Posted on 05/13/2009 4:26:12 AM PDT by paudio
The verdict is in and it's huge. As expected, the EU is fining Intel a record €1.06 billion or $1.45 billion (Billion!) dollars due to violations of antitrust rules in Europe. The record fine surpasses that of the €497 million fine originally levied against Microsoft. The EU ruled that Intel illegally used hidden rebates to squeeze rivals out of the marketplace for CPUs. In a statement issued by European Union Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, the EC said,
(Excerpt) Read more at engadget.com ...
No, not always. Just recently.
AMD was longevity / performance king for many many years and I’m sure after the retool they are working on now they can beat out Intel again. (with a integrated gpu/cpu combo if done right)
Its just a back and forth - with the noted observance that this gen round however - Intel pulled way far ahead horsepower wise in the cpu market.
“Heck Intel stole technology from Digital and got away with it” Can you tell me what the heck you are talking about?
Intel was accused by Bill Palmer, the then CEO of Digital and now a director at AMD, of stealing Digital technology at a time that when Digital was running out of money going broke. Digital obviously couldn’t prove their claim and they settled and Digital did not receive anything for their claim that Intel stole their secrets and Intel ended up the buying Digital’s losing money fab in Hudson, Mass. The fab is still one of Intel fabs and apparently operated at a profit. Digital at its demise was carved up into pieces, some went here and some went there. Digital engineers went to both Intel and AMD.
AMD two fabs are in the EU and are heavily subsidized by the EU. However on March 2, 2009 AMD in a spin off transferred the fabs to GlobalFoundries which is a company 65% owned by the government of Abu Dhabi and 35% owned by AMD.
For more recent examples:
I got one of the Wolfdales with the bad temp sensor in it.
Doesn’t matter much though - running 4ghz+ without a temp increase anyway so it was a moot point - but still: their fault for crappy quality control. I could probably push this thing up high enough to degrade it because of the volt increase without a temp increase even: but any way you want to slice it the cpu is still “defective” because of that temp sensor. As it is, I wish I had some more accurate readings from the onboard instead of having to use a secondary sensor to read the temp.
I can’t complain about the raw performance however as it rocks socks. My point is just that your right - they have a history of shipping bad cpu’s.
However in fairness - AMD has had its own issues as well - just not anywhere near as many as Intel.
This sort of shakedown of large companies is in America’s future, too.
0bama has recently promised to strengthen “anti-trust” laws and use them to go after big corporations and technology leaders like Intel.
The Dark Ages are approaching.
I guess Moore’s Law will finally be broken.
In this example, why should Toyohonda be in any way able to use the force of government to interfere with the contractual terms between other private entities? Interference at defacto gunpoint in such matters is an assault against freedom of association (as are unions whose creation is based on votes instead of a sum of voluntary associations, but that is another matter).
Actually 22 or 23.
I’m not comletely familiar with the details of this case, but I’m kind of amazed that the EU can take money from a US company so easily. Where will it stop? The US should find BMW in violation of our laws and order them to pay 2Billion.
And so the games begin.
They are ages 5 and 2. By the time they are old enough to step up to a real system, I’ll have something else built. ;-)
Probably more than that if they live anywhere near Chernobyl.
That's exactly what it is. It'll still get to the Somalis, and the Turks, and the Iraqis...they need to pay them off in welfare benefits in hopes to get them to stop burning down their cities.
Indeed and I'm very, very sorry that I selected AMD for my lastest build. Their action in this matter has been incredibly shameful and I will never, ever use another AMD CPU or chipset.
Um, how is Intel a monopoly? AMD is everywhere, and I don’t see how the practice of providing rebates so companies your products is illegal...
Tacky, but not illegal.
It is to the EU! Of course when were they ever for free markets! You know whats really sad? The Obama administration didn’t say a word about this!!!!!!!!
The Obama administration didn’t say a word about this! Of course when were they ever for free markets!
I simply cut and pasted your original post, taking the EU out of the paragraph and just using your quote on the Obama administration. It was so easy and natural.
You don’t think I am on to something do you?
EU-rope attacks another US company and our government does nothing.
Why don’t we fight back against this BS?
For those of you who have read or are reading Atlas Shrugged, can you say, "Directive 10-289"???
Insanity!
Learn to read.
I didn’t say that Intel never had a math bug - or many other bugs over the years for that matter.
I simply said I don’t remember them ever on the “brink of going belly up”.
And...
It is still all about software not hardware.
There are a number of unique ID numbers in EVERY computer, not just the CPU.
It is all about software controlling what and who has access to said numbers. If the OS software prevents reading whatever, whatever isn’t read. For example your flash ROM in your computer that holds the system BIOS has a unique serial number that is CPU readable in every chip. The same with your video card. And your hard drive...
So try again.
Thanks for the update. I presume your “Learn to read” comment is not directed at me. I know nothing of Intel or OS or anything else having to do with computers.
My general response on tech issues comes from a Dilbert cartoon: “Forget the technical mumbo jumbo, just tell me if it works.” ;-]
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