Intel on FTC Deal: We Didn't Do Anything Wrong
The FTC paves the way for competition.
IntelĀ and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have reached a tentative settlement in the antitrust suit filed by the Commission December 16. The FTC sued Intel alleging Intel had violated Section 5 of the FTC Act, which relates to antitrust practices.
Under terms of the settlement, Intel is not allowed to offer incentives to other companies to only stock Intel chips. Furthermore, Intel may not retaliate if a PC builder chooses to use CPUs from AMD or other make.
Intel is also banned from offering unfair bundling discounts that would make using competing, non-Intel products more expensive. This would presumably restrict the practice of Intel bundling together a chipset with a CPU that otherwise would be prohibitive to purchase a single part on its own.
It's believed that Intel offered its Atom processor at a significant discount when purchased with an Intel chipset, making it difficult for OEMs to choose competing solutions, such as the Nvidia Ion, without incurring a considerable bump in costs.
Intel must also support the current PCI Express bus standard for another six years, keeping the graphics playing field open to other companies. This would stop Intel from ditching PCI Express, making the on-chip graphics of current Intel CPUs the only choice for video.
The FTC agreement also stops Intel from blocking competitive processor technology through software means, so that any change in software compiling for Intel's CPU would be disclosed and documented. The FTC alleged that Intel's compilers were designed to make AMD chips look bad. Intel also has to provide a $10 million fund for ISVs who wish to recompile their code for non-Intel processors.
Intel must also change its licensing terms to allow for companies who have agreements for Intel's technology to merge. Current licensees of Intel properties, such as AMD, Nvidia and Via would risk their agreements with Intel should two or more companies merge, but the new revisions would allow for licenses to carry on even after a merger. Via will also be getting its licensing deal for x86 processors extended to 2018.
What the settlement didn't appear to cover, however, is chipset licensing. This means that Intel is still the only producer of chipsets for the current generation of Nehalem-based processors, leaving Nvidia stuck at the Core 2 series.
FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said it got 22 out of the 26 remedies it was seeking from Intel.
"We accepted this settlement because it helps consumers," Leibowitz explained. "Ensuring that this market remains competitive is essential to our future."
Even with this settlement, Intel feels that it has done nothing wrong.
"While Intel and the FTC have agreed to resolve that dispute, Intel is not admitting to any violation of the law nor does it agree with the allegations contained in the complaint," the company said in a statement.
Doug Melamed, Intel senior vice president and general counsel, added, "The settlement enables us to put an end to the expense and distraction of the FTC litigation."
Read the FTC settlement document here.
(Sources: Register, Electronista.)

Seriously, if Intel spent as much effort on improving their product as they do trying to screw over their competitors, there'd be no need to screw over AMD and Nvidia. They got lazy, resting on their crappy P3/P4 architecture, and thats why AMD beat them (architecturally) between 2003-2006. Not because they weren't giving manufacturers enough "incentives". How about the fact that their on-chip graphics suck? Maybe in Larrabee were more than just a pipe dream, they could compete with Nvidia chipsets. No, instead they just lock Nvidia out of the chipset market, rather than improve their own offering. And dropping PCI-E to force out all graphics competitors, wow, that's a whole new level of corporate douchiness I hadn't even contemplated. What happens after 2016? We get Intel Express Bus, with heavy licensing fees?
Oh, and crap, I blamed Marcus for this article by Tuan : http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-intel-cpu,7837.html. Sorry Marcus.
""While Intel and the FTC have agreed to resolve that dispute, Intel is not admitting to any violation of the law nor does it agree with the allegations contained in the complaint," the company said in a statement."
**cough**GUILTY**cough**
not that it matters, there both guilty.
Seriously, if Intel spent as much effort on improving their product as they do trying to screw over their competitors, there'd be no need to screw over AMD and Nvidia. They got lazy, resting on their crappy P3/P4 architecture, and thats why AMD beat them (architecturally) between 2003-2006. Not because they weren't giving manufacturers enough "incentives". How about the fact that their on-chip graphics suck? Maybe in Larrabee were more than just a pipe dream, they could compete with Nvidia chipsets. No, instead they just lock Nvidia out of the chipset market, rather than improve their own offering. And dropping PCI-E to force out all graphics competitors, wow, that's a whole new level of corporate douchiness I hadn't even contemplated. What happens after 2016? We get Intel Express Bus, with heavy licensing fees?
Oh, and crap, I blamed Marcus for this article by Tuan : http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-intel-cpu,7837.html. Sorry Marcus.
i'm not saying intel is guilty or not guilty of bad business practice, but maybe AMD could actually do there part and maybe advertise. they need to get there name out there
Somehow, I'm not sure that Liebowitz understands the significance of that particular item.
In that case...nVidia should be forced to ensure the same level of performance for PhysX regardless of the processor, whether it be an Intel processor, AMD processor, nVidia GPU or ATI GPU. nVidia purposely uses x87 instructions to prevent PhysX from performing at the same level on CPU's as it does on their GPU. If PhysX were properly coded using x86/SSE....Core i7 would have no trouble at all handling PhysX.
Hahaha, yeah, watching this is like a cheesy soap opera like Dynasty. Intel is Alexis, ATI is Krystal - what we really need is for IBM to wade in like Moldavian terrorists and machine gun the lot of them.
...try to realize that there is life beyond the miniscule desktop enthusiast market to that of the IT world of servers...pfft