AMD sues Intel

[Himalia]

Intel and Micro$oft have some kind of in bed relationship that always been obvioues. Im glad that AMD are a big enough company to stand up to them. Some of the stuff that Intel has got away with in the pass is outrageous i hope it stops soon. Intel i feel wont be around forever, the ydo make good chips but lets face it AMD are better and cheaper. Intel are relying on the name they use to have.

 

[snoopy369]

I'm still on Intel's side. In a words undertsandable here:

Intel signed a Trade embargo with HP against AMD giving some luxuries for cheaper price.

Why don't they do the same? Start punishing customers? I'd suggest AMD doing the same things they accuse Intel to be doing. Would they succede? No. So they're suing.

"trade embargoes" as you say are illegal when used to further a monopoly. Were AMD to be in an equal-competitive position with Intel, they would be allowed; but as Intel is the market-dominator by far, Intel isn't likely to be permitted by the courts to do that.

Compare to sodas, for example - both Coke and Pepsi are permitted to engage in this practice, of entering into exclusive contracts, and usually do, because they are fairly equal in the market; not perfectly equal, but on the same level (something like 60-40 iirc).

What makes this discussion more likely to be meaningful, is the percentage of homebuilders who buy AMD cpus compared to Intel. Even taking aside the anti-monopolists who object to Intel on principle, most homebuilders agree that AMDs cpus - especially now that they have the A64 - are superior to Intel's. Intel however massively dominates the prebuilt computer market - with an inferior product? That's probably enough evidence by itself that either Intel is using anticompetitive practices, or that business are just stupid - one or the other, and possibly both

AMD, by the way, is permitted to engage in these practices, as they are not the monopolist / market dominator. They can give away free chips and have exclusive deals all they want...

What may also affect this in some small way, is Intel's new deal to make future Macintosh chips. That was always one argument they could use - that they only make chips for one sort of PC and not the other, thus preventing them from being a true monopoly (even if mac is <10% of the market) ... but no more.

 

[Himalia]

I cant speak for all the world here but ive noticed over the last 5 years in England of the swing from Intel to AMD every year it becomes more noticeable. Most pre builds are AMD in England and if you get your parts and do it yourself the suppliers say they basically only stock Intel beacause some people only want Intel theres not much profit in it for them and the sales are poor in comparison.