EU charges Intel with using kickbacks to crush AMD

According to the AP the European Union has charged Intel with abuse of monopoly power to crush its AMD competition

The European Commission said Intel gave “substantial rebates” to computer makers for buying most of their x86 central processing units, or CPUs, from Intel.

It also alleged that Intel made payments to manufacturers to get them to delay or cancel product lines using AMD chips and that it sold its own chips below average cost to strategic server customers — such as governments and universities — when bidding against AMD-based products.

Intel has 10 weeks to respond, and getting it wrong could cost Intel up to 10% of its global revenue each year it broke the law (sales last year were $36B US).

Intel says it’s all ok. Really. Just trust them — after all, when was the last time a big company took advantage of its position to crush a competitor? Oh yeah…
The EU’s last monopoly charges against Microsoft are wending their way through EU courts with a ruling on the $600M fine expected in mid September.

Trackbacks

  1. […] EU charges Intel with using kickbacks to crush AMD […]

  2. […] AMD released a press release today which is beyond the pale as far as I’m concerned. You’ll recall that the EU has raised questions about Intel’s monopoly pricing policies with customers in Europe. […]