European Commission cracks down on Intel

[boruvka]

According to official spokespersons of the European Commission, offices of chipmaker Intel in several european countries have been searched, as well as those of producers and distributors of IT products throughout the Union.
It was not confirmed which companies were searched and in which countries. European and national antitrust agencies conducted searches to find proof for Intel's abuse of market domination verging on a monopoly.


Intel commented on the ongoing investigations with a statement that two european offices in Swindon, UK and Munich, Germany were searched and that Intel intends to cooperate with the Commission while claiming that its business practices were fair and legal.

Chip maker AMD sued Intel a while ago in the US and Japan. The European Commissions antitrust agents cooperate with their japanese counterparts on that matter since march in the Intel case.
AMD accuses Intel of using its quasi-monopoly to force PC producers to use its products while shunning AMD's line of processors.
For instance Germany's biggest PC retailer Media Markt does not sell AMD products at all while financing its ominpresent annoying advertisements with Intels help.

The main accusation regard Intel's practice to grant PC manufacturers generous rebates if they do not use AMD products at all. AMD scored an early success in their US antitrust lawsuit when the court ruled that PC producers were to help the investigators by providing material pertaining to this rebate practice of Intel.

Read more about it at The Inquirer.

I hope this comes to a conclusion soon because I want to see the outcome of this case. As a Computer Scientist, this explains why Intel's equivalent of an AMD Processor was much more expensive, while performance wasn't necesarily better in that matter. I was cracking my head trying to figure out some things from an architectural stand point and stuff, and now i know that I wasnt going to find out anything I wasn't looking at it from the marketing-point-of-view.