Microsoft isn’t the only company in the technology industry with a monopoly. Its partner in crime, Intel, has often been accused of monopoly abuse as well, and is currently under scrutiny by the same European Commission who fined Microsoft. Sources have told eWeek (which generally has a good track record) that Intel will indeed be found guilty this week of abusing its monopoly position to stifle the competition.
According to eWeek’s source, Intel will be found guilty of two violations in which it abused its dominant position in the CPU market to stifle the competition, which mainly comes down to AMD. The violations sound eerily similar to what that other company used to do.
Intel is said to have given rebates to computer makers to restrict the use of chips from its main rival AMD, or not to use them at all. In a similar manner, the chip giant also coerced retailers to only sell machines with Intel chips in them. Both of these actions are illegal in the EU. On top of that, Intel paid PC makers to delay or eliminate products with AMD chips in them. The source says the EC will characterise these as “naked restrictions” to the competition.
There are even some tantalising figures, as Intel told the PC makers what percentage of their machines could carry AMD chips. NEC was allowed to ship 20% of their machines with AMD chips, while Lenovo notebooks and Dell products had to be 100% Intel. HP had to produce 95% of its business desktops with Intel processors.
eWeek is generally pretty accurate with its sources, so it’s quite safe to assume this story is correct. This is exactly what I want the EU to do: make sure there is a level playing field in the EU market. If you want to sell your products within the EU, you had better follow the rules to be sure it’s a fair game.
This is simular to the discount Microsoft gives to manufacturers who choose not to sell Linux preinstalled on their computers.
That sounds pretty funny… to manufacturers who choose not to sell Linux.
It’s like how you “choose” to pay the men in dark suits. Wouldnt want anything to happen to your store now, that would be terrible.
I would have said forced into but I didnt want to attract the attention of “the suits”.
I’d rather see the game being fair globally. It really pisses me off that very good companies with very good products, like AMD, suffer because of the likes of Intel.
I vote with my wallet and have been with AMD for years now, and have loved every moment of it.
While I dont deny that Intel may have abused its monopoly, AMD did at least as much to hurt itself as Intel has. There are many people who like me won’t buy AMD because they relied on VIA to make their chipsets. VIA makes or at least did make, pure crap. In all my years building PCs, I have never had a board built with Via tectnology that hasn’t crapped out before its time except one. And that one had the KT133a chipset which was so messed up that I threw away the board.
I have Intel boards that got tossed around in boxes for years, no static bad, no protection. Fired them up and they worked just fine.
YMMV, but there is a reason I choose Intel.
Edited 2009-05-11 14:48 UTC
MMDHV ( My mileage definitely has varied ) but it seems
that your experience with AMD and the chipset problems are quite out of date.
Have you built an AMD system since 2001?
The first AMD system I built, back in 97, still works
although it’s really too slow to be practical anymore.
You are right to some degree. The last Via board I had that crapped out was a 2.8 GHz P4 board. Not AMD’s fault, I admit. However, how many times and how recently should I have gotten burned for it to be ok to use AMD again. I am sorry, but the sad truth (in my opinion) is that buying AMD is a crap shoot. When I buy Intel, I know that while I may pay more, I am getting parts that will last far longer than I ever have need. I still have old P3 MBs kicking around that work, although their uses are getting few and far between.
So… your Via board that you’re bitching about isn’t even related to AMD… and you’re saying AMD boards are bad?
AMD boards are not limited to Via chipsets, far from it though I must say my experience with Via chipsets has been the polar opposite of yours. In particular, many new AMD boards use AMD/ATI chipsets rather than Via–AMD does, after all, own ATI which made Motherboard chipsets for a while so why bother with Via? In fact, I see very few recent AMD boards that utilize Via chipsets at all.
Might want to make sure you’re up-to-date on AMD offerings before commenting…
Let’s not ignore the fact that VIA also makes Intel boards! Anyways, I have a number of AMD/VIA computers bought over the years and never had a single complaint. In fact I have at home a AMD 1.1Ghz w/Asus (VIA chip) machine that is still running after 8 years. My media machine just happens to be a AMD with VIA that I have had running now for 4+ years without a single issue.
