Another monopoly goes to court!

Giant computer chipmaker Intel is again having problems with the law and is being sued by the US Federal Trade Commission. The FTC says, "Intel is trying to prevent the competition from gaining a foothold in the computer chip market place." In a statement by the FTC they accuse the monopolistic chipmaker of "using threats and of insisting on using bundled prices to encourage exclusive deals that hampers competition." The FTC goes on to say, "Intel uses its enormous financial power to unfairly manipulate the prices of its products."

Of course Intel denies any wrong doing and have issued this statement to the press. "This complaint is misguided, Intel has always competed fairly and with in the law." The company went on to accuse the FTC of "rushing the lawsuit without investigating the charges and of basing its case on new rules rather than existing laws."

This lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission has absolutely no teeth. It includes no monetary penalties what so ever and will accomplish nothing. The commission wants Intel to provide customers with new software that does not hinder system operation if the customer happens to own a competitor product. Supposedly Intel has designed software that will not run as good if it detects chips manufactured by a competitor. This includes GPU, or video card chips.

The competitor in this case would be Advanced Micro Devices. AMD in comparison to Intel is tiny and they are on the verge of bankruptcy the last time I checked their financial status. One has to wonder why Intel insists on driving a much smaller company, and in fact all of the competition out of business. All this does is limit innovation and it drives up chip prices. I guess that last statement is enough of a reason as to why Intel does what it does.

It's good to see that the US government is attempting to stamp out all of these evil monopolies. However they are making a weak attempt. They should pattern their prosecution after the European Union's recent suit that won a massive $1.45 billion antitrust lawsuit. Intel is appealing the European judgement. Unfortunately the case will drag on for years in the courts.

While all of this is going on all we as customers can do is to wait for our free software updates from Intel. Good luck with that one...

You can read the press release from the FTC and from Intel by clicking the links.