Wednesday, May 13th 2009
Statement by Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini on EC Ruling
Paul Otellini, Intel Corporation president and CEO today issued the following statement regarding the European Commission decision on Intel's business practices:
"Intel takes strong exception to this decision. We believe the decision is wrong and ignores the reality of a highly competitive microprocessor marketplace - characterized by constant innovation, improved product performance and lower prices. There has been absolutely zero harm to consumers. Intel will appeal."
"We do not believe our practices violated European law. The natural result of a competitive market with only two major suppliers is that when one company wins sales, the other does not. The Directorate General for Competition of the Commission ignored or refused to obtain significant evidence that contradicts the assertions in this decision. We believe this evidence shows that when companies perform well the market rewards them, when they don't perform the market acts accordingly."
"Intel never sells products below cost. We have however, consistently invested in innovation, in manufacturing and in developing leadership technology. The result is that we can discount our products to compete in a highly competitive marketplace, passing along to consumers everywhere the efficiencies of being the world's leading volume manufacturer of microprocessors."
"Despite our strongly held views, as we go through the appeals process we plan to work with the Commission to ensure we're in compliance with their decision. Finally, there should be no doubt whatsoever that Intel will continue to invest in the products and technologies that provide Europe and the rest of the world the industry's best performing processors at lower prices."
Intel's Position on the AMD Antitrust Case
Since the 1990s Intel's principal competitor has been on a concerted campaign to get regulators and courts around the world to prevent Intel from competing aggressively in the market. The aggressive marketing campaign by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has included numerous complaints to regulators in multiple jurisdictions which all stem from the same set of allegations and source. It has included a private lawsuit in the U.S. and two in Japan. By all accounts the U.S. lawsuit could become one of largest antitrust cases in the history of U.S. Courts.
AMD's objectives are clear; it is seeking price protection and wants to become more successful by deterring Intel from aggressive competition. Stripped of hyperbole AMD's complaints around the world accuse Intel of competing too aggressively by offering customers attractive prices and marketing, and technical support to win their business.
The microprocessor market is fiercely competitive. That competition has resulted in tremendous benefits to consumers worldwide by providing continuous improvement in technology innovation, performance and capability at consistently lower prices. Intel believes in competition and has never shied away from it. As you will see from information contained on this site Intel believes it operates well within the law.
More information about Intel and "Competition in the Innovation Economy" is available here.
Source:
Intel
"Intel takes strong exception to this decision. We believe the decision is wrong and ignores the reality of a highly competitive microprocessor marketplace - characterized by constant innovation, improved product performance and lower prices. There has been absolutely zero harm to consumers. Intel will appeal."
"We do not believe our practices violated European law. The natural result of a competitive market with only two major suppliers is that when one company wins sales, the other does not. The Directorate General for Competition of the Commission ignored or refused to obtain significant evidence that contradicts the assertions in this decision. We believe this evidence shows that when companies perform well the market rewards them, when they don't perform the market acts accordingly."
"Intel never sells products below cost. We have however, consistently invested in innovation, in manufacturing and in developing leadership technology. The result is that we can discount our products to compete in a highly competitive marketplace, passing along to consumers everywhere the efficiencies of being the world's leading volume manufacturer of microprocessors."
"Despite our strongly held views, as we go through the appeals process we plan to work with the Commission to ensure we're in compliance with their decision. Finally, there should be no doubt whatsoever that Intel will continue to invest in the products and technologies that provide Europe and the rest of the world the industry's best performing processors at lower prices."
Intel's Position on the AMD Antitrust Case
Since the 1990s Intel's principal competitor has been on a concerted campaign to get regulators and courts around the world to prevent Intel from competing aggressively in the market. The aggressive marketing campaign by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has included numerous complaints to regulators in multiple jurisdictions which all stem from the same set of allegations and source. It has included a private lawsuit in the U.S. and two in Japan. By all accounts the U.S. lawsuit could become one of largest antitrust cases in the history of U.S. Courts.
AMD's objectives are clear; it is seeking price protection and wants to become more successful by deterring Intel from aggressive competition. Stripped of hyperbole AMD's complaints around the world accuse Intel of competing too aggressively by offering customers attractive prices and marketing, and technical support to win their business.
The microprocessor market is fiercely competitive. That competition has resulted in tremendous benefits to consumers worldwide by providing continuous improvement in technology innovation, performance and capability at consistently lower prices. Intel believes in competition and has never shied away from it. As you will see from information contained on this site Intel believes it operates well within the law.
More information about Intel and "Competition in the Innovation Economy" is available here.
128 Comments on Statement by Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini on EC Ruling
By your logic, buy one get one free is a bribe to the customer, and any company that can't offer a similar sale should be compensated for these horrendous sales tactics.
Oh and the ford and toyota analogy has holes in it because Intel never bribed a city, forcing residents within that city a single choice. Intel was focusing on businesses, and the businesses (only consumer with choice in this situation) made the decision based on common sense.
As far as i'm concerned its just one company crying coz the other company is doing better.I dont think theres such a thing as fair practices in buisness,You do whatever it takes to get people to buy your stuff.Screw the competitors.