I also have an Intel Core2 machine that had it’s motherboard fry out. So, should I ignore now ALL Intel, or simply understand that &#*@ happens no matter what hardware you use?
Have you tried putting BeOS or Haiku on that? I’m sure it would fly if your hardware is recognized.
I’ve had tons of boards for AMD CPUs all the way back to K6’s and never had a problem. I’ve definitely had Intel boards (especially actual Intel boards) die on me.
One serious problem I have with Intel is how they introduce a new socket type for practically EVERY CPU they release. It is so beyond annoying. -1000 points Intel.
Also VIA hasn’t been in the picture for A LONG time for chipsets for AMD boards. The market shifted to almost as bad NVIDIA chipsets and Broadcom chipsets but nowadays since buying ATI they’re pushing their own chipset division to build chipsets for all system types which is a great thing.
Every AMD laptop so far out that I have seen ships with Broadcom wireless devices; I’d love to use an AMD based laptop but due to aligning with opensource hating companies like Broadcom, I am forced to go with Intel. Nothing has ever stopped AMD from stating that the only partners as part of their laptop platform are those who support the opensource community through the provision of hardware specifications.
So please, tell me, why should I go with AMD when AMD are their own worst enemy? Lets also remember the length of time that it took for them to finally open up the specifications to ATI graphics cards (even now the documentation isn’t complete). Again, AMD is its own worst enemy – and ultimately they have no one else to blame apart from themselves.
Broadcom does have partially open source drivers:
http://blogs.computerworld.com/new_linux_broadcom_wi_fi_drivers_arr…
You can get it here:
http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt
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That is a Linux driver, not an opensource one. I want a driver that is available on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, OpenSolaris as well as Linux. My personal preference is OpenSolaris and unfortunately Broadcom through its failure to disclose specifications or provide some platform agnostic way of delivering support results in me not being able to use AMD products at all.
You mean AMD laptops or integrated systems. It most certainly doesn’t prevent you from using AMD processors, at least there’s no technical reason. Ideological, now, that’s another matter.
Sad thing is that most new Macs use Broadcom too… and, in my experience, in addition to being very unfriendly to open source, their chips just aren’t that good. My Macbook routinely drops Wifi connections both in OS X and Ubuntu, whereas my Atheros 928x-based wifi in my EEE 1000HE remains solid. Why AMD sticks with Broadcom when their chips are sub-par is beyond me.
Which is how the majority of people purchase their computers – me included.
Sure, there is no technical reason – but people just don’t go out, purchase a CPU – they purchase a complete system. The majority purchase their computers from big name vendors who in turn use the worlds most open source unfriendly organisation (Broadcom). Why do they use Broadcom? because AMD chose Broadcom as a partner for their laptop platform (along with Atheros and Realtek). Why didn’t they just settle for Atheros and Realtek instead of bringing in Broadcom?
I know what you mean; the quality has improved somewhat – 2 years after they released the first MacBook with a Broadcom wireless chipset in it – but it shouldn’t take 2 years to get semi-reliable wireless connections. I remember the MacBook, that came with an atheros wireless chipset – it was rock solid. Heck, I had a microwave, wireless phone, and three other wireless networks in the neighbourhood – never dropped a connection once.
You must be lucky on the Atheros 9K series because on the 5k series as mentioned in a previous ‘Acer Aspire One’ review I complained about the ath5k driver corrupting downloads – reported the fault on bugzilla but it was never fixed. Gave up in the end and went back to my MacBook.
He never said anyone should go with AMD.
Edited 2009-05-11 21:31 UTC
Adding a separate, known-good, working wireless card from a different manufacturer is hard because … ?
You don’t think that a surge in after-market, third-party wireless cards (like those with Atheros chipsets) would send a message to the OEMs, motherboard makers, and chipset makers?
Is it really that hard to disable devices you don’t need/want in the BIOS?
I can understand picking a laptop, desktop, motherboard, etc based on the core chipset, but to reject the entire thing based on a single, replaceable option?
