What? No fair! The FTC might interfere with Intel's ability to do business!

Wait wait wait wait..... South Korea has computers!?!?

A.M.D. has asserted that Intel offers rebates and discounts that, in effect, result in its chips being sold at prices below the cost of production, a practice that some courts in cases involving other companies have said can be a violation of antitrust law.

So, buy a Mobile CPU, chipset and graphics and we'll throw in wireless for free. They make back their foundry costs, and offer deals on complete packages. I don't see the problem with that, it's a volume concept.

Now if the license states explicitly "can't use AMD at all" then that's totally illegal. But discounts or rebates on using several products at once makes sense.

....

#29 thats the bad thing. Intel needs to have their collective ass handed to them more than once just to make it halfway level on the playing field. With the money they have to spend a message needs to be sent saying this shouldnt happen again:)

AMD claims Intel has maintained its dominance in microprocessors — the electronic brains of personal computers — by illegally threatening computer manufacturers with higher prices if they don't stick exclusively with Intel chips.

Source: http://www.gmanews.tv/story/99813/Intel-AMD-subpoenaed-over-micropr...

We should be aware of this because in the end we are the losers not them

This is good. Get it out of the realm of an AMD suit and into an FTC investigation. Anything to promote competition. I mean, really, I can't believe some of these comments about the inferiority of AMD chips. True for the present. But just two plus years ago (pre-C2D), the conventional wisdom was Intel products sucked, and AMD was displaying innovation and far-sightedness, and there was a lot of truth to that. Who knows, if Intel was genuinely stealing market share, maybe that precluded AMD from financial stability and hindered R&D and the ability to maintain their competitive edge. Just conjecture on my part. But who knows. Let's see how it all shakes out.

And all this time I thought it was AMD's poor-performing CPUs that threatened to lock them out of the business.

Likely this will be for activities that were confined to 1998-2004 time frame. With so many OEMs (Toshiba, Dell, etc.) going non-exclusive source, plus increasing market share of AMD since 2003, I can't see how recent years, 2005-present, could really be viewed as an anti-competitive environment. But like many anti-trust issues, this one will be decided years after the fact.

The more important thing for Intel is will this result in a Standard Oil type breakup or just a slap-on-the-wrist Microsoft-style fine.

lock them out of the x86 cpu market? all this time i thought it was the lackluster performance of the amd chips.

It's about time. Remember the days when mobo packaging for AMD chips never came labeled? This should have taken place way back then.

millions in fines are not even worth anything but gunk under the fingernail for Intel.

So many write "what's wrong with rebates?"

The problem stems from news articles that don't detail the explicit behavior that Scott explained.

I hear that Intel also promised the OEMs cookies.

Nothing better than money you didn't earn!