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Intel pressured resellers, manufacturers not to use AMD. Isn’t that a shock? Throughout history there have always been groups or entities that are not going to get along: cats and dogs, Democrats and Republicans, Microsoft and anybody else. AMD and Intel have a particularly long and sordid history of disliking one another despite past cooperations, and said history has just gotten a tad more interesting: AMD is suing Intel, and it’s suing big. How big is something lawyers and pundits are only beginning to understand. In its 48-page complaint , AMD is claiming that Santa Clara-based Intel has violated 7 different kinds of anti-trust laws spread across three continents involving at least 38 separate large companies, all in an attempt to marginalize AMD’s ability to sell its products. Prominent companies such as Dell, Sony, HP, Toshiba, NEC, and Gateway are all named in the suit, and executives from a variety of companies claim to have experienced Intel’s hardball side. Former Compaq CEO Michael Capellas claims Intel “[held] a gun to his head” by witholding shipments of server chips, forcing Compaq to stop using AMD chips in its products. Gateway execs say Intel “beat them into guacamole” in pricing after Gateway announced a line of systems based on AMD’s chips.
Further, the suit alleges that Dell and Toshiba were paid large sums of money specifically to not do business with AMD. Sony was also coerced with “millions for exclusivity” to carry nothing but Intel-based products. AMD’s share of Sony sales thereafter took a nosedive from 23% to zero, and has stayed there ever since. System manufacturers weren’t the only ones pressured, claims AMD. Best Buy and Circuit City were effectively required to stock Intel-based systems “overwhelmingly or exclusively,” making finding an AMD-based system difficult or impossible. Other retailers worldwide faced similar tactics. Although no set monetary damage figure has been asked for by AMD, an attorney with O’Melveny & Myers LLP, the firm representing AMD in this case, indicates that the company could pursue damages into the “hundreds of millions … if not billions of dollars.” AMD hopes to have the case in front of courts no later than 2006. Reuters has an engaging article on this, and AMD’s press release has information as well.
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