BTW, looks like Acer (based on their full-throttled AMD support as of late) will testify for AMD, about Intel's threats made personally by Barrett to them in Taiwan.
AMD’s September 23, 2003, launch of Athlon64 was a watershed event for the
Company. Upon learning the launch schedule, Intel did its best to disrupt it. For example,
Acer committed to support the AMD rollout by making a senior executive available for a
videotaped endorsement and by timing the introduction of two computers, a desktop and a
notebook, to coincide with AMD events planned for Cannes, San Francisco and Taiwan. Days
before the event, Intel CEO, Craig Barrett, visited Acer’s Chairman, CEO and President in
Taiwan, expressed to them Intel’s “concern” and said Acer would suffer “severe
consequences” if it publicly supported AMD’s launch. The Barrett visit coincided with an
unexplained delay by Intel providing $15-20 million in market development funds owed to
Acer. As a result, Acer withdrew from the launch in the U.S. and Taiwan, pulled its
promotional materials, banned AMD’s use of the video, and delayed the announcement of its
Athlon64-powered computers. Acer’s President subsequently reported that the only thing
different about Intel’s threats was the messenger – they were “usually done by lower ranking
managers,” not Intel’s CEO.
Also:
As retaliation for dealing with AMD, Intel has also used chipset pricing as a
bludgeon. For example, in 2003, Acer had committed to la unch the AMD Athlon XP. Acer
executives worldwide had been working with AMD to bring the product to market post-launch.
But, on the eve of the launch the Acer management in Taiwan pulled the plug. AMD learned
from Acer executives that Intel had threatened to raise chipset prices by $10 on all Intel-based
Acer systems if any processor business was awarded to AMD outside of Europe. |
