As was already revealed by eWeek earlier this week, the EU has imposed a massive fine on Intel for abusing its monopoly position. The fine is larger than the one given to Microsoft: 1.06 billion EUR, or 1.44 billion USD, opposed to the 899 million EUR fine imposed upon Microsoft.
Dutch EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes was clear in her assessment. “Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years,” she said, “Such a serious and sustained violation of the EU’s antitrust rules cannot be tolerated.” In addition to the fine, the EU also ordered Intel to cease its illegal activities, and that it will be monitored thoroughly for compliance.
We already detailed why Intel is being fined: it paid money to PC makers and retailers to not use AMD chips. Since Intel has an 80% share of the personal computer microprocessor market, it is considered a monopoly. Intel faces only one real competitor, and that’s AMD.
Intel could face even more antitrust cases, as the FTC upgraded a probe into Intel last year, and the Obama administration has stated it will take a more aggressive stance against monopoly abuse.
On a personal note – if there’s one Dutch women who will ever have a shot at becoming The Netherlands’ first female prime minister, it’s Neelie Kroes.
I really wish more Eurocrats were like her. We would have way more competion and more FOSS everywhere.
And I am sure she would be better PM than Harry Potter.
This is surely similar to what happened recently in the netbook market, where the “Linux OS pre-installed” option for netbooks suddenly virtually disappeared of retailers shelves all over the world.
It is also surely very similar to what has been happening for years and years where a vendor would venture into offering Linux pre-installed on some machines, and soon after that was withdrawn amidst advertising along the lines of “we recommend Windows”.
If there was a case against Intel, then surely a similar case can be made against other monoploistic suppliers who have been using a dominant market position to force out potential competitors.
The EU already went after Microsoft for monopolistic practices, and as far as I know that’s still ongoing. I believe the situation you’re describing was in the ECIS report, if I remember correctly.
That first fine on Microsoft by the EU was for not revealing interoperability specifications (network protocols) and for bundling (media player). The current investigation is for bundling again, this time for bundling IE and thereby keeping other web browsers out of the market and attempting to make it necessary to have IE and Windows in order to view web content.
Paying one party to not use a competitor’s product would be an entirely different thing again.
I think the first article mentioned it (can’t remember if here or elsewhere but I think it was here a day ago or so). Microsoft was found guilty of this very same practice. The two big profile EU cases where/are interoperability and bundling but MS has been in US courts over OEM fixing.
It was the same old “if you sell systems with no OS or not our OS, we will take away your deep volume discount so you can’t compete with all the other OEM that play by our rules.”
The one and only reason Linux failed on Netbooks is the Grand Microsoft Conspiracy and facts such as:
– Users booting up netbooks and seeing something unfamiliar
– Users not being able to install all the windows programs that they already paid for
– Messed up Linux installations which failed to support webcams out of the box
played absolutely zero role. Everything was perfect until Microsoft came along.
Edited 2009-05-13 14:13 UTC
“Users not being able to install all the windows programs that they already paid for”
Users don^aEURTMt install software on netbooks> The majority don^aEURTMt because it doesn^aEURTMt have a CD drive, and they^aEURTMre not used to the idea of software not coming on CDs. The only software I^aEURTMve seen users install is either Skype, or MSN.
The only valid reason I could see an average users wanting XP over Linux for is that the Linux software bundled with the machine isn^aEURTMt MSN enough, and doesn^aEURTMt support webcam; as you’ve said.
What?! I just consulted my calendar, and apparently it is May 2009. I think most people are familiar with downloading and installing software. Grandma, who is not, or only has CDs, will be able to locate the family geek to take care of it. That’s when she is introduced to the sad reality that her 7 year old accounting software and decade old garden manager won’t work any more.
From my experience, MSN is not the big deal here, most people will happily use alternatives, as most of them do a good job. Even Office is not that big of an issue most of the time as OO is good enough.
On the other hand, large group of netbook buyers are students looking for cheaper solutions. They are smart enough to move the contents of the CD that came with their textbook to a USB key, but they won’t be able to run it. That is the deal breaker right there.
Edited 2009-05-13 15:45 UTC
Yes, but with Linux-based netbooks, there is usually no real need to install anything more than is already installed.
