AMD's fight to restore competition to the IT industry delivers freedom of choice to consumers everywhere?

Off the cuff, Intel's recent aggressive tactics in forcing a tripartite partnership with AMD and the One-Laptop-Per-Child Project showed clearly that scruples were an unknown factor in its business principles.

Granted, Intel was able to sell its own version at a price less than that of the AMD-chip equipped original equipment; however, that factor alone forced the project initiators to bring Intel onboard, bearing in mind that, sooner or later, the question would boil down to which chipset to use: Intel's or AMD's.

Anyway, AMD has upstaged Intel in Europe by suing to expose Intel's marketing secrets in court:

[.....ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC., a
Delaware corporation, and AMD
INTERNATIONAL SALES & SERVICE,
LTD., a Delaware corporation,
Plaintiffs,

vs.

INTEL CORPORATION, a Delaware
corporation, and INTEL KABUSHIKI
KAISHA, a Japanese corporation,
Defendants......

NATURE OF THE ACTION
1. Like Standard Oil at the turn of the Nineteenth Century and Alcoa Aluminum
during the Twentieth, Intel holds a monopoly in a market critical to our economy:
microprocessors that run the Microsoft Windows and Linux families of operating systems
(hereinafter the “x86 Microprocessor Market”).

Although AMD competes with Intel in this
global market, Intel possesses unmistakable and undeniable market power, its microprocessor
revenues accounting for approximately 90% of the worldwide total (and 80% of the units).

2. Just like Standard Oil and Alcoa before it, for over a decade Intel has unlawfully
maintained its monopoly by engaging in a relentless, worldwide campaign to coerce customers
to refrain from dealing with AMD. Among other things,
• Intel has forced major customers into exclusive or near-exclusive deals;
• it has conditioned rebates, allowances and market development funding on customers’
agreement to severely limit or forego entirely purchases from AMD;.....

3. Intel’s economic coercion of customers extends to all levels – from large
computer-makers like Hewlett-Packard and IBM to small system-builders to wholesale
distributors to retailers such as Circuit City. All face the same choice: accept conditions that
exclude AMD or suffer discriminatory pricing and competitively crippling treatment.....

4. Intel’s conduct has become increasingly egregious over the past several years as
AMD has achieved technological leadership in critical aspects of microprocessor architecture.
In April 2003, AMD introduced its Opteron microprocessor, the first microprocessor to take
x86 computing from 32 bits to 64 bits – an advance that allows computer applications to
address exponentially more memory, thereby increasing performance and enabling features not
possible with just 32 bits.

Unlike Intel’s 64-bit architecture of the time (Itanium), the AMD
Opteron – as well as its subsequently-introduced desktop cousin, the AMD Athlon64 – offers
backward compatibility, allowing PC users to continue using 32-bit software as, over time,
they upgrade their hardware.

Bested in a technology duel over which it long claimed
leadership, Intel increased exploitation of its market power to pressure customers to refrain
from migrating to AMD’s superior, lower-cost microprocessors.

5. Intel’s conduct has unfairly and artificially capped AMD’s market share, and
constrained it from expanding to reach the minimum efficient levels of scale necessary to
compete with Intel as a predominant supplier to major customers.

As a result, computer manufacturers continue to buy most of their requirements from Intel, continue to pay monopoly prices, continue to be exposed to Intel’s economic coercion, and continue to submit to artificial limits Intel places on their purchases from AMD. With AMD’s opportunity to compete thus constrained, the cycle continues, and Intel’s monopoly profits continue to flow.

6. Consumers ultimately foot this bill, in the form of inflated PC prices and the loss
of freedom to purchase computer products that best fit their needs. Society is worse off for
lack of innovation that only a truly competitive market can drive.

The Japanese Government recognized these competitive harms when on March 8, 2005, its Fair Trade Commission (the “JFTC”) recommended that Intel be sanctioned for its exclusionary misconduct directed at AMD. Intel chose not to contest the charges.....]

The punchline in all these technical and legal maneuvering is probably best summed up in AMD's statement, as follows:

[.....Government procurement regulations in many countries including the U.S., member states in the European Union, Japan and countries in Latin America, prohibit government agencies from issuing vendor specific procurement solicitations, that call out specific brand or product names.

When government agencies issue vendor solicitations that prevent competition, they are unable to compare product costs and performance. At best, government agencies risk making purchases without knowing that they are buying the best product for their needs at the best price. At worst, they risk using taxpayer dollars to buy inferior products at inflated prices.

AMD is committed to working with governments around the world to combat unfair and often times illegal practices in order to improve competition, promote product innovation, and save taxpayers money.

Download an executive summary of AMD's U.S. government procurement economic study, entitled Improving Federal Procurement: The Benefits of Vendor-Neutral Contract Specifications]