AMD sues Intel (antitrust)

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:48:10 -0500, Del Cecchi wrote:

Robert Myers wrote:
Pankaj wrote:

[Can you find someone who knows what they're doing to help you make a
post that displays properly?]


If you beleive Intel's case is so strong, why would they be
debilitated? Do you fear that? But I do believe they will be
debilitated It would be a very good thing for the industry,
consumers. Trust me on this: "Competition is good".


Much of the progress of civilization and been built on the creation of
monopolies, and competition is not always good. Many of the activities
that technologists admire and dream about require enormous
concentrations of power and of wealth, and the ruthless creation of
monopolies has more often than not been what has allowed those
concentrations to appear.

What do you think the computer industry would look like if it hadn't
been for IBM's ruthlessness? Follow comp.arch for a while and try to
grasp how much of the work was done by IBM when it was a monopoly.
What IBM didn't do, AT&T Bell Labs did. The insularity that went along
with IBM's enormous wealth and influence, not the actions of
regulators, eventually brought the monopoly to an end. AT&T was
brought down by regulatory activity, and it was not necessarily a good
thing.

Ah Robert, your historical revisionism again. IBM was never found to be
a monopoly after 1956. I gather you think monopoly is good? You
probably like central planning as well. Trust me it isn't good.

IBM wasn't "found" guilty in '56 either. There is a reason it's called
the "consent decree".

--
Keith

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:24:08 -0700, Robert Myers wrote:

Del Cecchi wrote:
Robert Myers wrote:


Much of the progress of civilization and been built on the creation of
monopolies, and competition is not always good. Many of the activities
that technologists admire and dream about require enormous
concentrations of power and of wealth, and the ruthless creation of
monopolies has more often than not been what has allowed those
concentrations to appear.

What do you think the computer industry would look like if it hadn't
been for IBM's ruthlessness? Follow comp.arch for a while and try to
grasp how much of the work was done by IBM when it was a monopoly.
What IBM didn't do, AT&T Bell Labs did. The insularity that went along
with IBM's enormous wealth and influence, not the actions of
regulators, eventually brought the monopoly to an end. AT&T was
brought down by regulatory activity, and it was not necessarily a good
thing.

Ah Robert, your historical revisionism again. IBM was never found to be
a monopoly after 1956.

Pass my post along to IBM's legal department. I'm not taking back a
word. *I* find them to have been a monopoly long after 1956.

Ah, and you fry Yousuf for making the same sorts of arguments about Intel.
Nice double-standard there, RM. Most of us call that "hypocrisy".

I gather you think monopoly is good?

Neither good nor bad, necessarily. On the whole, monopolies have
probably done more to advance what is generally called civilization than
to impede it. Whether the advancement of what is generally known as
civilization is a good thing might be debated.

Thus, by and large, they're good, in your opinion.

You probably like central planning as well. Trust me it isn't good.

No need to trust you. And, nothing personal, but I wouldn't. The
number of wrong opinions about economics that have been uttered in human
history surely exceeds the number of humans who have ever lived. In any
case, we have empirical evidence that at least some versions of central
planning don't work.

You're not exempt, "trust me".

As to my thinking Intel's case being so strong, that's something you
just made up. I'm sure that Intel has pushed things to the point
where their lawyers will have to work to earn their money. And the
*lawyers* on *both* sides *will* get *their* money.

Sometimes companies, like people, do things because they can and it
seems to be in their best interest and they can't conceive that they
might get caught and the penalty might be extreme. Enron, Worldcom,
Itel, healthsouth, etc etc.

I've tried to make it clear that, on my scale of ethics, the damage done
to the public good by Intel doesn't make it into the Enron or Worldcom
league. Probably Healthsouth, too, but there I don't know the story
well enough. You're free to make your own value judgments. Just don't
expect your value judgments to be universally accepted. I don't.

So you keep saying. Others think quite differently. I can;t see much
difference between Intel and M$, these days.

I do pay attention to what's happening in the world, though not
everything. I dont know why you have mentioned it. Are you trying to
justify Intel's practices because they are not as bad as other things
in the world? Well this group is very focussed on the chips. If you
are worried about world Hunger, Intel can feed a lot of mouths with 2
billion a quarter!


I didn't mention world hunger, but I did mention genocide, which is a
problem that can't be cured so easily with money. I mentioned what's
happening in the world because I find the self-righteousness of
business theoreticians more than a little annoying. You don't have a
need for inexpensive top of the line processors. The world won't
necessarily be a better place if the AMD/Intel competition works the
way you want it to. It doesn't matter all that much whether
competition in business is fair or not.