Now, stupid talesmen.
They hurt the rival, rival get less R&d money, less fabs, higher production cost, less compotition, higher prices, less performance evolution.
what cracks me up the most about all the "this is BS" people ranting off about this ruling and intel's position is the obvious. intel has been engaged in evil doing (anti-competitive practices) since the late 90's through to this day. it's pretty obvious that both the intel fan camp and intel themselves do not remember the past decade. anyone remember when the K6-III's came out? intel began to lose its hold on the performance crown back then. Google up the reviews. once the Slot A and eventual Socket A Athlon's surfaced intel had a problem keeping pace for years to come in the same price bracket with AMD's offerings. again Google up the reviews.
what has always been the absolute nail in the argument for me is that when the Slot A Athlon's came out sites like Tom's Hardware, [H]ard|OCP and others would stumble upon links to ASUS, MSI and other mobo manufacturers website product descriptions for their Slot A motherboards and in nearly every case for just about a years time the page(s) would vanish once the public domain discovered them. they were never accessible through the manufacturers sites themselves. i remember that only a small few (FIC, Tyan and i think EPOX) whom actually had their products existence in plain view through the web and were linked to from within their own websites while the others did everything to hide the very existence of their offerings yet you could definitely go into Fry's or elsewhere and find their products on the shelves for Slot A.
why would a motherboard maker fear anyone finding technical details on their product? doesn't take a genius to see how a threat of a "chipset shortage" from intel could possibly be a deterrent to those that catered to the other side of the fence...sure they didn't complain but you also didn't notice any of those they gave the reach arounds to jumping to use the CPU's that beat down on the P4...
- Robert (pMr)dEATHiNjUNE
All the nerds sat with A64 while companies, retailers, schools, anything thats made of companies like HP, dell, acer, ibm/lenovo used intel, there was one company that did use AMD, but that was 100% norwegian.
* edit*
When Athlon XP came, there was some HP models with GF2 series with AMD cpu, but in rare occasions we would ever see amd.
So, instead of making better chips, Intel started threatening vendors and "encouraging" them to use their own crappy chips instead of going to AMD, by threatening not to sell any chips to them (if they start buying from AMD as well).
I swear, if I have to explain this one more time to people I'm going to go nuts. :confused:
Intel is not some "Champion of the FREE MARKET!!!111one" -- they are precisely the kind of company that's helping to destroy it.
-----
in other news. when DELL wanted to order AMD cpus AMD couldnt manufacture the number of cpu that DELL wanted. So its AMDs problem if they cant make enought CPUs for their customers. if i dont get what i want in a store i go to another store.
Unfortunately, regardless of what some here have said, Dell were more than willing to buy some chips from AMD and some from Intel, and were more than willing to undertake the necessary costs required to handle two types of chips. (Since, to the end user, nothing would be different between one computer running an AMD chip and one running an Intel.) This was because of lots of reasons -- at the time, AMD chips were far better, using less power and operating generally faster.
Intel just couldn't be happy with this, though, and had to resort to bending the law to get their way.
I find it amusing when a company like AMD steps up and offers competition, that everyone acts so shocked and surprised that the once dominant Intel doesn't stay exactly the same.
No, but you guys are right. From a business perspective, it makes so much more sense to not be competitive, and remain the most illogical and impractical choice for all vendors. What was Intel thinking?
Bottom line, Intel did what they had to do in order to sell more of their product. When Pizza Hut carries all pepsi products, it's the same exact thing. I understand the animosity towards any giant company who appears to dominate a market, but if the situation were reversed everyone would be cheering AMD on for being the underdog that brought the heat.
They sold a wide range of systems & they were there since AMD Athlons first hit the market & carried on selling AMD based machines till the day they went into Administration in July 2005.
sometimes, its the small companies that actually make a difference.
But that's not even the issue -- the problem is that it's anticompetitive.
What Intel should've done is taken their licks, lost a little bit of business, and then got that business back when they made the Core2 (which is better than anything AMD had at the time). That's called capitalism.
See how it works? Intel was/is just being greedy.
What pisses me off the most about this whole business is that Intel didn't even need to do it. They were more than capable enough to design a better chip (like the wonderful Core2) and get any lost business back eventually. :shadedshu
They're the bigger, faster, stronger company -- they could've won the race in the end fair and square.
However, instead of using their size to compete, they just tried to push the other guy down, like an overweight bully.
And, unfortunately for them, I guess the teachers were watching. :laugh:
I hope the EU doesn't come after me.
"If you buy from AMD we'll raise the prices on our chips for you, and since AMD can't meet your total demand, you'll be forced to buy our higher price."
And therein lies the problem. That's "abusing your position within the market."How convenient for me -- I can cook your 25-core pastry processor on top of my old Pentium D. :D
However, you left something out -- conversely, once your company has reached a certain percentage of market share, you no longer have a right to demand that your buyer buy from only you.If all they were doing was offering discounts, even I'd have no problem with it. Selling things at a loss is a time-honored tradition of the free market. :laugh: