Stockman, re:"The FTC probe extends to not only Intel, but AMD as well"
This is total baloney, AMD is being asked to provide evidence against Intel, noone is investigating their business practices. Such evidence might include:
1. Which companies reported to AMD that they don't want to use K6 because Intel would retaliate with price, availability or future information.
2. Whether AMD found that Intel supplied software to companies which needlessly checked for CPUID information and what the cost of rewriting this Intel software was.
Microsoft is now required to have a Chinese Wall between their OS development and the application development software groups. Whether you think this is fair or not, IT IS THE LAW OF THE LAND.
Intel should also have a Chinese wall between various hardware groups, such as networking, chipset development, graphics chip development and their hardware CPU development group. After all, Graphics, Networking and Computer Design are merely applications of CPU power, exactly analogous to the situation with Microsoft. The Chinese Wall means that Intel may not disclose future CPU information (such as specifications for MMX2) to these groups within Intel unless they also disclose them to the rest of the world, i.e., AMD.
Thats the law, thats what FTC will decide, and thats fair.
Petz |
