EU Antitrust Regulator Scolded For Simply Ignoring Evidence In Intel's Favor
from the well-that's-convenient dept
It's no secret that we think that EU antitrust regulators are way too aggressive in pursuing antitrust claims against US tech companies. The EU continues to view market size as a problem, rather than looking as closely at actual anticompetitive behavior. And, now, it's coming out that the EU's antitrust regulators may be so overzealous to take down companies that they'll ignore evidence that goes against their hypothesis. The EU's ombudsman has apparently issued a report scolding EU antitrust regulators for flat-out ignoring evidence from a Dell executive concerning Intel and AMD. The EU, as you probably know, fined Intel €1 billion a few months back, finding that the company had abused monopoly powers to force hardware makers into using its chips. But, the EU's ombud discovered that the antitrust regulators had interviewed Dell execs who said simply that AMD's chips didn't have the performance of Intel chips. In fact, in their tests, AMD's chips were "very poor," so they chose Intel chips entirely on the basis of performance. And... conveniently, the EU's antitrust regulators simply failed to record this info and did not include it in their report. Of course, you can make anyone appear to have violated antitrust rules if you purposely ignore all evidence to the contrary.
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Re: In Related News
I believe they are just using the logic of anyone that would want an operating system other then Windows on their systems has enough know how to download it for free and install it themselves. Plus, I highly doubt most of those people would use a copy of Linux installed by Dell anyway. I know I for one, do a system wipe on any new system I get and put a fresh copy of Windows (or Linux depending on what I'm using it for) on the system ^_^
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Re: Re: In Related News
- Obscure offers are due to complaints by potential customers. They listen more intently when Microsoft complains.
"anyone that would want an operating system other then Windows on their systems has enough know how to download it for free and install it themselves."
- After having been forced to pay the Microsoft tax
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How about when AMD was stomping all over Intel performance-wise several years ago and AMD had to drag Intel snd Dell into court kicking and screaming because Dell refused to sell AMD products under any circumstances.
I'm not denying EU antitrust regulators aren't over-the-top but to simply take the word of some upper management shitbag as proof that there is no monopolistic issues going on is a bit disingenuous.
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I didn't say that it, alone was proof that Intel was innocent of antitrust violations, but it certainly calls the entire investigation into question.
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I didn't thought you are such a gullible person.
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This is like taking a statement from an Xbox fanbois, that the "PS3 can't compare to the power of the Xbox360." Unless they are backing up that claim with some actual benchmarks and recorded testing numbers, I would ignore the Dell execs' statements as being too subjective to be admissible as evidence. Major anti-competitive rebates by one processor provider would definitely make the competition suddenly look "very poor." Even if this was true at the time the Dell execs were interviewed, it definitely wasn't true for the entire period in which Dell sold Intel chips exclusively. AMD's first line of 64-bit processors trounced any of Intel's 64-bit solutions for several years, especially in terms of Win32 performance. There are benchmarks and hard numbers to back that up, from reliable third parties (Tom's Hardware Guide is a good example), so what use is the subjective statement of an active member in the collusion being investigated? The investigator did the right thing by not listening to Dell blowhards.
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What are you saying?
Intel is a Monopoly.
Dell uses Intel.
Dell is under Intel's Power.
Dell cannot speak against Intel.
Thus no evidence suggest Intel is not a Monopoly.
Goto 1, repeat for every supporter of Intel.
That is... VERY bad logic. If you dismiss any supporter of Intel as being in their pocket, then you are left with only the claims against Intel, and thus, there is no proof otherwise.
So, with the same logic, couldn't you declare AMD and Linux as a monopoly? Dismiss anyone who says they are not as being in the pocket, then without any evidence otherwise, it is what you say?
PLEASE say I am reading this wrong.
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Re: What are you saying?
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Trust me, I'm not one of these guys who assume that any wildly successful company got where they are by abusing the system. For instance, Google is an excellent example of a company coming under fire for various reasons that mainly come down to jealousy and this socialist mentality that big companies = bad. But with the case of Dell / Intel, there IS good cause to beleive that there's some shenanigans going on simply due to their behavior in the past and the potential gains that could be made by such behavior. EU regulators have been incredibly overzealous in the past, particularly with Microsoft, but in this case Intel / Dell have done it to themselves.
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Over-zealous?
You can't possibly be over-zealous in dealing with anti-trust cases. Even if you're probing where there's nothing going on, at the very least you're keeping companies on their toes and reminding them you're watching them in case they *do* do something wrong. And they have a HUGE INCENTIVE to collude and engage in anti-competitive behavior. In the history of industrialization many, *many* industries with even a marginal barrier to entry have provided instances where companies at least tacitly attempted to collude.
