“As suspected, the European Union formally lodged antitrust charges against Intel, accusing the CPU maker of using illegal methods to compete against its main rival AMD. “I can confirm the statement of objections has been sent,” European Commission spokesperson Ton Van Lierop said in a statement given to Reuters. This action represents the culmination of years of antitrust investigation by the EU – and is likely beginning of a very unpleasant experience for Intel. While the exact Statement of Objection has not yet been made public, the EU charges that Intel used illegal methods to coerce OEM computer manufacturers to ship systems with Intel rather than AMD processors.”
Why do these things always come too late? This really isn’t going to change the monopoly situation at all; it’ll inconvenience Intel sure, but the EU’s investigation into and actions against Microsoft haven’t stopped them from being monopolistic. Vista is even more anti-competitive than XP by a looong shot.
They can’t know previously what X-Biggie Co plans. They can do investigation after the issue becomes known.
Yes, they could be faster, and they do efforts; but yet EU seems to have some years (decades?) to decide how to enfast itself
How so; everytime I hear customers complain, it isn’t over the lack of choices, its over the fact that third parties flat out refuse to port their software to alternative platforms. If you’re a customer and the only thing stopping you from moving is the lack of applications on the alternative platform, is it the ‘big bad Microsoft monopoly’ or the fact that third parties can’t be bothered?
Its time for people to ignore the freak side show attraction that is Microsoft and take aim at the real scum bag in the equation – and that is the third party and its refusal to support alternative platforms and given the consumer choice on which operating system they wish to run. Same goes for hardware vendors who hide behind the boogie man smoke screen that is ‘IP’ to some how claim that they can’t support nor opensource their hardware specifications because of some unnamed party which would object – interesting how these parties are never named.
Sure, Microsofts products are cruddy, their support is even worse, and yes, they have hard nose business tactics, but at the same time, if it weren’t for the third party software and hardware support, no one would be running their operating system.
If you as the consumer want to make a difference, one would be better off demonising third party vendors who refuse to support alternative operating systems – restricting consumer choice and propping up a monopoly.
Edited 2007-07-27 13:19
“Why do these things always come too late?”
Anticomp-cases normally take that long because it is so difficult to determine a company’s market and market power.
Anyway, anyone who did advertising with/for Intel in connection with their Intel-inside campaign knows that they are guilty as hell. In that light, I would agree that it took an awful long time
Bureucracy and democracy comes together. And there isn’t much we can do about it. History will be our judge.
There’s no democracy coming together with bureaucracy here. It’s just the regular government going for extra funding.
If it’s going to be like Microsoft’s anti-trust “trial”, it’s going to be an meritless bureaucracy coercion issue (telling people how to run their own business). Most of EU’s bureaucracy arguments will likely end up based upon fears and life-isn’t-fair. Just like in Microsoft’s case.
Intel and AMD will spend a fourtune on legal costs and at most they will be given a slap on the wrist. The Microsoft case was different though. Microsoft lost the case but the EU’s power in this instance was insufficent. N versions of windows (which MS dont advertise) and a the largest fine every imposed on a company by the EU. Sadly despite the large sum of money, for microsoft it was a mere drop in the ocean..
Eu sucks , a dirty self-profit organization through their own means , this will strike the poorer people with expensier CPU’s.
What did eu bring anyway?
1 Raised Prices everywhere.
2 More Unemployement
3 The nasty ugly €uro-monolpoly looking money
Windows Xp N (as nlite didnt exist)
They should be more concerned about having MS remove IE. But it absolutely HAD to be a silly thing about it , remove wmp a thing that isnt even integrated with windows i smell corrupted deals here between goverment and big deal media companies.
I will always oppose EU as long as it exists.
I really don’t care what makes you think that your other points are even remotely valid, but this…
…is so far from reality that I just had to point it out.
Limiting choice for the consumer is what raises the price of products. Monopoly’s raises the price of products.
Curbing the anti-trust tactics of large corporations is the only means a government has to protect itself and it’s citizens from prices st and arranged by these companies.
Your comment is off topic. I disagree with you and would gladly debate your points, but this would also make me off topic.
Do you relly live in a fantasy world where EU is a just goverment? Eu dont give a shit about its citizens intrests the top eu politicians protect their asses .
So you mean windows XP N was a citizen intrest? Now i know Microsoft is a monopoly company , the just thing to do would be asking them to strip Internet Explorer off the system but no its EU .
