Intel Comments on FTC Suit

SANTA CLARA, Calif., December 16, 2009 – Intel Corporation issued the following statement regarding the suit filed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC): "Intel has competed fairly and lawfully. Its actions have benefitted consumers. The highly competitive microprocessor industry, of which Intel is a key part, has kept innovation robust and prices declining at a faster rate than any other industry. The FTC's case is misguided. It is based largely on claims that the FTC added at the last minute and has not investigated. In addition, it is explicitly not based on existing law but is instead intended to make new rules for regulating business conduct. These new rules would harm consumers by reducing innovation and raising prices."

Intel senior vice president and general counsel Doug Melamed added, "This case could have, and should have, been settled. Settlement talks had progressed very far but stalled when the FTC insisted on unprecedented remedies – including the restrictions on lawful price competition and enforcement of intellectual property rights set forth in the complaint -- that would make it impossible for Intel to conduct business."

"The FTC's rush to file this case will cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars to litigate issues that the FTC has not fully investigated.

Now to a very interesting analysis at Anandtech:

The FTC Sues Intel Over CPU & GPU Competition

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Date: December 16th, 2009

Topic: CPU & Chipset

Manufacturer: Intel

Author: Ryan Smith

AMD and Intel have had their differences. And by differences, we mean Intel engaging in anti-competitive actions that they’ve been found guilty of in the European Union.

But all of this was supposed to come to a close last month, when AMD and Intel buried the hatchet and made up for past offenses. In return for some cash, some good behavior out of Intel, and for Intel to stop trying to block the Global Foundries deal, AMD would drop all of their civil and regulatory complaints against Intel. And that would be the end of Intel’s legal problems with various governments, right? No, as it turns out that’s wrong.

The catalyst for Intel’s legal woes (besides their own actions, obviously) has been AMD complaining to various regulatory boards about anti-competitive actions undertaken by Intel. Based on those complaints, the European Commission, the South Korean FTC, and the American FTC have been investigating Intel for some time now over these alleged actions. Intel has been found guilty and fined in the EU and South Korea (with both cases on appeal) while the American FTC has continued to investigate.

In fact despite the FTC just now suing Intel, this is actually about half-way through the process. The FTC investigation is done, and they have been negotiating with Intel in private for quite some time to get the matter settled. A lawsuit is the next step for the FTC, when those negotiations break down. Those negotiations have in fact broken down, so here we are: the FTC has sued Intel, and the biggest court battle ever for Intel is soon to begin.

What the FTC Accuses Intel of Doing in the CPU Market

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What the FTC Accuses Intel of Doing in the GPU Market

When we were first reading the FTC’s suit, the thing that caught us entirely off-guard was that it wasn’t merely about anti-competitive actions in the CPU market, but anti-competitive actions in the GPU market as well. While the CPU-related accusations are all for things done well in the past, the GPU accusations are fresh, very fresh. These run right up to today, and include the Larrabee project and the anti-competitive actions Intel has taken in the GPU market both outside and inside that project. To get right to the point, the FTC believes that as things currently stand, Intel is likely to get a monopoly on the GPU market similar to the one that they have on the CPU market, and that this monopoly will be created by abusing their CPU monopoly.

In the complaints about the GPU market, both NVIDIA and AMD are mentioned as being the primary competitors for Intel. The bulk of the complaints however are related to NVIDIA and their chipset business, as while AMD stands to be harmed too by an Intel GPU monopoly, it’s NVIDIA that stands to be the most harmed. In effect Intel has finally gotten AMD off their back for CPU matters, only to now have NVIDIA on their back for GPU matters.

I thought there was a direct statement in the Anandtech article...but can't seem to find it...must have read it somewhere else...there is this:

Intel says no to Nvidia's Ion

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A uthor: Richard Swinburne
Published: 26th December 2008

Comments (34) Email to a friend Stumble

Nvidia's Ion Platform - You've got more chance of seeing Santa tonight than one of these..

Business comes first for Intel it seems as the season of goodwill is denied, because the word from Taiwan is that Intel insists it will only sell its Atom CPUs bundled with its limited 945-based chipset.

This effectively kills the Ion platform - Nvidia's plans to pair the infectiously popular Atom CPU with the superior GeForce 9400M integrated graphics chipset.

Intel told Digitimes that it has no plans to validate the Nvidia MCP79 chipset on Atom-based nettop or netbook platforms and also said it isn't looking to form a partnership with Nvidia to support nettop or netbook platforms based on the Intel Atom CPU.

Considering the almost unanimously positive feedback we have had from our community on Ion's potential following the announcement, this is a very sad situation for potential consumers, modders and PC enthusiasts. We did pose the question of selling the Atom CPUs on their own to Intel last week and, although we got a very kind "I'll check into it and get an answer," we still haven't heard back on the issue - the situation has been all but confirmed in Taiwan anyway.

In light of this, we suspect very few companies will buy the complete Atom bundles only to throw out the Intel chipsets and use the GeForce 9400M only if the premium can be made back. However, since the netbook/nettop phenomenon is predominantly cost sensitive we believe that many will avoid the Ion platform for that reason. A big shame, in our opinion.

Sadly though, the news doesn't really surprise us because Intel and Nvidia aren't exactly on the most co-operative terms at the moment, but this insistence by Intel could be deemed anti-competitive. On the flipside, Intel is arguably well within its rights to regulate its own platform (which the Atom was launched as) even despite the fact there are other cross-licensing agreements in place.

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