英特尔与 FTC 就反垄断问题达成和解协议，有助 oem 采用 AMD/NVIDIA 产品

Edison

http://www.dailytech.com/FTC+Int ... es/article19265.htm

Settlement also establishes $10M USD fund that could help OEMs switch to AMD or NVIDIA

Intel, like Microsoft, built a seemingly ironclad lead through a combination of great products and aggressive business maneuvering.  Those maneuvers could be viewed as clever moves or destructive anticompetitive behavior -- it all depends on who you ask.  However, in recent years Intel, like Microsoft, has come under increasing pressure to stop its more "creative" business tactics.  Fined $1.45B USD by the European Union last year, Intel has just arrived at a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over numerous antitrust issues.

While the settlement is less painful fiscally than the EU ruling, it will have a major impact on the way Intel conducts its business.  Intel is no longer allowed to pay off (either directly, or through unit discounts) OEMs to exclusively carry Intel CPUs or to not carry competitor Advanced Micro Devices' CPUs.  Likewise, it can no longer retaliate against OEMs who opt to offer competitive products.

Intel is also banned from specifically redesigning its chips to harm its competitors.  Specifically it will be forced to not limit the performance of rivals' GPU chips for at least the next six years.  Also, it must publish clearly that its compiler discriminates against non-Intel processors (such as AMD's designs), not fully utilizing their features and producing inferior code.

The settlement concludes a suit launched by the FTC in December following an investigation.  While it brings no major fines against Intel, it does require Intel to pay $10M USD to establish a fund to help business customers retool their software if they were misled by Intel to think the poor performance of Intel-compiled code on AMD chips was normal.  

Intel’s general counsel, A. Douglas Melamed comments, "[This settlement will] put an end to the expense and distraction of the FTC litigation.  This agreement provides a framework that will allow us to continue to compete and to provide our customers the best possible products at the best prices."

The settlement removes a critical piece of the remaining U.S. litigation on Intel's plate.  Previously, Intel had agreed to a $1.25B USD payout to settle a civil case with AMD last November.  The only major remaining legal action against it now is a lawsuit from the state of New York, alleging illegal anticompetitive behavior.

While the antitrust litigation of the turn of the millenia did not derail Microsoft or significantly alter its PC operating system market share, the latest round -- this time against Intel -- could have a more serious impact.  Unlike Microsoft, Intel has a very aggressive rival in its core business -- AMD.  Last year AMD's CPU shipments grew 17.7 percent on a year-to-year basis, giving it a 19.4 percent market share.  Intel, meanwhile, saw its lead shrink, posting an 80.5 percent market share.

From 2003 to 2006 AMD produced CPUs that were widely considered to outperform similarly priced Intel designs.  While other issues also hampered AMD, it alleges that it largely failed to gain market share during this era thanks to Intel's questionable business practices -- and legal settlements seem to back up this claim.

AMD seems revitalized once more, having taken the discrete graphics sales crown from NVIDIA, thanks to its head start with DirectX 11 GPUs.  If it can duplicate this success on the CPU market, this time it may finally be able to see its hard work pay off with increased OEM adoption -- now that Intel can no longer pay off OEMs not to use its products.  The ball is in AMD's court, as they say.

Edison

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6733I420100804

(Reuters) - Intel Corp has agreed to stop using threats and unfair discounts to block its rivals, resolving a costly, high-profile legal battle over accusations it illegally smothered competition for over a decade.

The world's largest chip maker -- which managed to settle the U.S. Federal Trade Commission complaint without paying a cent -- also pledged to grant rivals access to its leading processor technology for six years.

Shares in graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp, which along with Intel arch-foe Advanced Micro Devices Inc first brought the complaint to the top U.S. trade body, jumped 4.25 percent. Nvidia has sued Intel for anti-competitive practices in a still-pending trial.

"Intel has got to be happy that they were able to minimize the damage and get it over with," said Patrick Wang, an analyst with Wedbush Securities.

The settlement had been expected. Shares of Intel closed barely changed at $20.73 on Nasdaq.

Urged on by AMD and Nvidia, the FTC accused Intel in December of using its market dominance to unfairly stifle competition. Intel makes 80 percent of the world's microprocessors.

The deal bars Intel from retaliating against computer makers if they do business with non-Intel suppliers. It also agreed to give makers of complementary products such as graphics chips access to its central processing units for the next six years.

"It's a landmark settlement that really will have a striking effect on improving competition in the market," said David Balto, a former FTC policy director.

Raymond James analyst Hans Mosesmann said Nvidia "can point to" the FTC settlement when it goes to trial against Intel.

"What is interesting is that a governing body in the U.S. has joined other countries (Korea, Japan, and the European Union, for example) in pinning Intel as the bully," he said in a client note.