Grandma uses accounting software? For what?
Mine uses Quicken and Turbo Tax.
Quicken is an accounting software package.
With that being said, the integration is abysmal. Compare the Windows XP configuration and work done then compare it to their Linux version; I can see why some Linux advocates just say, “if you’re not going to do it properly – don’t even try” – the half baked attempts have basically given Linux a bad rap as the operating system that couldn’t step up to the challenge (when in reality it is the OEM’s at fault).
I’ll put money on it, if there was an OEM who spent a little time fine tuning and making sure it all works out of the box – spending some time making sure that there is good integration; and it might actually involve hiring a dozen programmers to contribute back code to the linux kernel and open source stack – maybe license CODECs so that the out of the box experience is as smooth as possible.
The problem is that OEM vendors expect a solution to drop out of the sky instead of realising that this is their chance to make a unique experience for their customers – something that makes their product stand out from the rest. For those wondering, yes, I will pay extra for something that works well out of the box over something that appears to be thrown together in a hurry.
Well, Windows has the same problem on desktops and laptops, with OEMs loading the machines down with bad shoddy drivers and software (‘crapplets’) that nobody wants. The end result is a brand new machine that runs like it’s 5 years old, and people think it’s Windows that is problem, where if they’d only reformat and install with good drivers, most (if not all) if their problems would go away.
I don’t know who you are purchasing off but when I had a Lenovo Thinkpad T61p, all I needed to do was uninstall some crapware, run the updater, and voila, my computer went to sleep and woke up without any problems, my computer boot time was snappy, all the hardware was fully supported rather than partially supported as with the case of Linux, the implementation of usbvc and missing features that the standard provides by the linux implementation doesn’t.
Compare that to the Linux world where even preinstalled Linux versions can’t sleep properly when the lid is closed, when the update server is broken (SLED update server was broken, I notified Novell of it but it was never fixed, the net result is they lost a contract for over 300 users), the lack of fully supporting the features of the hardware, the poor quality of the drivers as with the case of the ath5k (in the acer aspire review I did) where bugs are reported but never fixed.
Compared to Linux, Windows is a walk in the park.
That’s what I’m saying… it’s different depending on which OEM you purchase from. Point being, I don’t think either operating system is really to blame for these issues, cept for the SLED thing being down. That looks to be a problem with the distro vendor.
Windows being a quality operating system with a huge amount of software available for it isn’t a valid reason?
Linux is a quality operating system with a huge amount of software available for it, but it isn’t the only one.
God have hears
Hopefully this will allow AMD to bounce back a bit and get their fair share of the market. Truly a good day for consumers everywhere!
How is fining a company going to help another company?
How is not fining a monopoly for using its position to keep competition out of a market ever going to stop them from continuing to do so?
Edited 2009-05-13 11:58 UTC
Depends; is this the maximum? will Intel just pass it along to their customers instead of changing their ways? it reminds me of the environmental fines that are given out and the company simply just including the fine as part of their ‘cost of business’ and thus passed it along to the consumer.
Also, lets remember that it was AMD who made the complaint; it doesn’t occur out of thin air – again, I go back to choice; I would have an AMD laptop if the OEM vendors didn’t load their AMD laptops with anti-open source hardware.
They made it difficult for AMD to compete, if they increase their prices it will help AMD compete. But they won’t raise their prices because that would be stupid. They have easily enough cash in the bank to soak this up.
Edited 2009-05-14 09:52 UTC
Made it difficult to compete? AMD made it impossible for me to purchase an AMD based Notebook/Netbook without a BroadCom wireless card! you talk about choice, AMD and their cohorts gave me no choice and as such I ran to Intel for what I wanted – who is to blame for that? or am I going to be abused by AMD fanboys that apparently *I* have the problem for daring to run a non-Windows operating system on a Laptop/Netbook?
Depends; is this the maximum? will Intel just pass it along to their customers instead of changing their ways? it reminds me of the environmental fines that are given out and the company simply just including the fine as part of their ‘cost of business’ and thus passed it along to the consumer.
