Re: the case was arbitrated, not tried in a court of law...
I haven't studied the issue - and while you obviously know more of the details, you may also be slightly biased (and appropriately so, since you do work for Intel).
Without knowing the details, or having seen any of the agreements, my general understanding is that Intel was granted this business by IBM with the understanding that they would always allow second sources to exist. Later, Intel managed to get of the deal (a deal made more with IBM than AMD).
It certainly was a nice deal for AMD, though it did distract them from a very successful business. Remember that at one time many high end systems were built from AMD's "bitslice" processors. When AMD was providing the cores for mainframes, Intel was providing the cores for handheld calculators (OK, I'm exaggerating a bit there, but there is truth in that statement :-)
Bottom line is, Intel gained this business by promising to not be a monopoly supplier, then weasled out of its agreement.
It's all history now, anyway, and it's hard to blame Intel for seizing one of the great business opportunities of the late 20th century - but don't try to get us to cry for Intel - if they didn't like AMD as a second source, why didn't they line up an alternative supplier?
Dan |