"The message is that Intel should be more constrained in its dealings with OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), ODMs (original design manufacturers), the channel, and its competitors. We are watching you."

NO EXCLUSIVE DEALS

Intel has been under attack from rivals for years over its aggressive pricing and sales tactics in marketing the chips that essentially make up the "brains" of personal computers.

In 1999, the FTC settled a complaint against Intel, accusing it of cutting off access to its technology for three customers -- Digital Equipment Corp, Intergraph Corp and Compaq Corp. Two of the three companies are now defunct.

It has run afoul of regulators elsewhere. The European Commission has fined Intel 1.06 billion euros ($1.4 billion) for shutting out AMD, a decision Intel is appealing. Regulators in South Korea and Japan have also taken action against Intel.

Intel, which has denied any wrongdoing, said on Wednesday the agreed-upon changes in its business practices would not have a material impact on its financial results.

"The settlement enables us to put an end to the expense and distraction of the FTC litigation." Doug Melamed, an Intel senior vice president, said in a statement.

The company is now barred from offering deals to computer makers in exchange for their promise to buy exclusively from Intel. It is also required to change its intellectual property deals with AMD, Nvidia and chip maker Via.

Officials said they halted a deceptive practice involving "compilers," a software tool to help write code so software can communicate with a computer's microprocessor. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said Intel configured its compiler so software ran more slowly on processors made by AMD and others.

"Intel surreptitiously made it look as though that slow-down was AMD's fault," he said.

AMD stock held steady on Wednesday, ending 1 cent higher at $7.52 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Wang said AMD's delayed release for its new Llano processors underscored its competitive disadvantage, regardless of the FTC action.

"Just because you have a referee there making things equal, doesn't mean AMD is going to win this basketball game. It's extremely important they execute," Wang said.

Ed Snyder, managing director of Charter Equity Research, agreed Intel will emerge largely unscathed.

"It's not going to have any impact on their microprocessor business because they're so far ahead of their only other real competitor, which is AMD," he said. "What it would affect is some of their graphics processors and other things that they bundle with the microprocessors."

Officials at AMD and Nvidia praised the deal. AMD settled its own dispute against Intel for $1.25 billion in November.

AMD's critical remaining concern was Intel's use of all-or-nothing discounts to deny competitors access to the marketplace. The FTC's order clearly and firmly prohibits such abuse," AMD said in a statement.

A suit is still pending between Nvidia and Intel.

"We look forward to Intel's actions being examined further by the Delaware courts later this year," Nvidia spokesman Hector Marinez said.

(Additional reporting by Kim Dixon in Washington, Editing by Edwin Chan and Richard Chang)

Edison

http://www.eetimes.com/electroni ... ictions-in-FTC-deal

ntel escapes fine, agrees to restrictions in FTC deal
Dylan McGrath
8/4/2010 11:01 AM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO -- As expected, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday (Aug. 4) made public details of its settlement agreement with Intel Corp. over charges that Intel used anticompetitive tactics that stifled innovation and harmed consumers in the market for computer microprocessors, graphics processing units and chip sets.

Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) was not fined under the deal. Terms of the settlement include numerous provisions similar to those agreed to by Intel in a November 2009 settlement with rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Dean McCarron, principal of market watcher Mercury Research, noted that the settlement with the FTC offered a significantly different outcome for Intel than what occurred in Europe in 2009, when the European Commission, the regulatory arm of the European Union, fined Intel 1.06 billion euros ($1.45 billion) for anticompetitive behavior. Intel continues to appeal that ruling.

"I suspect that one of the factor shere was the AMD settlement," McCarron said. "In many respects the FTC settlement is echoing what was in the AMD settlement, which was on par with the settlement that occurred in Europe."

McCarron said he didn't see a lot of winners and losers in the agreement, which he desicribed as "codifying the status quo."

“This agreement provides a framework that will allow us to continue to compete and to provide our customers the best possible products at the best prices,” Doug Melamed, Intel senior vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. “The settlement enables us to put an end to the expense and distraction of the FTC litigation.”

Intel admitted no wrong doing as a condition of the settlement. The deal approved by the FTC is subject to 30 days of public comment and final approval by FTC commissioners.

Among other things, Intel agreed not to offer discounts on microprocessors in exchange for agreement to also purchase other Intel chips such as graphics processors. The settlement also imposes other restrictions on the types of discounts Intel can offer OEMs.

Intel also agreed not to use retaliatory tactics against OEMs that buy products from competitors and to use a standard PCI bus on all mainstream microprocessors. It also will begin sharing technical information on required interfaces for its microprocessors with competitors for a period of five years.

