EU antitrust officials raid Intel

[LostInSpace]

Link

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ZDNet:

update European regulators raided the offices of Intel and a number of PC-related companies early Tuesday as part of an antitrust investigation into the chip giant.

As part of the dawn raid, European Commission officials and national competition authorities in Milan, Italy; Munich, Germany; Madrid, Spain; and Swindon, England, descended on several Intel offices, a Commission representative said and an Intel representative confirmed. The officials also visited a number of companies that manufacture or sell computers.

"These inspections are being carried out within the framework of an ongoing investigation," a Commission representative said.

Intel said it is cooperating fully with investigators.

"Our normal business practice is to cooperate, and we are doing (that) so far in this case," Intel representative Chuck Mulloy told CNET News.com. "We firmly believe that our business practices are fair and lawful."

The United Kingdom's Office of Fair Trading, or OFT, said that it had assisted the European competition authorities in an "on-site inspection" of Intel's Swindon offices.

"It is really a European Commission matter," said an OFT spokeswoman. She said the inspection was likely to have been carried out under article 81 of the EC Treaty, which prohibits price fixing and other distortions of competition within the European Union. The spokeswoman could not say whether anything was removed from Intel's offices.

The investigation comes just weeks after rival Advanced Micro Devices filed suit against Intel, alleging the chip giant has used scare tactics and coercion to prompt computer makers and other companies to use Intel's chips instead of rivals'. Intel's chief executive, Paul Otellini, has said that he expects his company to come out on top in the dispute.

In the European inquiry, other PC makers and retailers were reportedly questioned.

Dell, which exclusively sells products based on Intel chips, said the company's headquarters in Bracknell, England, were visited Tuesday by officials from the Commission's competition division. But the company declined to give details of what the officials were doing or the nature of the visit.

As of 5:30 p.m. local time, Commission investigators were still on the premises and Dell was cooperating fully, said Claire Ramage, a Dell representative in Europe.

European representatives of Hewlett-Packard said that the company's offices were not visited by Commission officials on Tuesday. IBM representatives were not immediately available to comment.

Other PC makers had little to say. German electronics retailer MediaMarkt declined to state its relationship with either Intel or AMD. And DSR Retail, the parent company for U.K.-based online retailer Dixons, declined to say whether it was visited as part of the probe, but reiterated its earlier stance that a reference to Dixons in AMD's complaint against Intel is factually incorrect.

A source familiar with antitrust issues predicted that Intel will not have much to say about the probe right away. (cont..)

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[Soback]

Scare tactics or truth tactics. What you have to ask yourself is, "Was Intel publicizing the truth about it's competition by saying that their product is inferior? And EU scrambled because Intels competition has a few friends in high places that used their pull to investigate and harass Intel for the "society's welfare". And since Intel has $ to loot, and the EU needing that money, draw your own conclusions.

Talking about money to loot, EU will tax everything possible. Example of that being, GPS database updates. It's new updates for GPS software which is updated every couple of weeks, just like software updates for untivirus programs, spam blockers and even your own Windows operating system. Well EU is charging people a tax for updating their software, calling it VAT which stands for Value Added Tax. Imagine that. Value added tax. Stay tuned, Breathing and heart beating tax is next, called LMT, or life maintaining tax.

See the VAT for yourself on the garmin website, middle of the page.

http://shop.garmin.com/aviation/databases/...0&PN=GPSMAP+295

[Soback]

Oh, and by the way, that's why ladies and gentleman EU wants it's own root servers, because they want to tax every single click of your mouse when you are on that computer. Every single piece of information, every cookie that is placed on your hard drive and every 1 and 0 that passes through their server. That is the link between the VAT that was instituted in 2003 and their own root servers of today and that's why they want US to link to them, to use US as a milk cow, to loot us (the people in US), from each according to his ability, to each according to his need...

For reference on that thread you can go here:

http://www.3000ad.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?u...c;f=36;t=000463

[Darkling]

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Originally posted by Soback:

Scare tactics or truth tactics. What you have to ask yourself is, "Was Intel publicizing the truth about it's competition by saying that their product is inferior? And EU scrambled because Intels competition has a few friends in high places that used their pull to investigate and harass Intel for the "society's welfare". And since Intel has $ to loot, and the EU needing that money, draw your own conclusions.

http://shop.garmin.com/aviation/databases/...0&PN=GPSMAP+295

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This has NOTHING to do with that. In case you havn't heard, Intel has been found by Japanese courts to have coerced top companies to carry ONLY Intel chips, much in the same way that Microsoft used to threaten it's suppliers if they carried OS2 Warp. The day of reconning has come, and the US will shortly be filing a case against Intel for it's monopolistic behaviors as well.