Btw Eu wants to introduce mass-surveilance everywhere now thats what i call Facism.
Finally (i always wanted to say this:) )
For Alcohol Rock n roll n the piratebay *smokin*
No. EU is a huge bureucracy right now. Citizens don’t have a saying. This has to change eventually but a completely negative attitude like yours doesn’t help in this direction (no EU president, no EU constitution, I don’t give a $^@ about voting, I’d rather just complain).
In case you think your country can make it on its own against the “giants”: you can’t. Except if kissing up USA (which has to mind its own buisiness first) is an acceptable alternative.
An example of how EU has benefited this country: “Tough measures have to be taken. EU says so. We can’t do much about it.”, says the government. Helps to keep populists under control. I’d still rather have a saying about it, though.
Howevermuch you agree or disagree with the EU as an institution it was them (and not america) that finally found MS guilty IN COURT of monopoly practices.
btw before you moan anymore about any political institution, did you vote? If so who is your representitive? Use that voice (which is a privalage and NOT a right) by writing them a letter/email outlining your concerns.
Actually, the US did find Microsoft guilty of anti-trust. Then Microsoft appealed, complaining about the derison with which Judge Jackson had met their case (which was a complete shambles, and included Jim Allchin being caught perjuring himself). Before the appeal got underway, George Bush became president, and instituted a business friendly policy. Nevertheless, the appeals court upheld all the original judgments from the original trial; however because of the new business-friendly policy, they scrapped all the penalties, letting Microsoft off scot-free.
The different between the US and the EU, is that in most countries in the EU, and in the EU as a whole, there is a wide gap between the executive branch and the judiciary, which makes it extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for politicians to affect the outcome of legal trials. For example, most countries in the EU don’t give the president / prime-minister the right to pardon criminals.
Anyone actually following the case would know that the political change had nothing to do with MS’ successes. Read the transcripts. It was the severe lack of evidence from MS’ “competitors”. They tried to make a case based on pure supposition (“MS could do this…”) rather than facts (“MS did do this…”), could not prove in many cases that any claimed anti-competitive behavior outweighed consumer and market benefit or lacked technical merit (e.g., IE integration), and offered remedies that were harmful to consumers and third-party vendors, and were unimplementable (e.g., ripping out IE and not accounting for the loss of functionality in ISV applications, or suggesting MS distribute 67 CDs worth of Windows builds in various configurations). They also tried to blame MS for their own coding errors (e.g., both Apple and Real tried to blame MS for breaking their software when in both cases the breaks were caused by coding errors in their own products that MS helped them fix).
About the only issues related to that case that stuck were the Java copyright infringement issues which MS chose not to go back and argue, and the OEM contract issues. The difference between the US and EC is that the EC has no problems covering for the ineptness of MS’ competitors.
Your statement is incorrect. Microsoft was found guilty of monopoly abuse, and the appeals court did not overturn that. The Findings of Fact in the original case are still valid — they were upheld in their entirety through the entire appeals process in the US.
The FoF document is here:
http://usvms.gpo.gov/findings_index.html
and you can read more than you probably want to about the US versus Microsoft anti-trust case here:
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653
My statement is not incorrect. It is in the actual court transcripts and unbiased (something groklaw could only dream of being) third-party publications. Regarding the FoF, I’ve covered that before. In short, the court of appeals, by law, only had two choices — either to accept or reject the FoF in full. They couldn’t trim out parts they thought were valid vs those they thought were invalid.
http://www.osnews.com/read_thread.php?news_id=17200&comment_id=2104…
But rayiner’s comment which was posted just after the one you made which you cite nails it right on the head, at least in my layman’s opinion:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17200&comment_id=210577
If Microsoft’s status as a monopoly and their abuse of that monopoly in the various general contexts that were covered by the FoF were at all in question, the entire case could have been easily overturned.
The case was not overturned, and the FoF was let to stand because the appeals court agreed that the FoF was substantially correct in its assessments.
If you’ve been following the personal computer industry at all over the past 20 years, you’d be very much aware of the various activities that Microsoft has engaged in with developers, with hardware vendors, with PC makers and distributors, and with various other entities to create and then retain market share for their various software product lines.
That includes Windows and Office as well as MSIE, etc.
Some of those moves have been absolutely brilliant and entirely legal in nature.