McCarron said he was little surprised by some of the technical details in the settlement, including the requirement that Intel include PCI Express (PCIe) interfaces in its microprocessors. He said he suspects this was heavily lobbied for by graphics chip vendor Nvidia Corp., one of the Intel competitors considered in the FTC investigation.

"The settlement essentially guarantees that PCIe is going to be present within the system for at least six years," McCarron said. "That means Nvidia is going to have a place to connect their graphics. They can't be locked out this way."

McCarron noted that Nvidia and Intel still have litigation pending over a bus licensing agreement between the two companies that would not be impacted by the FTC settlement.  

A spokesperson for Nvida said the company supports the FTC's action against Intel. "Any steps that lead to a more competitive environment for our industry are good for the consumer," the spokesperson said, in a prepared statement. "We look forward to Intel's actions being examined further by the Delaware courts later this year, when our lawsuit against the company is heard."

The settlement gives regulators the right to appoint technical consultants to monitor Intel's compliance at Intel's expense. It also requires Intel to offer reimbursement on Intel Compiler to those who were harmed because they did not realize the software was optimized specifically for Intel processors.

Requires inclusion of PCIe
Under the terms of the settlement, Intel cannot enter into agreements or enforce existing agreements with OEMs that require the OEMs to purchase chips exclusively from Intel in any geography or market segment, or requires OEMs to refuse to purchase or delay purchase of products from Intel competitors. This precludes Intel from offering discounts on microprocessors or threatening legal action against OEMs for not purchasing other chips such as graphics processors from Intel.

Intel may continue to offer discounts to customers on parts in excess of a specified unit volume threshold, but the company may not offer a volume discounted price to OEMs on all parts contingent on total sales being above a specified threshold.

The terms of the settlement also specify that Intel may not deny an OEM the ability to market its products as having "Intel Inside," in the event that, for example, the product also includes graphics processors from Nvidia. The settlement also prevents Intel from withholding marketing dollars from OEMs that include competitors' products.  

Intel agreed that it will include in each of its mainstream microprocessor platforms an interface to a standard PCI bus. Intel also agreed not to design any required interface for the purpose of intentionally limiting the performance of a graphics processor that would make it non-complaint with the applicable PCIe base specification. The presence of bugs or errata that would make any product non-complaint with the relevant PCIe specification will not except the company from the latter requirement, according to the settlement.

Under the terms of the settlement, Intel must also offer to amend its patent agreements with AMD, Via Technologies Inc. and Nvidia that would allow them to disclose to customers and foundry suppliers its licensed rights to Intel patents, provided that the customer or foundry agrees to keep the information confidential. The settlement requires Intel to offer other specified amendments to patent agreements with Via.

McCarron of Mercury Research (Bee Caves, Ariz.) said that ironically it was probably Via, by far the smallest of the Intel competitors named in the investigation, that got the most out of the settlement deal.  "They have x86 license, and that gets expanded [in the settlement] at no cost to them," McCarron said.

To offer reimbursements on Intel Compiler
Intel is also forbidden under the terms of the agreement from making any engineering or design change to its products if that change will degrade the performance of a relevant product sold by a competitor, nor any change that does not provide an actual benefit to the Intel product.

The settlement also requires Intel to ensure that any product roadmap it discloses is not intentionally inaccurate or misleading. It also requires Intel to, each year for the next four years, provide AMD, Via and Nvidia with a required interface roadmap for all mainstream microprocessor platforms it plans to introduce in the next five years.

Intel is also required to disclose to Intel Compiler customers within 90 days that Intel's compiler may not optimize to the same degree for non-Intel microprocessors for optimizations that are not unique to Intel microprocessors.

The settlement also requires Intel to set up Pro-Agram to reimburse Intel Compiler customers who were harmed by not knowing that the Intel Compiler did not provide the same optimizations for competitive microprocessors. This program can de terminated by Intel in two years or after $10 million in reimbursements has been distributed.

The settlement also requires Intel to make a uniform disclosure that the software and workloads in any benchmark testing may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors whenever the company makes a claim about microprocessor performance versus competitors. Intel is permitted to refer to its website for the full text of this disclosure rather than, for example, including the text in a television commercial.

The settlement gives the FTC authority to appoint technical consultants to monitor Intel's compliance with the settlement agreement. These technical consultants will be subject to Intel's approval and paid by Intel. The settlement requires that the technical consultants be given access to technical information on Intel products as well as other information like company personnel and finances. The total amount that Intel is required to pay for the 10-year duration of the FTC's order is limited to $2 million to all technical consultants.   

Intel has made available the full FTC order through the company's website.

xu2242000

若真能变成现实，那这可是个大新闻

Q神

好多字。看不动。