Also, lets remember that it was AMD who made the complaint; it doesn’t occur out of thin air – again, I go back to choice; I would have an AMD laptop if the OEM vendors didn’t load their AMD laptops with anti-open source hardware. [/q]
Along the same lines it wouldn’t be fair for AMD to demand third party hardware be bundled either. Of course they could release their OWN wireless chipset like Intel did and bundle that….see where this is going. This is always the problem. When one side plays fair, they’re always at the mercy of the other people that won’t until a ref steps in and makes a ruling. In the case of wireless it’s Broadcom (the anti OSS) who’s being squeezed by Intel bundling wireless now so they have to get the sales where they can offering better deals than Atheros can afford to make and OEM’s can’t afford to be OSS idealistic and have contracts left over from intel PCs to use up, after all, wireless is wireless.
The court ruling was too pay a fine for the behavior in the past and a court order against the behavior in the future. It helps other companies by addressing the industry harming advantage Intel has due to it’s market share rather than product quality. It’s not even that Intel has monopoly position; it’s that they use that dominance to muscle out competition rather than maintaining dominance against competition through the products own attributes.
In the US the “civil” lawsuit is where the victim gets damages, for example in the OJ case the civil-suit jury “awarded the Brown and Goldman families tens of millions of dollars in punitive damages against Simpson”.
I found a quote directly related to your question “would my guilty plea( in the criminal court) constitute an act of admission and make it easier for the people I hurt to come after me with a civil lawsuit”. http://www.southerncaliforniadefenseblog.com/2009/04/california_cri…
I was wondering if a more apt punishment would have to force Intel to open the specs or release the patents on one of their chips.
Sure it would really hurt Intel (perhaps too severely?) but it would also be a stark warning to them and every other company which abuses it’s power that such actions will not be tolerated.
Plus, fining a company of Intels size wouldn’t really affect it’s business nor offer compensation to the competitors who Intel have harmed.
What’s your thoughts on this idea? Too harsh / damaging or just punishment?
Microsoft has done far more too damage the computing industry and set us back DECADES, vs Intel.
At least Intel continually posts real improvements, year to year which are measurable and the costs keep going down.
It is exactly opposite with Microsoft. Prices keep going up and the quality is <censored>.
Microsoft should have 60 Billion dollar fine, so that all of that money can be invested into the industry. Right now it just sits around funding lawyers to do analysis work on the SCO case and figure out how they can wage another proxy war against open source projects.
If Microsoft can’t spend the money correctly, perhaps it is the job of the society they work for to use the money for more constructive things: Like open source projects.
At the very least I would like to see the money Microsoft currently has taken away and put to work in the industry right now to do some real innovation and get things heated up again.
The computing industry is f*cked up.
-Hack
Microsoft is already responsible for funding FOSS. Mr Gates claimed as much in interviews; “we fund Universities. Students at those school write FOSS. As such, FOSS is financed by our money so we have some claim too it” (I’m paraphrasing.. was a long while back I read it)
hehe.. seriously though, MS has it’s own issues but this article was about Intel’s abuses and MS always gets the attention in these discussions.
Your dead right though, the computer industry is a mess not remotely close to a healthy market place. Technological advances withheld in stock piles to be released slowly against some company’s financial planning document. Competition through backroom deals and synthetic market forces versus competition through products and natural market forces. What other engineering related industry would tolerate such a mess?
Good grief, what a perfect freetard post. You’re the poster-boy for open sores software, aren’t you?
Agree. I would much rather see that billion-with-a-B go toward new or improved fab processes. Or toward funding of more projects like the International Components for Unicode or its Threading Building Blocks. You guys are all so quick to side with the EU, but lest we forget their unmatched openness regarding hardware specs, allowing Linux to easily support the most common GPUs, RAID chipsets, network cards, etc in the world.
Regardless, it is still a no-no for a company with over 80% of a market to pay other companies to not use a competitor’s product. That is the rule.
The reason for the rule is simple: it is too hard for a new company to enter a market that is being protected by a dominant player. Monopolies are not good for the public best interests, competition is good, ergo … stifiling of competition is a no-no.
The rules are the rules. You break the rules, you get a fine. It is that simple.
I hope other countries will follow (especially USA). Everybody should fine Intel and Microsoft until they die. I will never buy anything from Intel ever.
