Intel Antitrust Trial 39
strredwolf writes "I
just heard about this one through ABCNEWS:
Intel's being sued
in a seperate antitrust case for not releasing the technical specs
on upcomming chips to competitors such as AMD, IDT, and Cyrix.
I guess Microsoft no longer feels alone in being under
goverment scrutiny. "
Who says not giving competitors tech specs is bad? (Score:1)
Also, read the linked article, and I saw no statement there insinuating that this is what the suit is about. Just that "Intel abused its market influence to freeze out and punish competitors."
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Who says not giving competitors tech specs is bad? (Score:1)
Why should Intel (or anyone else) *have* to give competitors an inside track on the technical specs of future products? Last time I checked, it's not illegal to keep your competitors in the dark.
Intel produces a lot more than CPU chips -- and it's known that incompatibility with motherboards' chipsets is a serious problems for competing processors. Not to mention "secret" and "patented" CPU connectors (slot 1, 2 ...)
Bad summary (I hope) (Score:1)
IIRC, in that case, Intel was being accused of licensing their technology to various other companies, then refusing to deliver the info unless those companies gave up trade secrets that were germain to areas Intel might want to enter, but were not part of the original license agreement. Kind of like what Microsoft has done with some of their licensing agreements ;).
I know that this was the crux of the matter with Intergraph; I'm not sure how AMD & Cyrix fit in. In any event, the case wasn't about Intel being a monopoly; it was about them using their market muscle to avoid fulfilling their contractual agreements. I hope that's still all it's about.
this is crazy (Score:1)
What some of you seem to be missing is this, whenever one is granted a patent that information must be kept in the US Patent office for all to see. Including one's competitors. If you get a patent on one technology and use that to hide the development of another you've violated both the spirit and letter of the law.
Even though Pepsi and Coke don't have to release their entire formulas, they do have to list ingredients. Intel may not have to explain how they've implemented MMX and Katmai, but they do have to tell what they are.
LK
It's a little late for this... (Score:1)
4-5 years ago AMD controlled 30% of the 486 market. Today they have a CPU market share appriximately the same as Apple's complete unit Market share.
AMD and Cyrix have made considerable progress recently, however Intel still dominates the market.
This is in large part due to consumer ignorance, for example most people that I deal with think that a celeron 333 is "faster" than a Pentium II 300.
Intel has done their best to flood the market with chips at various speeds and arcitectures in order to confuse the unsavvy public.
LK
Which would not be intel or M$ (Score:1)
Monopoly does NOT mean 100% market share. It means enough market share to dictate terms to customers or control essential services. That can happen with less than 100% market share, but would definatly require a strong majority.
For MS, the case is very strong. If MS chose to charge an exhorbitant license fee to any given VAR, they would be seriously crippled or even bankrupted. Let's face it, Linux is good, and if you specialise in servers, you'll do well preloading Linux only. In the desktop market however, you'll loose most of your customer base that way (sad but true).
The case for Intel is a bit harder to judge. It is possable to sell AMD only hardware so that is not the issue. As I understand it, the Intel suit is based on them having the market power to patent slot1 and dictate that motherboard manufacturers license the patent in order to use Intel CPUs. Furthermore, was it unfair monopoly style competition to block AMD and Cyrix from proiducing a CPU compatable with slot1? In an open market, a move like that should be close to suicide (witness Apple and closed standards in the '80s, the MicroChannel archetecture etc.)
This does NOT stifle innovation. Intel is free to improve their CPUs all they want. If they really need slot1 to produce a better CPU, fine. They do not, however, need to prevent AMD from producing a slot1 CPU in order to improve their own CPU.
Funny you should all complain (Score:1)
Stop Being Fascist! (Score:1)
the only supporters of socialism are those who are stupid, dishonest and lazy and hate folk who aren't.
I'm on Intel's corner on this one (Score:1)
My best wishes in this battle against low-lives who want to rape your investment in R&D. I'm amazed at how some people think that stealing the product of others' work is a Good Thing.
Intel is under no moral obligation to give anyone its specs.
Eugene
My .02 (Score:1)
Ex Machina "From the Machine"
xm@GeekMafia.dynip.com [http://GeekMafia.dynip.com/]
Which would not be intel or M$ (Score:1)
summary->article syncronization? (Score:1)
Does this mean Ford has to give a T-bird to Chevy? (Score:1)
Is the government trying to bring this brilliant idea to the computer industry now?
While we're at it, why don't they just force the writer of the best Operating System to release the source code??? Oh, wait, that's already been done...
Stop Attacking Capitalism!!!! (Score:1)
At least Intel is smarter than Microsoft... (Score:1)
Just look at Microsoft's defense - Bill Gates suffering sudden inexplicable memory loss.
Just look at the dumb tape that Microsoft botched.
And look at how Microsoft let incriminating memos and email sit around for people to find!
ABC bites (Score:1)
ABC bites (Score:1)