During the past week Intel has announced that it will never again offer computer makers and retailers considerable rebates in return for exclusive agreements regarding chip use, USA Today reports. The world’s largest chip maker also declared that it wouldn’t redesign products to harm competition or offer worse treatment to computer manufacturers that also use chips from rival AMD and others.
Slowly but surely manufacturers are learning that competition is good for the market and a good catalyst for innovation. Intel doesn’t seem to think the same. The company has been defending itself for years all around the globe, against similar complaints of antitrust violation. As soon as AMD came up with a series of chips that were believed to be superior to Intel products, Intel instantly started to grant rebates as well as other discounts to various PC makers, attempting to discourage them from buying from the competition. It took Intel about four years to come up with a line of chips that matched and surpassed AMD’s. Several years ago AMD filed a lawsuit against Intel. Intel then agreed to pay AMD $ 1.25 billion and to abide by “a set of business practice 
provisions.” As a result, AMD dropped the pending lawsuits against Intel. Last May Intel also got a fine of $1.45 billion from the European Commission for restricting competition in the chip market. The European Commission found that Intel gave rebates or direct payments to several computer manufacturers including Dell, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo, Acer and NEC.
As a result of this latest lawsuit, Intel also agreed it wouldn’t seek patent-infringement claims against rival chip makers. The main goal of the Federal Trade Commission was to prevent Intel from creating “new ways to undermine competition, “according to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz.
“Any steps that lead to a more competitive environment for our industry are good for the consumer,” said Nvidia spokesman Hector Marinez. The consumer will however have to settle to a lower number of promotions on products that include Intel hardware, if the manufacturer plans to stick to the deal of not offering rebates and discounts to PC manufacturers.
As the antitrust charges were finally settled with Intel agreeing to change its aggressive business tactics, this agreement will most likely not change the microchip market place at all. While Intel agreed to the conditions imposed by the FTC, the company didn’t acknowledge that it had done anything wrong. Intel wasn’t fined by the regulator either.
“Intel is a great American success story, and we want that to continue,” said Jon Leibowitz, the FTC’s chairman. “The conduct documented in our investigation happened in the past. This settlement will allow Intel and the marketplace to move forward.”
But if the previous fines didn’t have an impact on Intel’s behavior, this lawsuit will most likely not keep Intel from finding alternative ways of controlling the market, manufacturers and in turn consumers.