Think about it, why would DELL not carry top of the line AMD Opteron 64 Processors? Put 2 & 2 together and figure it out, but just in case you can't, Here's the Complaint filed by AMD.

[Soback]

I just finished reading it, and if you read and UNDERSTAND the complaint, then you will understand what a pile of BS it is.

Point one: "Intel has forced major customers into exclusive or near-exclusive deals"

Free market is you can buy AMD if you want, and you can buy Intel if you want. If a lot of people wanted AMD then the shop owners would stock AMD simply because it would SELL. By Intel using marketing and competing against AMD by telling a store owner that he can carry either AMD or Intel, what exactly is wrong with that? The store owner has a choice then, if he favors Intel then you can't just force him to sell AMD too, it's his store, it's his choice. If you as a customer want specifically AMD, then either go find a store that sells AMD, or order direct. Simply put, whatever the customer buys, the market will sell, and simply put majority of people do favor Intel.

I would go on to dispute the rest of those points but since it all stands on the same BS foundation, I will not waste my time. If you have a product that customers are buying hand over fist, you can't lose, if you have a product where you need to SUE your competition in order to gain access to customers, then your product is a waste pile not worth buying.

However I am familiar with AMD and do know that their chip is decent. AMD is still wrong for suing simply because they can't compete. People favor Intel not only because their chip is also good, but many favor Intel because of name recognition, company being in business longer, stability and compatibility. By AMD suing Intel, they are throwing aside the simplest law of free market and free choice, by trying to force their way in with the laws the looters have created to sue businesses, and before you start yelling monoply is illegal, let me tell you that monopoly is NOT illegal, and that there is NO SUCH THING. The only time you have monopolies is when the government is enforcing them, because they are the only ones who can do that with their beuracrats and directives, free market has no monopolies because you are free to offer your product to the people and pit it against the best.

[ 07-13-2005, 12:22 AM: Message edited by: Soback ]

[Darkling]

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Originally posted by Soback:

I just finished reading it, and if you read and UNDERSTAND the complaint, then you will understand what a pile of BS it is.

Point one: "Intel has forced major customers into exclusive or near-exclusive deals"

Free market is you can buy AMD if you want, and you can buy Intel if you want .... The only time you have monopolies is when the government is enforcing them, because they are the only ones who can do that with their beuracrats and directives, free market has no monopolies because you are free to offer your product to the people and pit it against the best.

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You are VERY naive.

First of all, let's look at MS Near Monopoly on O/S in the US. 10 Years ago, if you built computers, and you wanted to buy Windows at bulk pricing, MS didn't care how many computers you made, what they cared about was that you ONLY installed Windows on ALL the computers you made. How did they do this you ask? The demanded that you pay them a royalty for EVERY computer you made, even if you wanted to put OS2 Warp on half of them. It's this type of behavior that got MS in trouble with the Government, and the reason why they had to Pay IBM 775 Million Buckaroos!

In the US, you can compete all you want, there's nothing wrong with that, but when you USE your dominant position as a SLEDGHAMMER to drive the competition out of business, THAT my friend is ILLEGAL. This is EXACTLY what Intel is doing with AMD.

When Intel found out that ACER was going to carry AMD equipped PC's, the president of Intel flew over to Taiwan to meet with the president of Acer and basically threatened him with withholding bonus payments that Intel normally pays Acer, if they participated in AMD Opteron 64 launch. In this article, you can see the extent to which Intel will reach to keep companies from doing business with AMD, HP was offered 1 Million FREE chips, as an incentive because AMD knew that Intel would retaliate and even with that HP only took up AMD on just over 100K of the free chips, because they were afraid of Intel. Gateway says they were beaten into "Guacamole" by Intel for coming out with a new line of AMD chips, and the list goes on and on and on. Again, Intel used it's dominant position to SLEDGEHAMMER the competition, instead of letting it play out fairly in the marketplace.

Review after Review after Review shows us that AMD chips are superior, and yet, why is it that you don't see HUGE support from the big guys? Because Intel has been PAYING them NOT To do business with AMD, and you will see that come out in the lawsuit.