Last major upgrade, I looked at Intel and AMD but it was Intel that had the benchmarks in my chip/price range. I wanted to go AMD but they didn’t have an answer for the Q6600 quade core at that time. Next system build, I’ll do the same; hope for AMD but it’ll be the better bit of hardware. Same with the GPU, if AMD can make ATI viable again then my next rig may not be Nvidia. We’ll see how the open driver comes along.
That’s why I don’t want to get the new Mac-Intel systems. I still have my iBook g4 (PowerPC). But it’s getting old ( April 2004 model ).
I wish that Apple dumps Intel and become more open.
Such as Apple + AMD, Apple + ARM for iPhones and Apple + Freescale/Motorola/PA Semi .
Yes, because the brand of the cpu in your computer or phone is really important to your workflow.
Riiiight.
Why fine just Intel? Surely, they had accomplices on this. Do companies in the EU not understand that when they are asked to sell one product for a discount in exchange for not offering another product that it is against the law? They should be fined an equal amount. They are guilty as well. Intel cannot do this on their own. The fine should be sufficiently heavy so they won’t do it again and so that Intel and other companies cannot use the “bully” tactic as part of their business tactic.
One more question: where does all that money go from the fine? It should ALL go to the consumers who were harmed.
Edited 2009-05-13 12:53 UTC
If all your competition sells Intel machines at the deep OEM discount but you choose to sell AMD and Intel machines forgoing that deep OEM discount for not doing as Intel requests; your hooped. Your Intel machines sell at a higher cost or you take a noticeable smaller profit margin. Either way, your screwed compared to the other OEM vendors.
I don’t think it’s the company in cahoots with Intel so much as no company willing to take the risk of paying more for processors and chipsets than the other computer retailers.
Now, if there are companies that said “that’s a great idea, I’d like to see only Intel chips available, let’s do it!” – well, that company should be taken out behind the barn and buried beside Intel. But too many things run on Intel for it to go away without effecting the market and evidence of conspiracy with OEM vendors may be hard to come by.
No. The market for home PCs is a harsh one; if you’re offered a discount you don’t really have a choice but to take it, or someone else will offer the same system cheaper than you. Intel knew that and made use of it.
Fining the retailers would be punishing them for being bullied.
The problem with cases like this and the Microsoft anti-trust proceedings is that slapping them with a hugenormous fine and saying “stop that” does little to correct the underlying issues in the industry that allowed the situation to exist in the first place.
Intel working with OEMs is by definition competition. Anti-competitive behavior would include using government to force AMD to do or not do particular things… such as patents and other so called intellectual property statutes. If AMD can’t compete on price they can’t compete. Too bad. If they can’t compete on technology they can’t compete. Too bad.
Do you all advocate going after ARM for having a monopoly on the ARM architecture? Or go after those who produce ARM CPUs for being in a cartel? Intel is not a monopoly in the CPU industry. There are plenty of competitors and they all work within the same paradigm. What the EU wants is money and favor from those who dislike the big guys, not competition. If you want to punish Intel for wheeling and dealing in a way you don’t like… don’t buy their products and try to convince others to do the same and work toward convincing the OEMs that other companies chipsets will gain them more income and happier customers.
All this does is provide an illegitimate advantage to those companies (AMD and VIA) who aren’t as well established. It’s a subsidy, a bailout.
I’m hearing a lot of argumentum ad miserecordiam, argumentum ad consequentiam and argumentum ad verecundiam. Where’s the economic, social, political, moral analysis of such behavior?
Paying OEMs and retailers to NOT sell products from the competition is not working with OEMs, but more like bribery.
If Intel releases better processors and AMD can’t compete, AMD will flop no matter what, but that’s irrelevant when it comes to whether Intel broke the law and if they should be punished for that.
bribe:
1. Something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to a person in a position of trust to influence that person’s views or conduct.
2. Something serving to influence or persuade.
It’s exactly a bribe… so what? It was done without the threat of violence so was in no way illegitimate.
The only thing here which is wrong IMO is the fact Intel can use the guns of government to enforce so called intellectual property rights. That’s a monopoly granted and enforced by the government which limits competition to those who play by their rules.
