Monopolies are Bad

This morning we announced (to the media and soon to our internal employee's) our lawsuit against Intel focusing on their anti-competitive behavior, coercision and market monopolization.

I have battled a monopoly in a previous life, and I promise it is nowhere near the fun the movie "Antitrust" played it out to be.

In this case Intel has gone out of their way to create a market where their technology can dominate. Their buildout of this market has used coercision, restricting information, "paperwork failures" and direct intimidation.

In our software group, I look at the simple example of the Intel compiler (sold as an "independendant development tool"). The intel compiler actually "breaks" code written for AMD or in other cases it degrades the performance noticably. This has forced software vendors into using alternate compilers for various platforms, thus increasing Intel's dominance in not only the processor market but also the supporting solutions.

When I first heard about this decision and the evidence involved, I was shocked and outraged. As I read the press releases now, my blood boils.

AMD has great technology and great partners (SUN, HP, IBM, Fujitsu). We also have great customers ;-)

I belive in an open market and I believe in free trade. I believe we should strive for a perfect world without corruption. Intel's unfair manipulation and monopolistic practices not only reduce customers access to innovative technologies, these practices also reduce the ability of their customers and ecosystem partners (such as the OEM's, chipset vendors, tool suppliers) to fairly benefit from their contributions to the solutions end users purchase.

I believe in AMD and will stand up for what I believe. Customers deserve choices, access and the best possible products and technologies. I believe that AMD is serving our customers best by providing the leadership needed in this industry.

I call on the market to join AMD and speak out against Intel. This is not about an "us vs. them" (referrring to AMD vs. Intel), this is about an "us for them" (AMD & Intel for our customers and partners) which will help build and establish the market.

At 4AM in the morning, I think people should be proud I wrote this much ;-)

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!


Kyle