[LostInSpace]

Nice response Darkling. I've only owned an intel chip once and that was back in the 8088xt days. Since then, it's been AMD for me all the way. Price and performance could not be beat.

[Soback]

Thank you LIS for making my point. Like I said, Intel is doing bussiness, it has the right to say to pc manufacturer "it's all our product, or none of it", it has the right to withdraw it's bonuses, it has the right to give out insentive bonuses, it has that right precisely because it's a free market, it has the right to do whatever it can do. Customers are the the ULTIMATE decission makers, and like LIS for example, will buy AMD product, without AMD resorting to handing out bonuses, mass addvertising, or "all or none" proposals. So free market does work. It's as simple as that, if customers buy AMD then AMD benefits, if they choose not then Intel benefits, the point is nobody is forcing anyone at the point of a gun or some undisputable directive issued by the government to buy one or the other. What AMD doing is using the tools that the looters (government beuracrats) have created, so that they can penalize Intel at the undebatable point of a gun (you can't argue with these looters), instead of letting the customers decide what share of the market the company will maintain.

One of the reasons why I would NEVER buy AMD, as long as I will have a second choice, because from now on their share of the market will be not because of competition, but because it was grafted out for them by government, by force, without fair willful choice of the customer.

Free market has worked, and will work, and it will always break when the undisputable force of the government meddles in it, then it becomes socialized market where Washington has a say and it then becomes the aristocracy of favors and pull, where companies who have friends get favors, and ultimatly we the people get screwed.

[LostInSpace]

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Originally posted by Soback:

Thank you LIS for making my point.

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Nooooo .

Anyway, I've never owned commercially made PC's either. I find they are usually crap no matter what chip is in them. Besides the fact that finding one with an AMD chip in it was next to impossible (I wonder why). So, I choose what I consider the best components myself and put them together. However, not everyone is that tech savy. You'd be lucky if some get by the mouse and keyboard concept.

I do agree with you about government interference. But, I do believe that in this case it is called for. You can't deny there have been abuses by Intel. I've seen plenty of companies that have done the same. To deny that these problems don't occur is not realistic.

[Soback]

I don't deny that the things mentioned above happen. Where we disagree is, you call it abuse, I call it business. Intel has the right to impose conditions pertaining to it's product, it has the right to run it's company the way it wants, nothing Intel did was done by FORCE. AMD has the right to market it's product, AMD has the right to reach the customers any way it wishes, as long as it's not by FORCE. It has the right and the choice to put forth the same business practices that Intel did, it could also open it's direct purchase stores where customers (that do not have your computer savy and can't build their own) could buy pc's build by AMD. It chose niether, it chose to beat Intel by FORCE provided by the looters, that's where their misstake and my revoltion toward AMD comes from.

[LostInSpace]

Okay Soback, let's put it this way. You open a small computer store. You need to carry both AMD and Intel to cover a full range of customer demand and revenue for your new foundly store to achieve profitable success to survive the first year. You contact AMD and they are more than happy to sell you their chips. Varoom, now here comes intel. "ang on a minute if you want to deal with us you can't carry any AMD chips." Now you are stuck you need both to survive. If you tell them to get lost, you will only have AMD to sell and your buisness will not survive. Then Intel sweetens the pot "We will give you a nice hefty bonus at the end of each year to cover your potential sales you would have made if you carried AMD". Hmmmm, salvation. Thank you Intel deal done. There goes another loss for AMD.

[Darkling]

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Originally posted by Soback:

Thank you LIS for making my point. Like I said, Intel is doing bussiness, it has the right to say to pc manufacturer "it's all our product, or none of it", it has the right to withdraw it's bonuses, it has the right to give out insentive bonuses, it has that right precisely because it's a free market, it has the right to do whatever it can do. Customers are the the ULTIMATE decission makers,...

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You must be joking! First of all, AMD CAN'T go to a Major supplier like Dell and say OK, we'll supply you with ALL your chip needs, because they simply don't have the Billions of dollars that it takes to build all the chip foundries. Since Intel KNOWS this it goes to Dell and says OK I'll give you a Bonus at the end of the year if you don't carry AMD Chips. In other words it's using it's near monopoly on Chip supplies to try to sqeeze AMD out of the business, and this is ABOLUTELY Illegal! Why would the US make such practices Illegal? Take a look at Standard Oil at the turn of the century, or AT&T 40 years ago. By eliminating the Competition, they basically OWNED the market. They set the price and you the consumer HAD to pay WHATEVER they deemed they wanted you to pay, because there was NO ONE else to go to. This is the reason why the US today has Anti-Trust Laws. These Massive monopolies were called "Trusts" Back then.

