EU regulators raid Intel offices

ANTITRUST regulators in Europe have raided the offices of processor giant Intel and several computer retails as part of an investigation of restrictive trade practices.

In a prepared statement, the European Commission said its officials had carried out “unannounced inspections at the premises of a manufacturer of central processing units (CPUs) and a number of personal computer retailers.

Intel has since confirmed that it is the manufacturer whose offices were raided. The German consumer electronics retailer Media Markt and Britains DSG are also understood to have been raided as part of the investigation.

“The Commission has reason to believe that the companies concerned may have violated EC Treaty rules on restrictive business practices (Article 81) and/or abuse of a dominant market position,” the Commission said in a statement.

The investigation and the premises’ raids are thought to be the first stage of a response to complaints to the EC about Intel market behaviour from rival Advanced Micro Devices.

Intel is already the subject of formal EU charges of monopoly abuse of market power, for allegedly customer rebates at below cost and for allegedly bullying customers into staying away from AMD.

Intel has said it would cooperate with the regulatory authorities.

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NY investigates Intel sales practice

NEW York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has launched an instigation of chip-maker Intel amid concerns the company had violated anti-trust laws by coercing customers to exclude its rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Cuomo served Intel with a wide-ranging subpoena seeking documents and information on the company and its relationship with some customers.

“Our investigation is focused on determining whether Intel has improperly used monopoly power to exclude competitors or stifle innovation,” Mr Cuomo said. “We will also look at whether Intel abused its power to remove competitive threats or harm competition in violation of New York and federal antitrust laws.”

Similar antitrust allegations have been examined by authorities in Europe and Asia and resulted in formal actions, including a cease and desist order, against Intel.

The subpoena served on Intel seeks documents and information concerning Intel’s pricing practices and possible attempt to exclude competitors through its market domination. Specifically it seeks to find whether Intel penalised customers for making purchases from a competitor, or if it made improper payments to customers to keep them from buying a competitors product.

AMD’s executive vice-president for legal affairs Tom McCoy welcomed the investigation.

“New York State’s decision, based on its findings to date, to open a formal investigation of Intel’s anticompetitive business practices is good news for computer buyers in NY and throughout the United States,” Mr McCoy said.

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AMD sells stake to mid-east interests

CHIP-maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has sold an 8.1 per cent stake in the company to the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government for US$622 million (A$698 million) in cash.

Proceeds from the sale, to the Mubadala Development Company, would be used for general corporate purposes – including the accelerating it long term growth strategy by investing in research and development, product development and manufacturing capability.

Partly to allay US public concerns about Middle East government investment in technology firms, AMD said this was a non-controlling, minority investment and that Mubadala would not receive any board representation as part of the deal.

The transaction did not present a controlling investment or acquisition subject to review by regulatory authorities like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), the company said.

“We proudly welcome Mubadala, a world-class investor, to the AMD shareholder family. This investment strengthens AMD’s ability to deliver customer-centric innovation and choice to the marketplace, creating greater value for all of our shareholders,” said AMD Chairman and chief executive Hector Ruiz.

AMD has been in a slump in recent quarters, and the investment is seen as a timely injection of capital to take to its ongoing battle with rival Intel. AMD has lost more than US$1.6 billion so far this year.

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EC charges Intel with competition breach

CHIP-making giant Intel has rejected European Commission charges that it engaged in anti-competitive practices, arguing that its market behaviour in Europe was both legal and in the interests on consumers.

The European Commission says Intel has engaged in monopoly abuse to lock its competitor AMD from accessing new customers. Intel has ten weeks to respond formally to the charges, which could ultimately lead to fines running to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The commission said Intel had given substantial rebates to PC manufacturers for buying their x86 processors and that the company paid the manufacturers to either delay or discontinue making products that used AMD processors.

It said Intel also made below cost bids for business in accounts where AMD was a competitor.

The commission said each of the three types of behaviour were both anti-competitive and against the law, but added the combination of the three showed an anti-competitive strategy that damaged both AMD and the market.

“The Commission also considers at this stage of its analysis that the three types of conduct reinforce each other and are part of a single overall anticompetitive strategy,” it said.

Intel senior vice-president and general counsel Bruce Sewell said the company rejected the charges and welcomed the chance to address them.

“We are confident that the microprocessor market segment is functioning normally and that Intel's conduct has been lawful, pro-competitive, and beneficial to consumers,” Mr Sewell said.

“While we would certainly have preferred to avoid the cost and inconvenience of establishing that our competitive conduct in Europe has been lawful, the Commission's decision to issue a Statement of Objections means that at last Intel will have the opportunity to hear and respond to the allegations made by our primary competitor,” he said.

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AMD punts on Transmeta energy technology

CHIP-maker AMD has invested US$7.5 million in ailing semiconductor design firm Transmeta in a deal thought to be aimed at securing energy efficiency technology.

Founded in 1995, Transmeta develops and licenses innovative computing, microprocessor and semiconductor technologies and related intellectual property. The company is a specialist in delivering low power, high performance chip technology.

Most recently Transmeta has focused on developing and licensing our advanced power management technologies.

“We are very pleased that AMD has made a strategic investment in the future of Transmeta,” said Transmeta president and chief executive officer, Les Crudele.

“AMD has long been a leader in the development and delivery of energy-efficient, high-performance computing technologies, standards and initiatives,” Mr Crudele said.

“Transmeta has been proud to endorse and contribute to those industry leading activities, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with AMD on technology initiatives in the future,” he said.

AMD president and chief operating officer Dirk Meyer said Transmeta has been a key AMD ally in bring the company’s AMD64 technology to market and had supported the industry adoption of both AMD64 and AMD's HyperTransport technology.

“Our investment will support Transmeta's technology development work and AMD's efforts to leverage Transmeta's innovative energy-efficient technologies to the benefit of AMD's customers,” Mr Meyer said.

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AMD confirms Quad-Core for August

CHIP giant Advanced Micro Devices has confirmed it will ship its first Quad-Core Opteron “Barcelona” processors in August – scotching rumours that it planned to delay the launch.

There had been industry speculation that AMD would put the launch date back because of unspecified manufacturing problems. The processors are code-named “Barcelona”.

AMD said it would start shipping both standard and low-power versions in August. The company said it was the first time AMD had ever made standard and low power versions of a product available at launch.

With the new processors shipping in volume in August, the company said it expects hardware partners to start shipping system products based on Barcelona in September.

Barcelona is the first x86 processor to integrate four processing cores onto a single piece of silicon. AMD says the development would deliver significant performance and performance-per-watt enhancements over existing architectures.

“More than ever before, customers are expecting energy-efficiency and performance-per-watt leadership as much as absolute performance,” AMD’s Server and Workstation Division corporate vice-president Randy Allen said.

“With this new reality of computing, greater performance at the expense of greater power consumption is no longer an option.”

“AMD has prioritised production of our low power and standard power products because our customers and ecosystem demand it, and we firmly believe that the introduction of our native Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor will deliver on the promise of the highest levels of performance-per-watt the industry has ever seen.”

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