Even if they are found guilty I bet that the fine will be no more than 0.01% of the extra profits that they made by behaving the way they did.

Does crime pay?

It does if it's corporate crime!

But what about Linux laptops that are sold at the same price as those with Vista?

Way to go EC. I wish the FTC had the same power over here on this side of the pond.

While I understand most of the charges, this one I simply don't get: "Finally it was accused of supplying server chips at below cost in order to exclude AMD from the market."

I'm sorry, Intel going to a reseller and saying "Buy from us and we'll give this humongous discount" is not illegal. Now, if they had said "Don't buy from AMD and we'll give you a humongous discount", *that* would be illegal.

Selling some of your wares below cost for a while to outbid a competitor has been a practice of most manufacturers (and shops) since times immemorial - the idea is to get your foot in the door at which point you can return to normal pricing. It can be a bit david-vs-goliath, but it is *not* illegal. Heck, some petrol stations around here are currently doing this in a bid to attract repeat customers (selling petrol today-only for AU$0.999/l instead of the current average around-town price of AU$1.385/l)