Heck I still remember back when AT&T was the ONLY Game in town, if I wanted to call my sister in Florida (at the time I lived in RI), My mother would only let me do it after 10PM because at that time it was "Only" .35 Cents a minuite, any other time it was double that.

By your logic, I should still be using AT&T and gladly paying their outrageous rates since the Government forced the breakup and allowed other players into the field.

Go see "Tucker, A man and his Dreams", it's a movie about how Tucker tried to break into the Car market dominated by the Big Three, and tell me that "It's just Business". BullSh*t, it's bully tactics by the big boys, plain and simple and that's why today we have laws against this type of abuse of power.

But hey if you want to go back to paying Monopolistic prices call AT&T and tell them you want to pay the inflation adjusted price of what they charged in the 70's (about $1.00 a min.) and drive up to a Mobil Oil gas station and tell them you would like to pay their inflation adjusted price of 1910 (about $5.00 Gallon), since you believe they got a RAW DEAL when the government broke them up and required competition in their space.

[LostInSpace]

You know after reading all this I started getting flashbacks about a few things between AMD and INTEL so I did a search and sure enough I kind of remembered it. AMD and Intel seems to have been wrangling with each other the past decade or more. Mostly Intel dragging AMD into court. Here's a nice article I found that sums it up:

Part 1: History Lesson

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A few words on licensing technologies of Intel. There are some people out there who wonder why Intel doesn't refuse to extend licenses for its products to get rid of its importunate competitor. First, FTC will never let it because of the antimonopoly law (Intel can't help extending its licenses as the state obliges to do it); moreover, there is such a concept as a strategic product. Intel will have to produce Alpha for God knows how long, irregardless of whether it likes it or not, because the American military need it. And Intel will give licenses for x86 to AMD, because the Tomohavks the USA used to fire at Serbia and Afghanistan were based on the embedded 80386 processors from AMD, and the military want that the strategic components be produced by several companies, just to feel confident. The Shuttles which stand idle at the moment (not because of AMD) contain quite a lot of its chips.

This is one, but not last reason why AMD isn't afraid of licensing problems. Though it changes with time. The matter is that in 386's time the military orders didn't make a considerable share in the Intel's budget as it was before, that is why Intel could pay less attention to the whims of generals. Starting from the i486 the external contracts weren't put an end to. You probably remember the UMC 486SX-2 or AMD 5x86. So, do you understand why the processors' names changed so unexpectedly, though before all companies simply copied original names of Intel?

But I digressed again. Well, at the end of the fiscal year of 1981 the sales volumes grew twice as compared with 1979. It was quite a good development, even for the semiconductor industry of those times. In 1981 AMD and Intel prolongated and extended their cross-license agreement, and a year later the companies concluded an agreement on exchange of technologies that focused on the iAPX86 family. Well, it's high time to finish the first part of the AMD's development because later this manufacturer turned into a x86 CPU maker, but this is quite a different story.

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Part 2: Down and dirty with AMD and Intel

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For a start, in 1987 the company established a technological collaboration with Sony, which brought the access to the CMOS production technology. The process was to made a use of. Production of an analog of the i386 looked good, and AMD had a license for the Intel's x86 family (see the previous part). AMD also had all data on production of 8086, 80186, and 80286 processors received from Intel within the frames of the agreement of 1982. But since 1982 a lot of time passed away, and the relationships between the two companies went too bad.

Intel refused to uncover the design of 80386 as AMD demanded, that is why the latter tried to make Intel fulfill the conditions of the agreement via the arbitrage. Soon after that Intel simply tore up the agreement of 1982. As expected, AMD won. The higher court approved of the arbitrage's decision, but the next appeal turned out to be more successful for Intel. The process ends only in 1991 when the supreme court of California take's the AMD's part and, thus, it puts an end to the first legal proceeding between two companies. Intel had to pay off over $1 billion! Well, they could close down the company. But it was too dull...............................................

