Posts tagged with antitrust

One week ago, the European Commission fired a very loud antitrust shot at Intel that was no doubt heard ’round the world. This “shot heard ’round the world” has sparked a tremendous amount of dialogue across the IT ecosystem regarding what the ruling could mean for Intel, the marketplace, consumers, computer makers and innovators in-general.

The dialogue from all corners has been fascinating to watch unfold. So many levels, tangents and rampant speculation abounds, including what moves antitrust regulators in the United States may now make in having stated loudly and clearly that the laissez faire approach to antitrust by the Bush era was officially over.  

Like most things, one can quickly get way, way into the weeds on the reasons behind Intel’s antitrust problems and the issues underlying them. For AMD, and for others in the industry who have been watching Intel’s antitrust snowball slowly but surely rolling downhill  for years now, it’s really pretty simple…

1. Protection of consumer welfare is the fundamental purpose of antitrust law across jurisdictions all over the world.

2. By any measure, Intel has monopoly power in the x86 microprocessor market.

3. Antitrust enforcers in three separate markets (representing roughly half a billion consumers) have uncovered evidence that Intel engaged in anti-competitive behavior and harmed consumers.

Some of the most thoughtful journalism – and I admit,  favorable to the EC’s ruling and skeptical of Intel’s claims -I’ve seen on the ruling and Intel’s weak arguments have appeared in FORTUNE, Intel’s hometown newspaper The San Jose Mercury News, and  EE Times. I encourage you to read them and let me know what you think.

Commentary speculating that AMD would rather regulate instead of innovate could not be further from the truth.  As fellow AMD bloggers Pat Moorhead and Nigel Dessau have said before me, we do not want or need special treatment. All we want is the assurance of a truly competitive market where our innovations, and those of all tech companies, are able to be freely adopted by consumers who want them, and not blocked by anti-competitive business practices  perpetrated to preserve a dominant firm’s control of the market. 

In any event, with two live antitrust investigations into Intel’s practices by the US Federal Trade Commission and NY attorney general’s office, as well as the first day of our US civil antitrust trial approaching, what can safely be said is that this movie is far from over.

A common frustration among those who I talk with regularly on this subject matter is that much of the evidence that has so far trumped every Intel argument that its business practices are legal and pro-consumer have been concealed behind protective orders and locked away in antitrust investigators’ files.  One exception is a translation of the Korean FTC findings provided courtesy of the American Antitrust Institute.

The lack of evidence available in the public domain is frustrating, but that’s the way the system works at this point.  Eventually, we are confident the facts will come out. The best we can really do at this point is to encourage you to read the civil antitrust complaint against Intel that AMD filed with the Delaware Federal Court in 2005. This complaint is filled with examples of Intel threats and coercion like those that presumably the Japanese, Korean, and European regulators found in files taken from Intel and Intel’s customers.

Michael Silverman is a senior manager of public relations at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.