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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (260180)	5/14/2009 1:22:17 PM
From: gvatty	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

She basically did say it and that Intel frustrates innovation. europa.eu

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (260180)	5/14/2009 2:44:22 PM
From: Dan3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Re: Instead she claims that Intel has to "abide the law." Why don't you explain to us why Asus only shipped AMD supporting motherboards in unmarked boxes with no reference to their existence on their web site? Explain to us why Supermicro did not list or even link to any of their products that supported AMD parts? Why a major OEM turned down 0 cost CPUs? If you can clear up those little issues, you can go back to condemning the EU's decision. Otherwise you just sound crazy. Intel's extortion was blatant and obvious.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (260180)	5/14/2009 4:00:06 PM
From: JCB01	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

Mind if I paint a picture of what I think happened? BTW, I have no personal knowledge, nor do I have expertise in microprocessors or the law. A few years ago when AMD was highly competitive with the K-7/K-8, Intel found itself in a quandary: if AMD got big enough, it could present Intel with real competition - something that would turn CPU into commodities and destroy their profit margins. Besides, Jerry Sanders is a complete a## who is leeching off the business we built, and we hate that sob. What can we do? Well, No company build computers without us. In fact, there's nobody that's going to build the vast majority of their computers without us. So why don't we leverage that fact to keep our customers from buy more AMD? We can't do that! We've got 80% of the market. The authorities will be all over us! You're right. But what if we structure our contracts properly? From iSupply and other sources, we know how many computers each manufacturer makes and sells. Rather than demand that we get %90 percent of their business for a given price per CPU, how about we set things up so they have to buy %90 percent of their processors from us? Say, oh, Jim's Computers is expecting to sell 12000 computers this quarter. They start negotiating to buy 10000 processors from us We price the lot at $200 per CPU. So everythings kosher, right? Next we start a side program - call it, I don't know market development something targeted at expenses they will have anyway. Have our sales guy walk back into the customer and say 'Hey - you're eligible for a rebate on the all of the processors that we sold you for the quarter of $5 per unit. All you have to do is make sure the advertising is only used for computers that use Intel processors, and you display our logo for a second in your commercials. Would you like that?' 'Heck yes! That's $5000 that I didn't have before and margins are tight!' 'Say... you know if you buy an additional 2000 processors at the price of $200 per CPU, the rebate jumps to $20?' The customer does the math: 10,000 X $200 = $2,000,000 spent 10,000 X $5 = $50,000 back - Total cost to him: $1,950,000 Plus 2000 X $150 = 300,000 for his AMD processor order for a grand total of 2,250,000 - OR - 12,000 X $200 = $2,400,000 spent 12,000 X $20 = $240,000 back - total cost to him: $2,160,000 The reality of that to the purchasing agent is that $2,160,000 -$1,950,000 = $110,000 for 2000 additional processors or $55 per unit! He wouldn't even look at AMD for more than $45 per unit. They lose money at that price so they have to walk away. The only way they would get business is Jim had an unexpectedly good quarter and placed a late call for more processors. Meanwhile Intel can say they sold all of those processors for $180 per unit. Would contracts written that way pass legal muster? I suspect yes - especially if the gub'mint guys don't account for Intel knowing how many units Jim plans on selling. AFter all, aren't they allowed compete for business. Anyway, that's my guess. Intel wrote contracts that met the letter of the law, but violated the spirit. The US may have seen the contracts and not realized that Intel could predict their customers sales or thought good luck trying to prove it. The EU may have different standards for judging or maybe they found evidence to suggest intent and it was enough. Also Neelie Kroes may be a self-righteous nincompoop for saying what she's said, but there's also a chance that she taps into a level of resentment towards the US that's common in Europe. Something that's not about Bush or whomever, but about the US and that we're lone remaining superpower. Maybe we need to be taken down a peg or two... much like the way the world viewed England a century ago.