What we are mostly interested in is the first sphere where AMD becomes popular - IBM PC compatible processors. As it was mentioned above, in 1991 the right for production of x86 processors was ratified by the court, but AMD had no latest data on new Intel's processors. However, AMD started reverse-engineering regarding the Intel's products since the Intel's refusal to provide AMD with the data on the i386. As a result, in 1990 the company developed a working analog of the i287 coprocessor. It wasn't an exact copy of the IntelÔÇÖs solution, but the microcode (internal low-level intructions of processor) coincided entirely.

Intel was really outraged and sued for breaching the patents. But another court had confirmed the AMD's right to use the fruits of the agreement of 1982, and AMD used it saying that the agreement gave the right to copy the microcode of ALL Intel's processors. It worked. And in March 1991 the company developed a clone of the i386 - Am386. It had a different circuit, but it coinsided entirely in the microcode with the Intel'one.

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[Soback]

An article that might enlighten those of you who say AMD suing Intel is OK. My own comments are added in parentesis.

" Executives from chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices took long walks by the seashore. They gazed into the night sky. Why weren't they selling more computer chips? Enlightenment finally came: The reason was the illegal machinations of their much larger rival, Intel.

Last month, they filed a lawsuit.

Were this the 1990's, when technology held center ring, the lawsuit would have been a bigger story. AMD took out newspaper ads to denounce Intel. It's complaint - as press accounts noted - was writen in plain English. The charges were incendiary or at least alarming: coercion, intimidation, bribery. The plaintive wail at the heart of the case: AMD makes a better, faster chip, so how come Intel's market share is still 80% - plus?

If the company were expecting media outcry and government regulators to ratchet up the pressure on it's rival, this is no Microsoft case. Nor does Intel seem likely to wilt and change its practices voluntarily. Thus AMD's stab at achieveing a business goal through litigation may actually have to be settled in court, on a timetable that would make it all but irrelevant in the marketplace.

Hector Ruiz, AMD's chief, who rose from humble roots, has been deservedly praised. He took over a company that was inspired and chaotic under Jerry Sanders, its charismatic founder, and made it less chaotic. AMD reported four consecutive quarters of profit last year, causing several analysts to spit out their coffee.

It has, indeed, stolen a march on Intel, whose capital oulays in a given year are five times greater than AMD's. At the dawn of time, IBM REQUIRED INTEL TO LICENSE OUT THE CHIP DESIGN FOR THE ORIGINAL IBM PC SO THERE'D BE A SECOND SOURCE. AMD WAS THE LUCKY WINNER AND KEPT A KENNEL OF LAWYERS BUSY DEFENDING ITS LEGAL COPYCAT STATUS UP THROUGH THE PENTIUM ERA (and that's how ladies and gentleman AMD got it's start, by looting Intels chip invetions). By the mid - 1990's, its chips were even faster than Intel's, THOUGH PRODUCTION SNAFUS PREVENTED AMD FROM CASHING IN (they weren't able to fill their promissed quotas for the retailers and thus weren't able to sell much of their processors because retailers could not build a computer without a processor, thus the retailers were favoring Intel, duh).

About that time, Intel laid plans for a whole new chip, one that would munch data in 64-bit chunks rather than the current 32-bit chunks. NOT ONLY WOULD AMD BE LEFT OUT IN THE COLD WITHOUT A LICENSE TO CLONE THE NEW CHIP (basically they would not be able to loot a legitimate company out of it's legitimate business), but Intel's new architecture would render obsolete thousands of software applications written for a 32-bit world.

A lightbulb appearing above his head, Mr. Sanders dispatched his engineers (Mr. Sanders is not a smart guy who invented the chip, he was the smart guy who manipulated the government to give him license to clone Intel's chip and start his company, he didn't invent something and start his company with his brains, he started it by looting Intel, and that's how he paid his engineers to make a product for him, with that stolen money) to desing a chip that would run both 32- and 64-bit software. Called the Opteron, the new device, unveiled two years ago, has opened doors for the first time to server farms of the Fortune 500. A desktop version, however, hasn't been embraced by customers with the same alacrity, nor by retailers or computer makers.

You can read AMD's explanation of why at amd.com/breakfree. The complaint accuses Intel of tailoring its discounts, rebates and markeing payments to discourage desktop makers from patronizing AMD's chips. Connoisseurs of such things will especially appreciate the allegation that Intel offers wholesalers rebates for metting certain quotas - without telling them what their quotas are. "They simply receive a check at the end of a quarter. As a result, every AMD chip they purchase, they buy at their peril."