Other moves have crossed one or more lines into areas which seem (at least to me) to clearly fall inside the jurisdiction of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
From everything that I’ve seen (both from documentation that came out of the various court cases against Microsoft, but ALSO from my own personal contacts, knowledge, and experience as an active participant in both the IT and PC hobbyist communities over the past 20 years), Microsoft has done an awful lot of things which fall into a decidely grey area.
The fact of the matter is, MS was found guilty of abusively monopolistic behavior before this particular case, and it has been found guilty of abusive behavior after this particular case, both inside of and outside of the United States.
While the specifics of each abuse can be questioned, and while some circumstances or other elements can be legitimately debated, I think the pattern of behavior that Microsoft as a corporation has followed over the past two decades has been fairly consistent.
In my eyes, Microsoft’s lengthy record points to a very low level of ethical standards that I find personally and professionally reprehensible.
You may be correct in terms of technical or procedural minutia — as a programmer, not a paralegal or lawyer, I’m not all that familiar with the technicalities of “the law”. But I know what I’ve seen, and what others have told me they’ve seen, and that’s enough for me.
“Howevermuch you agree or disagree with the EU as an institution it was them (and not america) that finally found MS guilty IN COURT of monopoly practices.”
It’s my understanding that a “COURT” has yet to hear the EU case. The EC isn’t a “court”, and affords no due process when coming to its decisions. Microsoft wasn’t even allowed to cross-examine its accusers. Microsoft has appealed the EC’s decrees to a real court, the hearings for which are to be held this fall.
Besides that, I find arguments that boil down to “a COURT decided such and such” to be without merit as it assumes that courts are infallible. Arguments should be based on the underlying facts, not merley a court’s decision.
Bringing this back to the topic of Intel, does anyone know the real facts of this case? “While the exact Statement of Objection has not yet been made public, the EU charges that Intel used illegal methods to coerce OEM computer manufacturers to ship systems with Intel rather than AMD processors.” is pretty vague. I hope the case consists of something more substantive than Intel offering discounts to OEMs.
(If it follows the MS case, the EC will declare Intel to be guilty of something, but won’t say exactly what (ala Kafka). When Intel asks what they need to do to be in compliance with EU law (which the EC seems to treat as “ad-hoc law”, a truly horrible philosophy of jurisprudence), the EC will say, “It’s not up to us to tell you how to be in compliance. It’s only up to us to declare you to be out of compliance.” Then comes the inevitable 500 million dollar fine(s).)
Edited 2007-07-27 17:27
Then comes the inevitable 500 million dollar fine(s).
As I said above, the majority of anti-trust cases are resolved without fines being necessary. What makes you think Intel will act as stupborn as Microsoft?
“””
If it follows the MS case, the EC will declare Intel to be guilty of something,
“””
Slightly off-topic, perhaps. But I hope AMD is not counting on a flood of anti-Intel letters from the OSS community. Because Intel has pulled off a pretty amazing PR coup over the last year. A year ago, I would never have considered an Intel chipset or processor out of an interest in keeping competition alive. Today, Intel’s good behavior has convinced me that my next machine will be a core duo with intel video.
You’re other statement of someone’s voice being a “priviledge and NOT a right” is probably one of the most idiotic things I’ve read in years….and I’ve read a lot of stupid comments….mostly on this site.
The day your voice becomes a priviledge, is the day you should join the revolution.
In the UK you lose the right to vote while in prison
as such, if the vote can be taken away it is not a right but a privilage granted by the state
Obviously these charges are late in the coming, way to go bureaucracy, but that does not mean they are worthless.
If Intel has broken anti-trust laws in the past, especially in the EU, then they must pay reparations. Late is better than never.
If these charges are valid, then Intel has not only illegally taken sales away from they’re competitors but also limited the choice of the consumer. No matter the politics, as far as I am concerned, this second part is by far the worst charge.
I wish AMD the very best of good luck. I mean it. A much as I want them to win, Intel can swallow AMD in one go….AMD doesn’t have enough cash to fight this…but this is EU’s case
Edited 2007-07-27 11:27
But then again, the worst thing you can do is sit still and do nothing…
how much intel shares Bill Gates has… :°)
I don’t know, but last I heard Microsoft and Intel aren’t real buddy buddy. I think Intel doesn’t really care much for Microsoft.
