy what you like, can afford, and suits your needs. I believe that AMD has a better overall value than Intel's P4 line (the P-M's on the other hand might just give AMD a black eye). Truthfully, though you will probably be happy either way you go.