Competition is good. Free markets are good. Bureaucracies are bad.
Who are the elite that they should determine what is best for us
proles?

Just this very afternoon, I was recounting for myself the number of
people now in--what would you call them?--policy roles I had known as a
lad--no doubt because, being an overachiever myself, I tended to be
around other overachievers. The ones who have made it big tend to be on
that Milton Friedmanish end of things. They are definitely the elite.
They are definitely making, or trying to make, decisions for others.
Marvelous things, elites: they can make anything work for them:
bureaucracies, monopolies, free markets, whatever's going. That's why
they're elites. You really should break up all those Wall Street
Journal editorials by reading, say, a little Nietzsche.

My being able to say these things so calmly is, I hope, a sign of
maturity. It used to infuriate me the way that the free market types
would pontificate about competition and freedom and then turn around and
twist every rule of politics to their advantage, often at the expense of
"fair" competition and what I took to be freedom. No more. I now see
that *everything* is to the best in this best of all possible worlds.

What a bunch of pompous hooey! Yikes!

--
Keith

keith wrote:
Ah Robert, your historical revisionism again. IBM was never found to be
a monopoly after 1956. I gather you think monopoly is good? You
probably like central planning as well. Trust me it isn't good.

IBM wasn't "found" guilty in '56 either. There is a reason it's called
the "consent decree".

As far as I'm concerned, IBM was always a monopoly until the early
1990's, when it was finally toppled and therefore no longer a monopoly.

Yousuf Khan

keith wrote:
On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:24:08 -0700, Robert Myers wrote:


Del Cecchi wrote:

Robert Myers wrote:

Much of the progress of civilization and been built on the creation of
monopolies, and competition is not always good. Many of the activities
that technologists admire and dream about require enormous
concentrations of power and of wealth, and the ruthless creation of
monopolies has more often than not been what has allowed those
concentrations to appear.

What do you think the computer industry would look like if it hadn't
been for IBM's ruthlessness? Follow comp.arch for a while and try to
grasp how much of the work was done by IBM when it was a monopoly.
What IBM didn't do, AT&T Bell Labs did. The insularity that went along
with IBM's enormous wealth and influence, not the actions of
regulators, eventually brought the monopoly to an end. AT&T was
brought down by regulatory activity, and it was not necessarily a good
thing.

Ah Robert, your historical revisionism again. IBM was never found to be
a monopoly after 1956.

Pass my post along to IBM's legal department. I'm not taking back a
word. *I* find them to have been a monopoly long after 1956.


Ah, and you fry Yousuf for making the same sorts of arguments about Intel.
Nice double-standard there, RM. Most of us call that "hypocrisy".


I gather you think monopoly is good?

Neither good nor bad, necessarily. On the whole, monopolies have
probably done more to advance what is generally called civilization than
to impede it. Whether the advancement of what is generally known as
civilization is a good thing might be debated.


Thus, by and large, they're good, in your opinion.


You probably like central planning as well. Trust me it isn't good.

No need to trust you. And, nothing personal, but I wouldn't. The
number of wrong opinions about economics that have been uttered in human
history surely exceeds the number of humans who have ever lived. In any
case, we have empirical evidence that at least some versions of central
planning don't work.


You're not exempt, "trust me".


As to my thinking Intel's case being so strong, that's something you
just made up. I'm sure that Intel has pushed things to the point
where their lawyers will have to work to earn their money. And the
*lawyers* on *both* sides *will* get *their* money.

Sometimes companies, like people, do things because they can and it
seems to be in their best interest and they can't conceive that they
might get caught and the penalty might be extreme. Enron, Worldcom,
Itel, healthsouth, etc etc.


I've tried to make it clear that, on my scale of ethics, the damage done
to the public good by Intel doesn't make it into the Enron or Worldcom
league. Probably Healthsouth, too, but there I don't know the story
well enough. You're free to make your own value judgments. Just don't
expect your value judgments to be universally accepted. I don't.


So you keep saying. Others think quite differently. I can;t see much
difference between Intel and M$, these days.


I do pay attention to what's happening in the world, though not
everything. I dont know why you have mentioned it. Are you trying to
justify Intel's practices because they are not as bad as other things
in the world? Well this group is very focussed on the chips. If you
are worried about world Hunger, Intel can feed a lot of mouths with 2
billion a quarter!