Perhaps because they have some the nicest server chips out there? Because they have some of the nicest prices for chips? Because there’s more than one usable chipset maker for this CPUs? Because you get more bang-for-the buck in everything segment except ultra-portable and uber-HPC-style servers?
Because there’s more to a computer than just a wireless chipset?
So, instantly, as soon as the paperwork was signed, they should have just dumped a tonne of documentation on the world and said, “Have at it?”? As opposed to taking the time to do due diligence, and make sure they have the right to release the documentation and what not?
How long did it take Intel to release documentation on their graphics chipsets?
They certainly aren’t their best friend, and they have made several mistakes over the years, but the reasons you give aren’t the end-all and be-all of the issue.
I certainly like how they maintain the mainboard socket for a long time, unlike Intel who seems to “require” a new socket each time a new chip comes out.
I have yet to own a laptop, AMD or Intel, that DIDNT use broadcom wireless chips.. It has nothing to do with the processor.
“Lets also remember the length of time that it took for them to finally open up the specifications to ATI graphics cards (even now the documentation isn’t complete).”
I may be wrong, but im pretty sure nvidia hasnt released the specs of their drivers at all..
Edited 2009-05-12 02:47 UTC
What do you believe is still missing from AMD/ATI?
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_r600_700_gui…
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzAxNg
As far as I was aware, the last of the documentation, and some open source code as well, has been released.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzE3Nw
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_r700_oss_3d&…
The developers are working right now on a full-featured open source driver. It isn’t that far away. When it is released, that will make ATI graphics chips easily the most powerful and capable GPUs with open source 3D drivers.
Edited 2009-05-12 03:11 UTC
That’s, uh, really interesting but if you think that the availability of open source drivers from AMD/ATI or, even more comically, their use of Broadcom chips, has anything to do with their market share, then you are delusional.
The OEM vendors are who decides what hardware is being used. This is not AMD’s fault, but Intel very stronly encourages vendors putting their crap Wifi chipsets in systems with its piss poor and non free firmware. Restricting what hw can be used is the dumbest thing that could be done. If you have a problem with this situation take it up with the OEM vendor.
Show me complete documentation from Intel for their GPUs or any documentation or freely redistributable firmware for their Wifi chipsets.. oh wait, it doesn’t exist. There are a few other pieces of hardware that Intel also does not release documentation for. Plus their GPUs are garbage and the open source drivers are crap. Intel is their own worst enemy. I refuse to buy Intel garbage. Intel is FAR from being “open source friendly”. The situation with them is a farce.
It is good to see the EU using its power once more.
If it were not for the EU I’m not sure the UK or most other countries in europe would have followed this action by itself which would allow the practices to continue.
I fear the US may have to much of a vested interest in Intel being a big beast to throw the book at them in the same way the EU has
It is not that the US has anything invested in Intel, it is the fact that the last US administration was in bed with the multi-nationals. We will now see if the Obama administration will be more pro-consumer with their justice department.
Unfortunately it seems that President Obama is spending his first 4 years in office campaigning to win the next presidential election.
Having read that I couldn’t help but laugh – you really think that moving the deck chairs around on the titanic is going to the change the dire situation in the US? The only difference between the Republicans and Democrats are a different set of people they’re going to sell the country to.
Kaiwai, you may recall that under the administration immediately preceeding GWB’s, the DOJ and 19 States (or however many) moved against Microsoft’s abuses, meant it, and almost achieved their goals, until MS was saved by the bell, so to speak, when GWB seized power in 2001. That faction held said power for 8 years. You may also recall that all that has recently changed, in both the executive and legislative branches of our Federal Government. You cannot judge us accuractely based only upon the last 8 years. Sure, we’re f–ked in a lot of ways. But we, as a nation, are not defined by the George W. Bush administration. Please keep that in mind as we move forward.
Edited 2009-05-11 16:35 UTC
So Republicans are evil and Democrats are pure and without sin? come on mate – look at the large corporations who donate to Democrats; look at the companies who donate to Republicans. Its the same sort of nonsense there is in New Zealand with the two major political parties supported by big business; with these big businesses either going one or the other; or attempting to cover all their bases by donating to the two parties.
