WHITE PAPERS SPONSORED PROFILES JOB BOARD WEBINAR CENTER FREE SOFTWARE BZ RESEARCH ALMSHAREPOINT EVENTS CALENDAR PRINT/PDF EDITION PRINT/PDF BACK ISSUES

SUBSCRIBE TODAY CUSTOMER SERVICE EDITORIAL CALENDAR EDITORIAL BEATS GUEST VIEW GUIDE SD TIMES 100 GUIDE EVENTS CALENDAR ADVERTISING ARTICLE REPRINTS REPORT A BUG SITE MAP

ABOUT US BZ MEDIA NEWS BZ RESEARCH NEWS ON MONDAY SPTECHREPORT SPTECHWEB SPTECHCON IPHONE/IPAD DEVCON ANDROID DEVCON PRIVACY POLICY CONTACT US

HOME >> ZEICHICK'S TAKE

Zeichick’s Take: Intel pays off AMD

By Alan Zeichick

November 16, 2009 — The box-office draw of the lawsuit between Intel and Advanced Micro Devices has been small but consistent. The companies have been embroiled in legal claims and counterclaims for many years. Now, the suits are apparently over, with Intel agreeing to pay US$1.25 billion to shut up its competitor. Talk about a letdown!

AMD has done a consistently good job of playing the role of the underdog. It has accused Intel of abusing its dominant position by paying computer manufacturers to be exclusively “Intel Inside.” AMD also made claims of intellectual property violations.

To settle those claims, Intel is writing AMD a check. In return, AMD is dropping its lawsuits, and the companies are entering into a five-year cross-licensing agreement.

We’ve seen this happen before. AMD sued Intel in the early 1990s on essentially the same grounds. Intel settled the lawsuit shortly thereafter.

What makes this latest settlement unfortunate, in my opinion, is that AMD claimed that Intel was harming consumers by suppressing competition in the microprocessor market. “On behalf of ourselves, our customers and partners, and consumers worldwide, we have been forced to take action,” wrote AMD chairman Hector Ruiz in 2005, when it launched its latest anti-trust complaint.

It looked like AMD had a solid case. There was a lot of evidence provided showing how Intel allegedly intimidated computer manufacturers who strayed from an Intel-only product strategy, and that Intel’s actions indeed suppressed competition.

In what way does Intel’s payment of $1.25 billion to AMD provide relief to consumers? It doesn’t. What the settlement shows is that AMD’s motivation was greed, pure and simple.

This is the end of the line for AMD vs. Intel—for today. But next time AMD finds itself short on cash, we’ll undoubtedly see them back in the courtroom for a box-office sequel.

Alan Zeichick is editorial director of SD Times. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/zeichick. Read his blog at ztrek.blogspot.com.

Related Search Term(s): AMD, Intel

Share this link: http://sdt.bz/33916

Most Read Latest News Blog Resources

Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers

ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists

Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles

Xceed releases UX-focused suite for Microsoft’s WPF
"Blendables" helps match user experiences to developer visions

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.

The Hidden Costs of Software Licensing Moving beyond paper-based software licensing to more flexible, software-based licensing is a business decision. There is a growing trend tow...

Case Study: You May Need a Development Mechanic As a contractor for a major financial player in Germany, SOBEGE, a German-based consultancy specializing in embedded IT and web services, wa...

Ensuring Software Quality at a Major International Bank One of the world’s leading international banks has adopted AgitarOne technology for delivering generated unit tests for their Java software...

Load Testing Adobe Flex Applications Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you’ve worked with before. For classic HTML web applications, the server does all...

Technorati

Digg

Slashdot

Facebook

Friendfeed

Twitter

del.icio.us

Microsoft joins AMD, Intel in mass layoffs Citing an 8% decline in Windows client revenue, Microsoft announced that 5,000 jobs would be cut, 1,400 immediately. AMD and Intel are also cutting jobs in the face of weakening PC sales, but all companies maintain that they are keeping their major projects afloat.

Ruiz out as CEO of AMD, but stays on as chairman Chipmaker AMD, which challenged industry giant Intel but couldn't recover from that company's counter-punch, announced yesterday that CEO Hector Ruiz is out, having been replaced as CEO by company president and COO Dirk Meyer.

From the Editors: What's GNU? 25 years! Richard Stallman has done a lot for open-source software and software development in his 25 years of work, but we're concerned that his tenacious litigation will interfere with his innovation. Also, we predict that the software development industry will recover especially strong from the economic downturn.

Add comment

Name*
Email*
Country

Comment

Microsoft joins AMD, Intel in mass layoffs
Citing an 8% decline in Windows client revenue, Microsoft announced that 5,000 jobs would be cut, 1,400 immediately. AMD and Intel are also cutting jobs in the face of weakening PC sales, but all companies maintain that they are keeping their major projects afloat Read More...

News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
02/09/2012 02:16 PM EST

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
02/07/2012 11:57 AM EST

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
02/04/2012 01:57 PM EST

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST