The right way to bust a monopoly?

[jurph]

This PDF contains the AMD complaint against Intel. Not surprisingly, Intel has worked very hard to maintain their chokehold on the x86 processor market. Allegations in the AMD complaint include that Intel has bullied suppliers, "beating [them] into guacamole", and "pressur[ing] HP's senior management to consider firing" AMD-friendly vice

Comments

[wonkodsane]

I resolved never to buy another Intel processor / mobo combination a long time ago, back when they introduced the ability to uniquely identify each processor from afar. My libertarian soul rebels against such an idea. While AMD talked about putting one into its processors, I don't know if they ever followed through.

Jurph, I gotta agree with you about the AMD product, on the whole they are cheaper, faster, and more dependable than their Intel counterpart. It seems that in many ways Intel is turning into the electronics equivalent of the big three automakers in the seventies, eventually their strategy will wreck them, as protectionism never works in such a large economy. Someone (even if it isn't AMD) will come along with a shipstone and put them out of business.

Gimme healthy, head-to-head competition any day.

[enth]

Considering the legal treatment of other convicted monopolists over the past couple of years, I would be surprised if the actual relief awarded is much more than what's covered in paragraphs D and F of the "Prayer for Relief". And that's if they win -- 80% market share is quite a bit lower than Microsoft's 95%, and it won't be difficult for Intel to find 1000 mom-and-pop OEM's that sell AMD gear.

Dude, by the way, "Prayer for Relief"? Legal English always has another surprise up its sleeve.

[jurph]

I was always a little hazy on exactly what relief the company can expect. Can the DOJ install a garrison of troops at Intel HQ to prevent them from making deals with the OEMs?

How exactly would you enjoin Intel from offering some cleverly-disguised loyalty discount? Can you force both CPU vendors to submit their quarterly pricing data to a trusted 3rd party, so that both pricing schedules are published simultaneously, with (presumably) no knowledge of the other's strategy? Can you force the CPU vendors to sell at those prices, and not to come up with something stupid like "Buy X processors from us and we'll buy advertising in your brand's campaign, because it then becomes worth our while"?

[jurph]

You should probably read the complaint before you accuse them of "whining".

Their product used to be inferior or equal, but we all remember the Intel .000001 debacle, too. AMD chips generally had stability problems with some of the 1GHz-generation chipsets (ViA's KT-133 comes to mind) but ViA and nVidia and the other chipset makers solved those issues within that generation.

More recent systems are amazingly solid: I run an AMD mobile Athlon at 1.8GHz (yes, a mobile CPU in a desktop!), and it draws less than 35W total power. The desktop version of the same processor gives off 47W of heat. A similar P4 dissipates 67W of heat. I haven't had a CPU- or chipset-faulted crash on my desktop since well before Half-Life 2. Cooler, faster, more stable, and cheaper -- that's not an inferior product, last I checked.

What amazes me is that they're able to hold 20% of the market despite being shut out of every major market. At some point, the "long tail" wins out and there are too many small retailers, each with less than 1% of the

[jurph]

Also, the libertarian in me is always REALLY on-edge about busting up monopolies. A truly free market tends towards monopolies in every business where the barriers to entry are high, and those businesses are the same ones that end up being crucially important to people:

- Railroads
- Auto mfgring
- Defense mfgring
- Space launch
- Hi-tech parts fab/mfgring
- Airlines
- Biotech