Wednesday, May 13, 2009

AMD Cheers Intel Ruling

AMD, which has significant operations in the Lone Star state, is cheering today's ruling that Intel must pay $1.45 billion in a fine to the European Union. According to the European Commission, Intel must pay $1.06 billion euros ($1.45 billion) for what the commission said were illegal practices in marketing its chips. The EC said that Intel breached EU antitrust laws for two different practices--one, for giving hidden rebates to computer manufacturers to buy all or almost all of its x86 CPUs for Intel, and two, for giving retailers payments to only stock Intel based systems. AMD President and CEO Dirk Meyer said in a statement that "Today's ruling is an important step toward establishing a truly competitive market."