The US political system needs a major overhaul; if the last 100 years of zero reforms has shown anything, its the flawed execution of a noble idea (Republic, separation of powers etc) because the separation of powers means nothing more than years of buck passing with no one doing anything to get the country from point (A) to point (B).
Edited 2009-05-11 17:39 UTC
Come on “mate” – don’t put words in my mouth in an attempt to make a straw man argument in order to take the conversation off on your own preferred tangent.
I pointed out the very relevant, and not particularly distant, historically verifiable *fact* of the Clinton administration’s DOJ’s + 19 States’ antitrust actions against Intel’s business partner, Microsoft. Instead of addressing that, you are trying to turn this into a Republican vs Democrat free-for-all, and I refuse to play that game. The Obama administration is not the Bush administration. The current Congress also differs from those of the previous 8 years.
Again, the DOJ of the administration which preceeded the disastrous one of 2001-2008 demonstrably acted in a way more friendly to the causes of consumers, which was the statement of cautious optimism to which you objected in your post, which I replied to. Please address the *evidence* I have presented instead of changing the subject and speaking in fashionably cynical gereralities.
Edited 2009-05-11 17:58 UTC
Though off topic, but non the less.
I have the feeling that this crisis will change the world.
First the rotten world financial mafia, mostly situated in the US, UK and Switzerland, will fall.
The virtual, value-less U$ dollar will fall.
That will ultimately save a bunch of countries from a possible “democratic” carpet bombardment.
And very probably the US citizens will for once open their eyes to discover what horrible illusion of “freedom” and democracy they were living in.
Long live the crisis.
I also advice to watch the Zeitgeist movies, Part I “Zeitgeist: The Movie”, and especially Part II “Zeitgeist: Addendum” which particularly talks about the U$ dollar and the crisis.
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
I am hopeful that the new administration in the US may finally begin do something positive about antitrust.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticle…
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/11/news/economy/antitrust/?postversion…
“paid computer makers to postpone or cancel the launch of products containing chips made by its main rival”
Isn’t that the very definition of competitive behavior? Non-violently and without government intervention performing voluntary deals with their customers in an attempt to out do competitors?
If you don’t like the fact that company X doesn’t provide AMD based processors… go somewhere else. If not enough people go somewhere else to keep AMD alive… too bad. They couldn’t compete. That’s how things work.
There is a big difference between a company out competing another one, and Simply paying for dominance. If all comers took a deal that would see AMD ousted from the industry then how would consumers vote with their wallets?
Once a company dominates enough of the market to legally be a Monopoly, it becomes subject to different laws designed to allow that company to exist without allowing it to damage the market.
In a healthy competitive market, you’d be absolutely right, let the five little fish compete fiercely. Such purely business dealing strategies don’t benefit the industry or end users but they are all still small enough that natural market forces should balance everything out.
“…”paid computer makers to postpone or cancel the launch of products containing chips made by its main rival”
Intel may have been the one offereing perks to the OEM’s to use their chips, but ultimatly the OEM’s chose to take those bribes. Am I wrong in assuming that the OEM’s too are guilty to an extent?
I was thinks the same thing
It isn’t just about offering the perks. If the OEM vendors used AMD hw they were also penalized for it. They also had contracts with vendors that in most sane countries would be considered quite illegal.
That line of thought doesn’t seem to be very popular over here, or in most places nowadays for that matter. For what it’s worth, I agree. So do Austrian economists like Murray Rothbard:
http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap10a.asp
In a nutshell, there’s no consistent way to define “monopolistic” behavior as opposed to legitimate market behavior, and all antitrust legislation is harmful interventionism.
BTW, I do think Microsoft and Intel are monopolists, not because they dominate the market, but because their business model is largely based on intellectual monopolies granted by the State through “intellectual property” laws, especially patents, the antithesis of free competition. OTOH, I have no issues with, say, McDonald’s, as long as they don’t try to get patents on fast food to shun competition (I wouldn’t be too surprised to learn they have).
I would be inclined to agree that Anti-trust laws would probably not be as necessary if Patents just went away.
