Competing with Intel is a hell of a tough
business in the best of circumstances, but
the rules are fairly clear and a tie-in
sale of the old chipsets to the new chip is
clearly illegal. When something
like this happens the victim has to complain --
not to a reporter, but to the CEO himself (his
assistant's email is on the Intel web page.)
Ought to be worth a couple of million in a
antitrust suit settlement. And cheap at the
price for Intel.
Why CEOs are paranoid! Not enough that
AMD, Cyrix, IBM, IDTI are chewing your
butt, but idiots in Intel --especially
in sales -- are digging ditches for you to
fall in and no one will tell you about it.
Dr. Grove says in public that everyone in
management and marketing
gets antitrust training every year, but this
seller (assuming for the moment that the report
is accurate) was checking out his options in the WSJ
when the lawyer talked about the illegality of
tie-in sales. You don't even have to be a
monopolist for tie-in to be illegal -- market
power and as little as $50,000 in commerce
will do you in. Even Cyrix couldn't get
away with this! The man or woman would have to be
a fool to try it. If you get caught permitting a
FP bug to come out in the Pentium, Intel might
be charitable. After all, everyone makes
$475 million mistakes now and then. If, however,
you deliver Intel's body for the Fed's to burn
it might have not charity.
But consider the seller- under pressure to dump obsolete
inventory, to get the price of motherboards down.
Its easy to slip up, especially if you aren't
a very good seller in the first place.
And remember, motherboard makers are in direct
competition with Intel and hate its guts. Intel is
eating their lunch. Why would
a motherboard maker want to price their product
above Intel's price anyway? The real "pressure"
may well have been that Intel was pricing below
$100 itself.
I think I would like the evidence under oath and
subject to cross-examination before rendering a
final opinion: "What MBM, do
you mean by "pressure?"" But if MBM has the
evidence on the seller, it could make enough from
a private antitrust suit to retire gracefully
from the field. Cheap too! I have some friends who
would take the case free if the evidence is tight.
Worth a phone call anyway. The victim won't
get anything from an FTC investigation.
Its time for an exit strategy from the motherboard business
anyway if you are trying to compete with Intel. |
