Intel fined $1.5 billion by EU competition authority

It's actually €1.06 billion, or US$1.45 billion.

Techworld.com - Intel hit by record EU fine
"Here's one record that Intel won't want: the chip maker has just been
hit by the European Union's biggest fine for anti-competitive practices."
http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/...60&pagtype=all

On May 14, 1:08*pm, Yousuf Khan <bbb...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> It's actually €1.06 billion, or US$1.45 billion.
>
> Techworld.com - Intel hit by record EU fine
> "Here's one record that Intel won't want: the chip maker has just been
> hit by the European Union's biggest fine for anti-competitive practices."http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsID=115760&pagtype=all

This will take another few years before any major money changes
hands. The damage has already been done, I wonder if we will have a
choice in a year or so on processors for the desktop.

On May 14, 6:06*pm, Rthoreau <rthor...@iwon.com> wrote:
> On May 14, 1:08*pm, Yousuf Khan <bbb...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > It's actually €1.06 billion, or US$1.45 billion.
>
> > Techworld.com - Intel hit by record EU fine
> > "Here's one record that Intel won't want: the chip maker has just been
> > hit by the European Union's biggest fine for anti-competitive practices.."http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsID=115760&pagtype=all
>
> This will take another few years before any major money changes
> hands. *The damage has already been done, I wonder if we will have a
> choice in a year or so on processors for the desktop.

The money would be going to the European coffers anyways. AMD gets
nothing for this ruling. AMD will only get any money from the American
civil lawsuit it has filed against Intel since 2005. It's expected
that trial will finally begin in 2010.

In the meantime, AMD can only hope that Europe will curb Intel's
practices. Europe is taking this seriously, more seriously than the
Microsoft case, as it has decided to monitor Intel itself, rather than
appoint a trustee.

Yousuf Khan

On May 14, 4:08*pm, Yousuf Khan <bbb...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> It's actually €1.06 billion, or US$1.45 billion.
>
> Techworld.com - Intel hit by record EU fine
> "Here's one record that Intel won't want: the chip maker has just been
> hit by the European Union's biggest fine for anti-competitive practices."http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsID=115760&pagtype=all

As always, your own opinion is so much more important than the opinion
of markets that you don't bother to check.

For everyone else:

Go to

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/cbuilder?ticker1=amd

Go to the box that says "Add security" and type in INTC, then click
"Draw."

Make your own conclusions as to whether anything of material
importance has happened.

Of course, the EU decision may have nothing to do with it at all.
Whatever the cause, the markets are valuing AMD's prospects as
substantially better than not so long ago, while Intel, Nehalem tidal
wave and all, has performed relatively modestly.

Robert.

On May 14, 8:14*pm, Robert Myers <rbmyers...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Of course, the EU decision may have nothing to do with it at all.
> Whatever the cause, the markets are valuing AMD's prospects as
> substantially better than not so long ago, while Intel, Nehalem tidal
> wave and all, has performed relatively modestly.

It is so simple, AMD has been taking the opportunity to secure its
future a bit during the recession. It's gotten itself some rich
backers in the UAE, and it's spun-off its factories to its
GlobalFoundaries subsidiary. It's not just the EU decision that made a
difference.

On May 15, 2:35*am, YKhan <yjk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 14, 8:14*pm, Robert Myers <rbmyers...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Of course, the EU decision may have nothing to do with it at all.
> > Whatever the cause, the markets are valuing AMD's prospects as
> > substantially better than not so long ago, while Intel, Nehalem tidal
> > wave and all, has performed relatively modestly.
>
> It is so simple, AMD has been taking the opportunity to secure its
> future a bit during the recession. It's gotten itself some rich
> backers in the UAE, and it's spun-off its factories to its
> GlobalFoundaries subsidiary. It's not just the EU decision that made a
> difference.

I'm glad it's all so simple to you. For the first time since Compaq,
this psychodrama is actually interesting, and it's ironic that AMD has
established its right to be a me-too manufacturer even if governments
have to enforce it just as the AMD-Intel x86 duopoly appears to be
seriously threatened.

For one thing, stream processors (GPGPU) are likely to take the focus
off x86 for compute-intensive applications. AMD/ATI is an interesting
player in this area and, unlike Intel, isn't trying to extend the x86
franchise in this direction.

The fab spinoff allows IBM to be less careful about aiding AMD in its
life-or-death struggle with Intel, and it's conceivable that this new
consortium could make a dent in Intel's previously invincible pricing
power.

Finally,concerns about energy consumption are a huge game-changer,
putting Via chips in Dell servers and making the search for highest
performance per watt outside the x86 space look more attractive than
ever.

I assume that no one is talking because business sucks. From a
technical point of view, these are exciting times.

Does the EU decision make a difference? As Caligula says in I
Claudius after being informed of the ruthless tactics of Sejanus, "I
shall have to be more careful."

Intel has done two things consummately well: manufacture high-end x86
chips and market them ruthlessly. Both advantages are threatened.

Robert.

On May 16, 2:18*pm, Robert Myers <rbmyers...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm glad it's all so simple to you. *For the first time since Compaq,
> this psychodrama is actually interesting, and it's ironic that AMD has
> established its right to be a me-too manufacturer even if governments
> have to enforce it just as the AMD-Intel x86 duopoly appears to be
> seriously threatened.

How is the duopoly threatened? The Intel monopoly certainly is, but
the emergence of a true duopoly can only strengthen.

> For one thing, stream processors (GPGPU) are likely to take the focus
> off x86 for compute-intensive applications. *AMD/ATI is an interesting
> player in this area and, unlike Intel, isn't trying to extend the x86
> franchise in this direction.

The only people who can use the calculation abilities of a GPU are the
usual suspects, HPC/Supercomputing. Everybody else will use the
simpler units.

