Intel tries to turn the tables on AMD in document discovery dispute

[PBS Poll-435]

Intel tries to turn the tables on AMD in document discovery dispute

By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews
December 1, 2008, 7:38 PM

Two years after being embarrassed by charges that it wasn't handling its own documents properly during the discovery process, Intel is readily assembling an eerily similar case against AMD.

Almost two years ago, the Special Master appointed to handle the discovery and acquisition of documents in AMD's European antitrust case against Intel, found that Intel must turn over certain documents that AMD might be able to use in arguments against it, even if those documents are deemed inadmissible later. In the ensuing months, Intel had trouble finding everything AMD had asked for.

Four months before the actual antitrust trial is finally slated to officially begin, Intel is looking to force a similar situation upon AMD. Intel now claims it was never given access to non-Intel documents that AMD has already used in its arguments, and furthermore, that the European Commission may have used those documents in renewing its Statement of Objections against Intel last July without giving Intel the opportunity to even see them.

"The contested decisions concern the refusal on the part of the Commission to procure, particularly from the complainant in this case, certain documentary evidence that the applicant claims to be directly relevant to the allegations made by the Commission in the ," reads the official summary of the charges in the Official Journal of the European Union, published last week. "The Hearing Officer has also rejected Intel's submission that it cannot respond properly to the SSO without being provided with these documents, and has refused to further extend the deadline for Intel to file its reply to the SSO."


http://www.betanews.com/article/Intel_tries_to_turn_the_tables_on_AMD_in_document_discovery_dispute/1228174210

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Kids today.

What a wacky bunch of knuckleheads. If they would just take a time-out and make chips, things would be a lot more peaceful around here.

[PBS Poll-435]

14. ...

:rofl:

[Xipe Totec]

2. Turnabout is fair play

It's not like AMD is little David against the mighty Intel Goliath; AMD's annual revenue is north of $5 Billion, Intel's is $8 Billion.

Pretty evenly matched I would say...

[PBS Poll-435]

3. That is not correct

For the period ending December 31, 2007:

Intel - Annual Revenue - 38,334,000,000

AMD - Annual Revenue - 6,013,000,000

Intel Has more than 6 times the revenue of AMD.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

5. Are those #'s before or after the ATI Merger?

[PBS Poll-435]

6. After.

This data is for last year, 2007.

The merger was completed in 2006.

[DJ13]

4. No, Intel makes $9 billion per QUARTER

Nearly $40 billion per year, with almost 80% of the x86 market.

[Xipe Totec]

7. Quibbling

a $5 billion dollar company is no midget.

[DJ13]

10. A 6 ft guy is no midget

Unless he's trying out for an NBA team either.

Intel was abusing their market dominance, they were caught, next comes the pain.

[PBS Poll-435]

11. Excellent analogy

:thumbsup:

[Deja Q]

17. Rightly so, their Core 2 Duos beat the snot out of AMD's dual cores... and even the newer phenom,

a quad core, can't begin to set a pace against the old Q6600 processor - which isn't a "true" quad but two duos effectively soldered together.

And buying ATi was stupid; good conceptual hardware and yet the drivers never, and I mean NEVER, eke out the performance - if the hardware specs are so nice, the fact that two crossfired 4870s only matches a single nvidia GTX280 -- that's appalling. Not to mention ATi's history of flakiness in their drivers and pitiful Linux support, for those who use Linux...

[PBS Poll-435]

19. AMD should have never attempted "Phenom" on 65nm.

The new 45nm Phenom II finally challenges C2D on the desktop front, and "Shanghai" quad-core server processors in the 4P and 8P arena wipe the floor with anything Intel has at this time.

Intel's Core i7 continues the dominance in the desktop market by leaps and bounds.

[Canuckistanian]

8. I'm tired of this shit

Just give me a choice. I'm probably paying about 20% of my processor price just to settle these lawsuits.

I've always like the Athlon features, but I'm not paying them to fight their battles.

Kiss and make up, you two. Then explain why your products are better than the competition's.

[PBS Poll-435]

9. But if Intel used illegal "anti-competitive" practices to relegate a superior product to

a few vendors and system builders, shouldn't they be brought to justice?

[Canuckistanian]

12. That I could agree with

Yes, that grabs my attention.

Maybe I should pay more attention to the details in this case. I seem to remember this from a few years back.

Thanks. I need to do some research.

[PBS Poll-435]

13. Cliff-Notes Version

One of the points against Intel was the use of exclusivity payments and discounts to purchasers of its chips.

As long as Dell didn't purchase AMD chips for its servers and desktops, Intel would sell their chips cheaper (and sometimes at a loss) than they did to other vendors. They would pay retroactive bonuses as long as purchasers maintained their loyalty to Intel. This scheme was designed to shut AMD out of the market, and prop up Intel's falling market share percentage.

Japan and the EU have deemed this type of business activity as illegal and anti-competitive. It goes to trial in the US next year.

[Canuckistanian]

15. Thanks

I remember this going on in the 90's, but on a much smaller scale in places where I used to work (I'm in electronics).

It's the "exclusivity" deals that, while good for industry start-ups, are poison when there are only a few players in a high-stakes, high-volume game.

[Deja Q]

18. Too many benchmarks (synthetic and real-life) have proven time and again;

Intel's line-up blows AMD out of the water. Despite any claims of superiority on AMD's part.

AMD's phenom may be 4 dies on one board, rather than Intel's two 2 die chips soldered together, but that Intel more than beats the comparably powered AMD. Every single time.

I went from an AMD64 X2 4200+ to an Intel Q6600 and was floored; and even going from a Q6600 to a Q9650 has shown some improvements too. And then came overclocking...

Plus, Dell uses AMD chips in many of their desktop models and people seem to be buying them.

[PBS Poll-435]

20. In the desktop and mobile markets, Intel has the upper hand

But in the 4P+ processor server market, AMD has led for about 5 years.

[PBS Poll-435]

21. And, not to belabor the point, the time period we are talking about is 2003-2006

AMD had the superior product and they were shut out of the marketplace by illegal deals.

[CRF450]

22. AMD's do good on low-mid range desktops,

Anything high-end... screw that, they're not a good choice at all. They had a good start with the introduction of the 64bit processors, early single core's including the Athlon 64 3400 at 2.2ghz I had would kick the shit out of the 3.4ghz P4's.

[PBS Poll-435]

23. I loved my Socket 754 Athlon 64 3200+

Made a nice system and I laughed frequently at the Pentium 4 3.2 GHz system that a family member bought from a well known e-tailer.

I built mine from scratch. And for 2 years or so it was very nice.

[Angleae]

24. I had one of those P4 3.2Ghz chips

used it for about 3 years. But for the price I paid for it at fry's, I could have only gotten an AMD Athlon 64 2800+. It took me only seconds to decide to get my first Intel after 4 straight AMD chips.

[PBS Poll-435]

16. ...

:kick: