AMD, Intel call truce in antitrust, patent fights

AMD and Intel agree to stop disputes


Remember the heavily discussed Intel monopolizing "marketing" and acts against AMD?

Remember the EU vs. Intel lawsuit for $1.45 billions fine?

Remember the AMD vs. Intel lawsuit for antitrust and monopoly?

Well, guess what. It is over!



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AMD and Intel this morning unveiled a surprise deal to end all of their respective antitrust and patent cross-licensing disputes. The move ends AMD's lawsuits against Intel in both the US and Japan as well as its "regulatory complaints" worldwide. In exchange, Intel promises to pay AMD $1.25 billion and to abide by a new set of business practices. The two have also entered into a five-year cross-licensing deal for each other's technology.

The agreement doesn't immediately affect the progress of the New York antitrust case or $1.45 billion European fine but does remove one of the key arguments in these and two Japanese cases. AMD has often instigated or publicly supported these cases by accusing Intel of unfairly excluding AMD from the market through several alleged tactics, such as by price dumping, paying PC builders to limit or omit AMD in their lineups, and threatening firms with retaliation if they promote AMD systems.

The two firms are conducting back-to-back conference calls explaining the moves and should clarify some aspects of the deal soon.

AMD says that the new business practices specifically ban Intel from making sales of its products dependent on excluding AMD or to offer inducements to keep AMD out. It will also stop Intel from writing code compilers and other code to artificially slow down AMD hardware.

The agreement also no longer requires that AMD treat its spin-off GlobalFoundries as a subsidiary and that the cross-licensing is broad enough to cover all technologies, not just the x86 processors and chipsets that have been at the heart of the disputes.

Via Electronista[/b]



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If you ask me, there is something strange here.

AFAIK AMD could win this fairly easy. What are your thoughts?

 

AMD needs money (they are not profiting currently) if they continued the court case only the lawyers will be winning.
AMD is also losing to Intel in Processor performance.

 

You said it yourself, AMD could've won the battle here fairly easily. I think Intel was probably thinking along those same lines and decided to suck it up and compromise--this agreement/payout being somewhat analogous to a civil/out-of-court settlement (the alternative being far more costly probably).

I think the only strange thing is why the execs at AMD decided to capitulate as easily as they evidently did (when, like you said, their case was evidently airtight).

 

I commented this with someone else and he told me that perhaps this dispute was taking all of Intel AND AMD's skeletons out of the closet...

But as you said it, this is a pay-out. Intel is paying AMD to shut up IMHO.
Now, I wonder what AMD will do now, if they can skip Llano and go directly to Bulldozer...(me wishes) or get mobile 5000HD out NOW!

 

They just need the money, I suppose. Right now AMD is not in the right constitution to go the hard way. A battle could lead to an elimination as AMD has not much to offer except GPUs at the moment. They are around a year behind Intel in development.

 

I agree, AMD probably just needs the money at this point. Though I think in the long run that this will benefit Intel way more, something regarding the cross-licensing that will help Intel with its GPUs, and AMD no longer being required to treat Global Foundries as a subsidiary. AMD could also be very confident with its roadmap, mainly Fusion, that they could get Intel to stop getting PC builders to keep AMD out of competition. Otherwise it seems pointless as the damage is done and AMD is a year behind in tech.

 

AMD expects profitability in 2010 [Fudzilla]

Article reports that AMD is currently sucking on $3.2 billion in debt.

 

If this is a start of a proper marketing campaign, it can only be good. Kind of a Phoenix (I doubt that they will reach that goal, but positive thinking might help)

 

AMD has been carrying that debt since the ATI buy-out, and at the same time Intel did the "marketing" for their Pentiums...

But it is kinda strange that this year AMD put many lawsuits again Intel, and now, right before the both of them launch a new product, they cease, and considering Intel is with lawsuits between the EU, New York State, Japan, NVIDIA and AMD...for me it seems they took the one they could get free of and paid it.

 

Agreed.. AMD needs the money.. if it had continued neither side might not have won for years and the lawyers would make a lot.. that $1.25 Billion will help to pay off 1/3 of the debt so i'm not suprised that AMD settled..

 

As of the moment, intel is well poised to compleetly wipe AMD out of the CPU market. I think this is just a way of getting short term money for research at a possible long term loss seeing as intel basically payed them to shut up and get off their tail.

How I see it AMD is very unlikely to become the intel of the CPU market, making the most powerful processors. AMD will probably just sit where it is and cater for the cheaper computers

 

It was a good move by Intel if they lost in court the probably would have had to pay 3x as much.

 

Wonder how long it'll take for AMD to start suing Intel again.

Their last settlement lasted from 1995 till recently, so maybe we'll see more lawsuits in 2025?

 

You seem to imply that AMD is causing all the trouble here, when in fact they are simply trying to defend themselves from Intel's wrongdoing. So, if you want to know when AMD is going to have to sue Intel again, that entirely depends on how long Intel decides to play fair.

 

So now will we see every notebook with an AMD processor option?

 

QFT...Federal Anti Trust cases are EXPENSIVE and extremely HARD to win. As good of a case AMD had there's no telling how badly the judge could railroad the case or how much of a reduction in awards the juries could make. Considering how much in debt AMD is right now I'm really not sure what they're doing to pay their lawyers as it is, and whatever fund AMD was using to pay them is probably depleted by now. If I had to guess Intel won out the day overall in it's compromises because they could smell AMD's desperation and the outcome is a whole better then rolling the dice in an anti trust case.

 

They also get Intel off their back for the x86 license. And probably about at lot of other things were gained during that settlement. It was not only about the money

 

Other things such as what?

 

Like Ayle said: such as getting of their back intel accusation of breaking cross license agreement by making x86 compatible chips not by self but in third party fab Globalfoundries that AMD created with some arabic richmans ;p