> The fab spinoff allows IBM to be less careful about aiding AMD in its
> life-or-death struggle with Intel, and it's conceivable that this new
> consortium could make a dent in Intel's previously invincible pricing
> power.

Whatever. There is no sign that it makes any difference to IBM, one
way or another.

> Finally,concerns about energy consumption are a huge game-changer,
> putting Via chips in Dell servers and making the search for highest
> performance per watt outside the x86 space look more attractive than
> ever.

All boats will be lifted, once Intel was taken down.

> I assume that no one is talking because business sucks. *From a
> technical point of view, these are exciting times.

They have been exciting technological times for a decade now.

> Intel has done two things consummately well: manufacture high-end x86
> chips and market them ruthlessly. *Both advantages are threatened.

This ruling only affects their marketing capabilities, manufacturing
isn't affected at all.

Yousuf Khan

On May 16, 4:23*pm, YKhan <yjk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 16, 2:18*pm, Robert Myers <rbmyers...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm glad it's all so simple to you. *For the first time since Compaq,
> > this psychodrama is actually interesting, and it's ironic that AMD has
> > established its right to be a me-too manufacturer even if governments
> > have to enforce it just as the AMD-Intel x86 duopoly appears to be
> > seriously threatened.
>
> How is the duopoly threatened? The Intel monopoly certainly is, but
> the emergence of a true duopoly can only strengthen.
>
The traditional x86 market is being squeezed from both the low end and
the high: low-power chips that come from neither AMD nor Intel and
that may not even be x86 and high performance stream processors to
offload most compute-intensive tasks on the high end.

> > For one thing, stream processors (GPGPU) are likely to take the focus
> > off x86 for compute-intensive applications. *AMD/ATI is an interesting
> > player in this area and, unlike Intel, isn't trying to extend the x86
> > franchise in this direction.
>
> The only people who can use the calculation abilities of a GPU are the
> usual suspects, HPC/Supercomputing. Everybody else will use the
> simpler units.
>
> > The fab spinoff allows IBM to be less careful about aiding AMD in its
> > life-or-death struggle with Intel, and it's conceivable that this new
> > consortium could make a dent in Intel's previously invincible pricing
> > power.

Hardly. "Computing" becomes more and more media-intensive all the
time, and the demand for compute bandwidth just keeps climbing right
along with it. Intel had the right idea with the P4; it's just that
trying to marry stream processing to an old-fashioned general purpose
CPU wasn't the right way to confront the media intensive future.
Instead, the action (and the margin along with it) have switched to
the GPU.

>
> Whatever. There is no sign that it makes any difference to IBM, one
> way or another.
>
Yeah, right. Just like there was no sign that IBM had an interest in
Opteron and the failure of Itanium as a significant player in the
server market.

> > Finally,concerns about energy consumption are a huge game-changer,
> > putting Via chips in Dell servers and making the search for highest
> > performance per watt outside the x86 space look more attractive than
> > ever.
>
> All boats will be lifted, once Intel was taken down.
>
That's just baloney. Intel's argument, which will be rejected by the
EU, is that the industry, as dominated by Intel, has done an almost
unbelievably good job of delivering low-cost performance. The EU
argument is ideological, not grounded in any market-based reality.

> > I assume that no one is talking because business sucks. *From a
> > technical point of view, these are exciting times.
>
> They have been exciting technological times for a decade now.
>
Hardly. The only thing interesting about the last decade is that it
could be broken down to something like sports teams. In the end,
everybody was trying to aim at the same abstractly-defined chip, which
led to a computing monoculture. Now we are seeing new design
constraints and architectures that are materially different.

> > Intel has done two things consummately well: manufacture high-end x86
> > chips and market them ruthlessly. *Both advantages are threatened.
>
> This ruling only affects their marketing capabilities, manufacturing
> isn't affected at all.
>
The money to offload manufacturing never would have materialized
without the likelihood of this kind of government intervention.

Robert.

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Robert Myers <> wrote in part:
> As always, your own opinion is so much more important than
> the opinion of markets that you don't bother to check.

Of all people, _you_ now consider stockmarket pricing
an efficient source of information?

> Make your own conclusions as to whether anything of material
> importance has happened.

Always! Watch the scales. And the short time-horizon.

What I see from the stock pricing is Intel investors were
unsurprised/unconcerned about the EU decision, while AMD's
were more encoouraged. Precisely the effect you'd expect
given the single-digit market-share likely to be shifted --
small effect on the big player, huge on the smaller.


-- Robert R

On May 17, 8:49*am, Robert Redelmeier <red...@ev1.net.invalid> wrote:
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Robert Myers <rbmyers...@gmail.com> wrote in part:
>
> > As always, your own opinion is so much more important than
> > the opinion of markets that you don't bother to check.
>
> Of all people, _you_ now consider stockmarket pricing
> an efficient source of information?
>
I always have. I've more than once pointed to AMD's shrinking share
price as a response to the latest bit of cheerleading. Someone
apparently thinks AMD has a future, and that conviction is relatively
recent.

> > Make your own conclusions as to whether anything of material
> > importance has happened.
>
> Always! *Watch the scales. *And the short time-horizon.
>
> What I see from the stock pricing is Intel investors were
> unsurprised/unconcerned about the EU decision, while AMD's
> were more encoouraged. *Precisely the effect you'd expect
> given the single-digit market-share likely to be shifted --
> small effect on the big player, huge on the smaller.
>
I'm not such a confident reader of stock charts. The only question is
whether a given development is likely to make a material difference to
the prospects for the business. Whatever the cause, markets are
seeing a brighter future for AMD, and that's at least as useful
information as the latest from the Register.

Robert.