AMD has filed a lawsuit against rival chip maker Intel, alleging that it has carried out a 'relentless' campaign to dissuade companies against buying AMD processors.
The suit, filed in Delaware USA, claims that Intel has used 'improper' subsidies to gain sales and has threatened retaliation against companies that either use or sell AMD products. The 48-page filing names 38 firms that AMD alleges have been victims of coercion by Intel, including large scale computer-makers, small system-builders, wholesale distributors and retailers, 'through seven types of illegality across three continents'.
Intel's methods are said to include outright cash payments, discriminatory pricing or marketing subsidies.
Companies named include Dell, Sony, IBM, HP, Gateway, Hitachi, NEC, Acer and Fujitsu. In one example AMD says that its share of Sony's chip business fell from 23 per cent in 2002 to nothing in 2004 and 2005.
Intel said that it had yet to see the details of the suit but denied any allegations of impropriety.
'We believe our sales practices are both fair and consistent with federal antitrust law,' spokesman Tom Beerman told the Wall Street Journal.
AMD said that Intel is able to use its 80 per cent market share by unit sales and 90 per cent by revenue to exercise 'super-dominant market power'.
'Everywhere in the world, customers deserve freedom of choice and the benefits of innovation - and these are being stolen away in the microprocessor market,' said Hector Ruiz, chairman, president and CEO of AMD. 'Whether through higher prices from monopoly profits, fewer choices in the marketplace or barriers to innovation - people from Osaka to Frankfurt to Chicago pay the price in cash every day for Intel's monopoly abuses.'
The lawsuit follows a ruling in Japan that Intel used it near-monopoly to prevent fair competition. Intel denied charges that it deliberately imposed limitations on Japanese PC manufacturers but agreed to abide by the Fair Trade Commission of Japan's findings.
The European Commission is also investigating Intel's practices, and co-operating with the Japanese authorities.
'You don't have to take our word for it when it comes to Intel's abuses; the Japanese government condemned Intel for its exclusionary and illegal misconduct,' said Thomas M.McCoy, AMD executive vice president, legal affairs and chief administrative officer. 'We encourage regulators around the world to take a close look at the market failure and consumer harm Intel's business practices are causing in their nations. Intel maintains illegal monopoly profits at the expense of consumers and computer manufacturers, whose margins are razor thin. Now is the time for consumers and the industry worldwide to break free from the abusive Intel monopoly.'