Criticizing the EU for sticking up for the little guy after centuries of big-business and rich people-favoritism is utterly moronic.
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Re: Over-zealous?
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Re: Re: Over-zealous?
I found this article to be a good one in reporting that at least the EU was aware of it's own bias. That is a good thing.
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Data!
Anyway as for performance it's a joke of course. Where I worked we stopped purchasing Intel servers (from Dell/IBM/...) and switched to AMD (from Sun) since they offered better performance/cost. When Intel decided to produce better chips we went back to Intel (from Dell).
Dell lost scores and scores of customers (we bought servers by the hundreds) when it was still Intel only and AMD had better chips (but Dell was still saying of course Intel chips are better - Mike you know how marketing works).
For data just look at the sequence of http://www.top500.org/ and the rise (and then relative fall) of AMD.
Now of course since the EU documents are secret we don't know what's really in it.
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A wee bit off topic but...
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Masnick's US imperialism
They're behaving the same with EU-based tech (e.g. telco) and non-tech (e.g. building materials, energy) companies. Just look at the other recent cases. (Of course, reading only US media you won't find these -- so read at least UK media, since you probably only understand English.)
> The EU continues to view market size as a problem.
Fortunately, the EU is not a colony of the US empire, and thus entitled to its own values and a more practical antitrust execution. Nobody *forces* Intel to sell its products in Europe.
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Say what?
How is Intel paying one of the largest chains "Media Markt" not to sell PCs with AMD chips not anticompetitive behavior?
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Overzealous ?
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Slow to Change, Tainted by Past
However, never had a problem with an Intel chip. And even if AMD has improved greatly, and is now a better chip, the perception is lingering, at least in my case, that it is a disaster waiting to happen.
Once you get a bad rep, it can take years, or decades, for consumers to change back to a good view, and even longer with slow lumbering companies.
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Re: Slow to Change, Tainted by Past
Was there a warranty period?
Did you attempt to fix it?
Did you troubleshoot the problem?
Kernal panic is not always due to CPU issues
It appears you have one data point wrt AMD CPUs. And from this you draw conclusions?
Excuse me if I am wrong, but your post appears to be FUD.
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From an economics perspective this makes sense. Monopoly = less aggregate output + more profits
So under certain conditions less aggregate output, to some degree, = more profits for the seller.
You have a company that optimizes aggregate output providing less profits for the seller than could be provided with a market distortion.
Special interest groups see all the aggregate output and they want to find ways to turn as much of that aggregate output as possible into profits for them (hence reducing aggregate output by converting as much consumer surplus into producer surplus as possible).
They lobby the government for restrictions that reduce consumer surplus and increase producer surplus and hence turns some of that aggregate output into producer surplus.
They take some of that money and contribute to political campaigns for politicians that would maintain their profits at the expense of aggregate output.
So everyone but the consumer and society wins. Politicians win (more campaign contributions) and those that increase their profits win. Society loses out because less aggregate output is produced.
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Really?
That being said, there is building what the client requests, and if they told me to build a system using the interlopers parts, I am duty bound to oblige the customer.
Point being, every one has an opinion. And since the EU seems to be hard asses when anything tech twitches the wrong way, this makes me wonder if the people involved in making these decisions aren't on the other sides payroll. I would like to see them take a test of some sort to see how these decision makers lean on issue.
Another point of view that the EU has very specific guidelines when it comes to a lot of different products entering and selling their market. This could simply be the case with the PC market.
Something Dell should consider; Market their products as custom systems. -As in PC's by Dell are each a custom computer made for you, the public. This would likely take the wind out of the sails of the EU, and probably bolster their sales in the process.
Thanks for reading my long winded post. :)
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Re: Really?
LOL!!! That's exactly the point of this anti-trust action!
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...In their pocket
Who woulda guessed?
/Fungo
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Re: ...In their pocket
Why do you say that?
Is there any thing you would like to share, to back your assumption ...
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I don't like anti-trust but...
Not only does the top perfomance stop switch back and forth between Intel and AMD on a regualar basis, but AMD almost always offers there chips much cheaper than Intel. At many pointed in the last 5 years AMD has had the fastest chips that cost much less than Intels fastest offering.
AMD is almost always the best option for a low end desktop because they are so much cheaper, and the top end chips are really anyones game.
So as much as I don't like anti-trust law, I would have ingored Dells interviews as out and out lies.
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intel better than AMD? In what world?
While I'm not so sure I'd agree with the EU board saying Intel is a monopoly, the Dell bit is a joke either way, obviously paid-off.
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