It should be pointed out that the DG-competition has sent a statement of objections. The EU expects Intel to change its business practices and will investigate wether this happens during the next years. If Intel will change its business practices, it won’t be fined. The majority of EU-antitrust cases is resolved without fines being necessary.
Comparing with the Microsoft case, the statement of objections was sent in 2003, asking for the documentation of server protocols and separation of Media Player. Microsoft was fined in 2005, after the DG-competition concluded it didn’t have addressed the objections.
I hate to say this, but by the end of this trial, EU will have spent much more trying to get intel to play right, than intel will to fight it. No matter the fine, they just dont have the power to change intel’s ways. If they want to be taken seriously, they have to hurt intel, which I dont believe is possible at this point. AMD is falling, and while intel may have had some to do with it, look at the products. I used AMD for years because of the low cost, but the instability, lackluster performance, and quirky chipsets they run on drove me into waiting and buying quality. Unlike microsoft who makes low quality high cost products and bullys the competition, intel has actually turned to lowering thier costs and increasing quality.
the only way to stop intel now is to stop thier advancement technologically, basically tell them to shut down R&D and let AMD catch up for a year. Or make intel deal through a 3rd party that sells both chipmakers with equal advertisement. Otherwise whats the point.. they have the money to spare, and will gladly give it up to keep the top seat.
Another American company is declared a monopoly by the EU. And so it goes.
Funny how they’re charging them with anti-trust actions now, and not back when Intel virtually controlled the processor market…
Funny how there was a case in the US as well. Funny how AMD is an American company. Funny how a major European company was recently fined €1 billion+ by the oh so anti-American EU.
In fact, the only funny thing about this is the fact that the trade and anti-monopoly laws in the US are completely insufficient, but somewhat functioning in Europe. That’s kinda funny, don’t you think?
It’s also funny how american corporations are thumbing their noses at any, and all, EU charges. Until the EU gets teeth, it doesn’t matter how strong the charges are, or how much moeny they’ll impose in fines. US corporations laugh in the face of the EU, and that’s blatantly obvious.
now i realize that this will likely be an un popular oppinion but i am oging to say it anyways. I wouldn’t care one bit in the least if intel did infact have a monopoly. and this is comming from a guy who has an amd 3800 in his system he is typing this from.
Intel has shows more inovation, is more willing to work witht he OSS community, has great things in there R&D department cooking, good prices, a great product line (for the lsat year and a half). a great compiler, and honestly the list goes on and on.
amd has little to offer. and especialy on the linux front end arnt making anyones life easier witht here ATI devision.
look at intels intigrated graphics (i know i know intigrated usualy arnt allt hat great). but the 3100 is not bad at all and works flawlessly with most distro’s i have used on systems that have it.
bottom line is intel is making the right moves at the right times, and every time a large cominating company seems to do this all these cases against them start showing up.
its crap like this that gets in the way of inovation, not companies with a “monopoly.” and kid in there basement that could do a better just and prove it to the world and get there product out. its not like intel has guns to peoples heads….
just me 0.02$
Don’t condone a company that behaves unethically just because they happen to do things you like too. A monopoly situation benefits no one but the shareholders of said company. I like Intel’s recent moves too, but if they’re squashing competition by violating EU trade laws, then I don’t have any issues with the European Commission punishing them.
poundsmack wrote:
–“I wouldn’t care one bit in the least if intel did infact have a monopoly.”
oh please what are you babbling about. if they did have a monopoly we’d still be using intel’s p4 line. my current work machine is a Core 2 Duo E6600, my previous one was an AMD 4400+ which is now bumped down to being my leisure box. the reason Intel is currently showing ‘more innovation’ is because they HAD to, just like AMD did when they ate into Intels marketshares. this is the great advantage of competition for us consumers. likewise AMD now has to push their technology further with their Barcelona architecture in order to catch up with Intel. this competition propels technology further and makes it available to consumers at the best possible price. monopoly does not.
as for more willing to work with the ‘OSS’ community, that may be true, though I’m not aware of this. could you post some examples?
If they were at one point, that stopped a few years ago. AMD has been on the scene for quite a while now, and is even more common in consumer machines then Intel is. Take a walk through a store, for example Circuit City or Fry’s Electronics. There are more machines on the shelves with AMD processors then with Intel processors. Intel processors are more expensive then AMD processors, and generally do not give you much more to work with, if anything. By the very definition of a monopoly found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Primary_characteristics_of_a_… they do not even come close.