Nice to see EU reacting for Intel/Microsoft “crimes”
I would have to agree that in recent history Intel has come up with better products and even though I do believe that this is unfair, I also think that AMD never did came up with a good product to compete. Just look at Phenom vs Core 2 Quad, then you have the Core i7, AMD doesn’t have anything to compete with that platform. Although if you go to dual cores, they do have some good processors for quite less money.
Intel does need to pay for this as I’d like to be able to choose my hardware rather than having a wealthy company choosing for me.
The problem here is with the artificial restrictions by Intel (aka ChipZilla) to corner AMD into limited market growth by strong arming the OEMs.
Is it morally acceptable for a dominant competitor to corner an underdog by strong arming their clients? How could we expect an underdog to continue to compete when they can’t rake in the needed revenue for R&D and manufacturing?
It’s like fighting with your arm tied behind your back. You might get lucky but its still isn’t a fair fight. AMD has proven that despite the odds, they could deliver outstanding products, the playing field has to be fair if consumers expect them to do more of that.
ChipZilla guilty of anti-trust outside of the US? Who would have thunk it? *wink*wink*
FYI, I concur with your comment, just adding some thoughts that others may miss.
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Edited 2009-05-11 16:08 UTC
IMO – AMD was left in the dust when Intel released the Core2, based on performance. That chip is why I switched to Intel. AMD was caught with their pants down, and until they stop playing catch-up, I will remain with Intel.
AMD being t3h suck doesn’t magically allow Intel to break the law.
The EU saying Intel is a monopoly carries about as much weight as calling Microsoft one. No US corporation gives a furry rats behind what the EU says.
When Athlon came out. It was kicking Intel’s back big time; had Intel play fair AMD would have gotten much better market share and money to further compete better w ith Intel. Blocking sales of a better product by Intel against AMD was why we need to punish Intel big time
Hardware virtualization (AMD-V), HyperTransport, 3DNow!, x86-64 (AMD64) are innovative technologies that AMD pioneered.
What did Intel bring to the table? SSE that was inferior to 3dNow? Nehalem QPI that is a copy of HyperTransport? AMD64 branded as EM64T? An AMD-V copy that is Intel-VT?
I would like to see Intel bring improvements to the x86 ISA than merely using and abusing AMD.
IMHO AMD has much better value for money:
http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/23/why-spore-may-look-so-p…
Raw CPU performance alone does not make an overall good platform. The question is are you really getting your moneys worth?
Well if you mainly do Folding@Home or SETI@Home then that might be a different story. 😉
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AMD still has the best bang for the buck by far. That’s all I care about. I’m not paying a premium for the top 5% of the performance range.
those u could argue was a result of AMD pushing Intel to compete. Without AMD, we would all still in the Ghz game.
Also, Intel blocked sales when AMD really came out with its then superior Athlon CPU. Not letting AMD have the sales they deserve is simply wrong !!! AMD needed the money to continue pushing the boundary. Intel with its money squeeze AMD by illegal soliciting OEM not to buy from AMD while trying to scramble something to catch up. That is just wrong. AMD could have a bigger market share today. Because Athlon was really that superior at that time. But AMD could only do so much when you dont have more money coming in.
I think there is another area to consider when evaluating the impact a majority holder of a component of an ecosystem (market) can have. Specifically, the consequences spread further in the ecosystem than simply to direct competitors. When Intel gives price breaks to system integrators (HP, Dell, NEC, etc), there is no requirement of uniformity (roughly equivalent to “fairness”) of the offers extended to various organizations. This allows Intel to not only directly affect the outcome of decisions made by buyers (system integrators) today, but also, indirectly, their actions may alter which companies become the market share leaders of tomorrow.
To use an analogy, by extending non-uniform incentives to various integrators Intel is able to, in effect, have a better chance of knowing which horse will win at the race-track tomorrow. This is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy (though not quite). And it can lead to a vicious cycle of those who are powerful in one area helping partners to become powerful in another area, and then using the increased influence in those other areas to increase the power of the first.
That this sounds similar to the type of tactics used by the mafioso and politicians is no mistake. It does not make it right. It is simply how the game is played.