All this will be impressive to some in the peanut gallery, but the peculiarity of AMD's case is that it's arguing "predation" without using the word. (now read the next sentence carefully to see how AMD is bs'ing those who just don't know any better) On the contrary, AMD explicitly says consumers are paying needlessly high prices because of Intel's "abusive" practices, THOUGH THE CLEAR EFFECT OF THE PRACTICES IS TO LOWER INTEL'S AVERAGE CHIP PRICE.

Weak too - or at least premature - is AMD's complaint that it's "superior" chip is being blocked from business desktop. Corporate users don't rush to introduce an exotic new spec just for the sake of doing so. Microsoft only released a 64-bit Windows in May, and the real Windows upgrade is yet to come. Mr. Ruiz HIMSELF has noted that only gamers are hungry at this point for the desktop power this new chips offer. EVEN Intel says business users don't need to buy its rushed-out copycat (no Intel didn't just copy AMD's chip like AMD did when it got it's looting start, Intel actually paid for and designed it's chip itself) version of AMD's chip yet.

When applications catch up, AMD may well find the world beating a path to its door - IF IT AVOIDS THE FACTORY MISCUES THAT PREVENTED IT FROM FILLING ORDERS IN THE PAST (would you as a pc manufacturer order AMD chip knowing that there's a chance that you might be left out in the cold with your business crushing because AMD has a precedence of leaving orders unfilled?)

In the meantime, AMD insists Intel's rebates and discounts serve no legitimate purpose except to punish chip buyers for buying AMD chips. (this next sentence should clarify something for regular folks) BOILED DOWN TO ITS ESSENCE, HOWEVER, BUSINESS IS TRYING TO EARN BACK ITS INVESTED CAPITAL. INTEL IS A PARTICULARLY LARGE CONSUMER OF CAPITAL: IT COSTS $2.5 BILLION TO BUILD A NEW CHIP FABRICATION LINE, AND HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS MORE TO DESIGN AND TEST NEW CHIP (something AMD didn't have to do at it's start up since it just looted Intels chip design). INTEL'S REBATES HAVE AN OBVIOUS BUSINESS PURPOSE: TO ASSURE ITSELF SUFFICIENT VOLUME TO JUSTIFY SUCH INVESTMENTS.

AMD's complaint makes good reading, ESPECIALLY IF YOU DON'T THINK MUCH IS LOST OR ENDANGERED WHEN COMPANIES ARE READILY STRIPPED OF THEIR PROPERTY AND CONTRACT RIGHTS BY ATTACHING THE LABEL "MONOPOLY" ON THEM (When the government uses imminent domain laws to take away your land for public benefit, do you feel lost and have your rights endangered? When it can just say "hey, that land you have, you are monopolizing it because nobody else gets to benefit, we will take it and re-sell it so that everyone can benefit", yes, it's pretty much like that what AMD is doing). Already AMD's supporters are pronouncing that "fair play" in the market requires that chips be clearly and simply priced, like a can of peas. But a can of peas isn't even priced like a can of peas. (This next sentence is great, you might actually learn something) YOUR LOCAL SUPERMARKET IS A HOTBED OF PRECISELY THE SORT OF MANUFACTURER REBATES AND SIDE PAYMENTS INTEL IS ACCUSED OF MAKING.

Notice, too, that the capital markets have been willing nonetheless to fund AMD for years, despite its record of spotty profits. Investors apparently don't believe Intel has been able to foreclose opportunity in the chip market (maybe the investors are actually bidding on the chance that AMD will rip off more of Intels chips or maybe they were bidding on the fact that AMD would do exactly what it's doing now, sue Intel for the profits it can't earn itself with the money looted from Intel). Still, anti-trust has shown itself exceedingly pliable. Who knows? A judge somewhere may be willing to JUSTIFY CASUALLY RELIEVING INTEL OF ITS RIGHT TO OFFER ITS PRODUCTS ON TERMS OF ITS OWN CHOOSING (If you don't know what that sentence mean, then you most likely have no idea what business is, how economy works, and that socialism is the next greatest thing for public welfare, and remember that this article is not written by me, I am just pointing out a sentence that might spark a light which will illuminate a thought)

Mr. Ruiz certainly isn't so unwise as to count on this. He's shrewd enough, however, to realize that a lawsuit can be branding exercise (at Intel's expence), a way to garner free (another word for paid for by Intel) media for an "AMD Inside" message to answer Intel's own long-running and expensive sloganeering over its chips."