So what if they broke some law. Just because a law exists doesn’t make it right, legitimate or moral. Sorry to jump the shark so quickly but it was the law to own other humans once and to turn in Jews to the SS. Did they break the law? Sure. Should they be punished. Absolutely not.
Edit:
I should note that some definitions of bribe include giving money for ‘dishonest’ behavior. That doesn’t change my argument insomuch as the governments intervention except in where such a bribe would be contrary to existing contracts which that “dishonest” action may have broken. In that case the government is simply the arbitrator to a private contract conflict. It doesn’t appear to me given the evidence that even that has occurred.
Edited 2009-05-13 15:53 UTC
@bile: I’m sorry, but your post makes no sense whatsoever. Do you mean 1) that there is no law against bribery, thus noone can be punished, or do you you mean 2) that the law against bribery is wrong, and thus should be ignored?
If you mean 1), well then you’re just wrong, and if you mean 2), then it’s a matter of working for better laws.
Or do you mean something else altogether?
They are not being fined for bribery, but for anticompetitive behavior from a monopoly, which just happened to have been committed (partially) through bribes.
“ButIt’sNotFair”(TM)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort#Competition_law
It would seem that you are not at all familiar with articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty of the European Union, and indeed other similar laws all over the world.
It is not acceptable to distort the market. A company such as Intel is simply not allowed to try to put a competitor out of business by paying money to third parties so that they do not use Intel competitors’ products.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law#Dominance_and_monopoly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_(economics)
This is not just opinion and anti-big-company bias … there is a lot more to it than that.
The particular laws that Intel apparently broke:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_dealing
Edited 2009-05-14 10:53 UTC
I’m glad to see this happening. I wish it would happen here in the US as well but unfortunately Intel has too much money and influence here in the US for it to happen. I think that the EU should sue Intel here in the US courts because no one here in the US has the will or the courage, or the money to fight them.
The problem with all these fines is that they are after the fact, sometimes years after given the glacial pace of due process. This means that damage done is probably undoable and what the guilty party has really managed is buying market share. They pay for it in legal costs instead of through marketing, for example. And if the fine isn’t large enough, of course, then the company may well have bought that market share at a bargain price.
I’ve no idea what the answer is. A fine is better than nothing but it is still not really a solution.
Edited 2009-05-13 16:15 UTC
A few years ago you couldn’t get away from all the “AMD rocks, Intel is teh sux0rz” comments, whining about Intel’s monopoly. Then came the Core 2, and everybody jumped ship for faster speed (plus Intel did a massive ad campaign). And yes, it’s always been suspicious / annoying that so many OEMs don’t sell enough (or any) AMD chips (ahem, Dell).
I guess the really dumb question is whether Intel would ever consider buying AMD (if the latter dies), letting their engineers work on a separate fork of a cpu “for comparison”. Hey, internal competition, better than nothing, right? But there’s probably too much personal animosity to let that happen. Still, we all admit “friendly” competition is good … but not getting along helps nobody.
P.S. Anybody else tired of the SSSE3 / SSE4.1 / 4.2 / 4a / SSE5 / AVX crapola? God forbid they work together to develop a single standard!
Single standard may well mean LLVM from Apple’s coffers before too long. That way you can install to any processor from the bitcode files regardless of the Intel/AMD/ARM/MIPS/SPARC affiliation. I’d prefer that the world value their processors based on capability rather than compatibility.
Most likely, EU wants some hot cash during the recession.
Fining left and right is a nice way to accomplish this.
Now, if they did take real measures to prevent monopoly abuse (of which Intel is not particularly guilty of), and promote open standards that would be something.
When will the EU stop extorting money out of successful companies?
Intel earned my money, I wasn’t abused into buying Intel!
here:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20090513corp.htm
translation: “well, yes, we did offer discounts to bully amd out of the market, but that’s fine as we still made a nice profit.”
yeah, sure. the ec should double the fine.
As an American, I really wish to see the justice dealt in Europe come to America. Everyone keeps quiet about these things here and it’s starting to sicken me.
I like Intel chips, but the chips are innocent. Bad corporate office practices should be dealt with in this very way. No wonder AMD isn’t making any spashes…it’s pool has been taken away.
The best and most just punishment for consumers and for AMD would be to remove intel from the european market.
Nothing like being decades late and billion$ short!