AMD vs Intel: Technology, Competition, and Sustainability

induce manufacturers and dealers to carry or prefer Intel chips. AMD CEO Hektor Ruiz,
ordinarily a calm and reserved man, publicly denounced Intel as unfair and abusive. Intel
CEO Paul Otellini ridiculed AMD’s performance, claiming that its recent successes
showed that when AMD had good parts it could sell them but it was incapable of
producing enough good chips to meet demand when they did have winners. In its answer,
Intel denied any illegal acts and moved for dismissal. A year later, the judge dismissed
those counts that accused Intel of illegal acts in Europe and Japan for lack of jurisdiction.
AMD had filed antitrust suits in those places. AMD had previously sued Intel demanding
discovery of documents to help them in its planned European suit. Intel lost in the U.S.
Supreme Court in 2004, and AMD won the right of discovery of antitrust violations by
Intel. 5
Antitrust law is one of America’s most bizarre and self-destructive gifts to the
world. Justice Abe Fortas said that antitrust law was in the tradition of the old American
west. Every once in a while, a frontier sheriff would pistol whip a citizen at random pour
encourager les autres. He failed to add that the sheriff would then sometimes hand the
pistol to the European commissioner of competition and let her continue to beat and rob
the American citizen. It is a powerful tool with which a foreign government can harass
great American exporters like Microsoft and Intel. The DOJ or FTC get the goods on an
American firm and then had over the results of discovery to the foreign agencies. The
coordinated international antitrust cooperative (or conspiracy) is aimed at American firms
that give good deals and free goods to foreigners. The U.S. DOJ claims jurisdiction over
foreigners’ antitrust violations only when American trade is impacted. The Eureopean
commssioner claims jurisdiction over American firms whenever it wishes. She seems to
have an insatiable desire to redesign American soft-ware packages and steal trade-secret
code to enrich her co-conspirators who would like to sell something separately that
Microsoft gives away as part of Windows. Intel is able to make a better deal for German
companies than AMD can even though Gernany has granted it huge subsidies. Penalizing
Intel for its mercantile acumen and economic strength is protectionism and illegal
discrimination (violating WTO rules). The current Republican U.S. Administration has
violated trade law so regularly in protecting decrepit American industries that it has little
ability to or interest in protecting American high-tech exporters. As a rule, foreign firms
have not been able to compute with American IT firms, so government regulators have
been called in to rescue them. AMD, has outsourced all of its microprocessor
manufacture to its highly subsidized Germany subsidiaries yet the U.S. IRS has allowed
prior tax loss carryforwards to reduce its current U.S. tax obligations even though the
losses were in large part caused by its mismanagement of its German and other foreign
operations. AMD spent only $1 million for U.S. lobbying in 2005, far too little to justify
the favors this Administration has given them.
In the 1990’s the FTC investigated Intel for several years but imposed no
penalties. Intel signed a consent decree that it would not withhold technical data required
by its OEMs to design products for six months before the announced date for release of
the Intel product. Nothing was said about the complaints that Compaq, DEC, and
Intergraph had made that Intel was retaliating against them for filing patent infringement
5 Intel vs AMD. U.S. Reports. (2004)
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