Pull the other one Otellini

Paul Otellini: "There has been absolutely zero harm to consumers."

This message was typed on an Intel laptop. I wanted AMD, but there were no AMD decent laptops for sale in the same price range. Bear in mind that AMD were unable to give CPU's away for free because distributors would have lost their "Intel only" rebates. If I underclock my AMD desktops so they use less power than a laptop, I get a silent computer with better performance than my noisy Intel laptop.

If Mr Otellini cannot spot the harm that his company does to consumers, then by all means use his appeal as an excuse to double the fine.

(I found answers to my biggest questions about these fines: Intel have three months to pay the current fine - even if they appeal. If they appeal, the money is held in trust and earns interest. If Intel lose the appeal, the money goes into the same kitty that national governments pay into for EU membership. Decide for yourself if that means you get lower taxes or a bigger EU budget.)

awww bless ...

"ignores the reality of a highly competitive microprocessor marketplace... There has been absolutely zero harm to consumers"

monopolies and the activities that lead to them do not harm the consumer?

discuss

Here we go again

Every single large company does this, the UK is full of it, I work in Engineering, backhanders galore folks. This country and most others are built on backhanders, just the way it is.

With this though, lets say for arguments sake Intel across the 9 years of this behaviour (are we really thinking it's only been going on 9 years? :p) made sale of £1.5billion per year, £500m of that was profit, times that by 9 years = £4.5b profit with a fine of £1b. This equals huge market share, almost wiping the competition out and disabling it so much that it no longer can compete anyway, very little damage to the Intel brand being named and shamed and still making big profits. Seems worth it to me, I'd be doing the same win win for Intel regardless of the fine. When the EU and other govts start taking anti-competitive laws seriously and dishing out the fines to justify even wasting time on these matters then I'll be interested. The fine should have been the operating profit for the whole of the time it was found guilty of these practises.

Another bark without bite. Of course we all know that politicians have a vested interest, I'm sure some are large shareholders in Intel and probably sitting somewhere on the board at some level.

Oh well, time to get back to my own brand of backhanders, not quite on the same scale but hey this is what business is all about unfortunately. Anyone want a case of JD? You'll have to buy stuff from me though :p

It's not that easy..

You can't fine a company out of existence, but you can fine them something that cannot be paid out of petty cash or bypassed with badly advertised voucher scams (like the US DoJ vs MS case).

Two things happen: shareholders wake up (i.e. can no longer claim ignorance), and the company now has a conviction on record.

It does not mean that Intel can progress as before - the intention of a fine is to change behavior, and if that does not happen Intel will face ANOTHER case. With the previous fine set at this level, the assumption will then be that the fine was insufficient, which can make the next conviction extremely dangerous as the commission has wide ranging powers (for instance, it can control access to markets AFAIK)..

So, yes, the fine is a percentage of gain, but no, it's not so small not to make a difference. It's the first fine after a series of warnings. MS has already discovered it cannot BS its way out, and it has already found just how uncomfortably good EU monitoring works vs what it is used to in the US - and no way to buy themselves out (as far as I recall they tried that too).

Intel is learning that first lesson now as well - if they comply, fine. If not, more will come their way, and rightly so. The EU has nothing against success, but everything against abuse of a monopoly position, and even more so since teh US appeared to be incapable of developing a spine in that context (which only emboldens the abusers).

Interesting times..

Justice on the US schedule is justice bought off

Digital Research, AT&T (original, computer division), SCO (Xenix), Caldera (pre-McBride), Netscape, 3COM (Palm), Borland, Stac, Java. Just some of the bankrupted companies who won lawsuits against the antiethical, antisocial Microsoft.

All except Java are essentially killed, dead and buried; Java is now safely off grazing where it can't do any cross-platform damage while its owner is joining the rest of the group six feet under.

Microsoft has all of these companies' market share, IP or stuff (e.g., money, code, people), as applicable, and stole it in most cases for fractions of pennies on the dollar.

(I'm not even mentoning Microsoft's monopoly conviction. The "Justice Department" used it to increase its own headcount and ability to award contracts to friends and family. I presume their "enforcement" was limited to junkets to vacation spots for meetings - the US did less in 8 years then the EU does in an afternoon. After tea.)