I didn't mention world hunger, but I did mention genocide, which is a
problem that can't be cured so easily with money. I mentioned what's
happening in the world because I find the self-righteousness of
business theoreticians more than a little annoying. You don't have a
need for inexpensive top of the line processors. The world won't
necessarily be a better place if the AMD/Intel competition works the
way you want it to. It doesn't matter all that much whether
competition in business is fair or not.



Competition is good. Free markets are good. Bureaucracies are bad.
Who are the elite that they should determine what is best for us
proles?


Just this very afternoon, I was recounting for myself the number of
people now in--what would you call them?--policy roles I had known as a
lad--no doubt because, being an overachiever myself, I tended to be
around other overachievers. The ones who have made it big tend to be on
that Milton Friedmanish end of things. They are definitely the elite.
They are definitely making, or trying to make, decisions for others.
Marvelous things, elites: they can make anything work for them:
bureaucracies, monopolies, free markets, whatever's going. That's why
they're elites. You really should break up all those Wall Street
Journal editorials by reading, say, a little Nietzsche.


My being able to say these things so calmly is, I hope, a sign of
maturity. It used to infuriate me the way that the free market types
would pontificate about competition and freedom and then turn around and
twist every rule of politics to their advantage, often at the expense of
"fair" competition and what I took to be freedom. No more. I now see
that *everything* is to the best in this best of all possible worlds.


What a bunch of pompous hooey! Yikes!

Gee I find it is the elite academics and celebrities who fall for
collectivism and central planning. I presumed it to be because they
think that then they would be in charge, being so superior and more
intelligent than the rabble.

I would have snipped but decided not to. If I can stand it at 28.8kb so
can others.



--
Del Cecchi
"This post is my own and doesn’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions,
strategies or opinions.”

Robert Myers wrote:
Del Cecchi wrote:

Robert Myers wrote:


snip
I gather you think monopoly is good?


Neither good nor bad, necessarily. On the whole, monopolies have
probably done more to advance what is generally called civilization
than to impede it. Whether the advancement of what is generally known
as civilization is a good thing might be debated.



You probably like central planning as well. Trust me it isn't good.


No need to trust you. And, nothing personal, but I wouldn't. The
number of wrong opinions about economics that have been uttered in
human history surely exceeds the number of humans who have ever lived.
In any case, we have empirical evidence that at least some versions of
central planning don't work.

Ah, but if you were in charge it would work? IBM in the 80's was a
giant exercise in central planning. It didn't work either. Why do you
think that IBM lost the PC market?


snip


I've tried to make it clear that, on my scale of ethics, the damage
done to the public good by Intel doesn't make it into the Enron or
Worldcom league. Probably Healthsouth, too, but there I don't know the
story well enough. You're free to make your own value judgments. Just
don't expect your value judgments to be universally accepted. I don't.

If only enron and worldcom hadn't been bothered by the government, they
would still be in business and have done no harm. The harm was caused
by the fallout of them going under due to the meddling of the government
exposing the fraudulent accounting. See I can play that game too.




Competition is good. Free markets are good. Bureaucracies are bad.
Who are the elite that they should determine what is best for us proles?


Just this very afternoon, I was recounting for myself the number of
people now in--what would you call them?--policy roles I had known as a
lad--no doubt because, being an overachiever myself, I tended to be
around other overachievers. The ones who have made it big tend to be
on that Milton Friedmanish end of things. They are definitely the
elite. They are definitely making, or trying to make, decisions for
others. Marvelous things, elites: they can make anything work for
them: bureaucracies, monopolies, free markets, whatever's going.
That's why they're elites. You really should break up all those Wall
Street Journal editorials by reading, say, a little Nietzsche.

Still not as bad as those folks who only want to fix all the problems by
taking from the productive folks (tax the rich, as claude pepper used to
say) and use it to make themselves feel good.


My being able to say these things so calmly is, I hope, a sign of
maturity. It used to infuriate me the way that the free market types
would pontificate about competition and freedom and then turn around
and twist every rule of politics to their advantage, often at the
expense of "fair" competition and what I took to be freedom. No more.
I now see that *everything* is to the best in this best of all possible
worlds.

RM

stay calm. It's only usenet.
random snippage above.



--
Del Cecchi
"This post is my own and doesn’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions,
strategies or opinions.”

Del Cecchi wrote:
Robert Myers wrote:
Del Cecchi wrote:


snip
I gather you think monopoly is good?


Neither good nor bad, necessarily. On the whole, monopolies have
probably done more to advance what is generally called civilization
than to impede it. Whether the advancement of what is generally known
as civilization is a good thing might be debated.



You probably like central planning as well. Trust me it isn't good.


No need to trust you. And, nothing personal, but I wouldn't. The
number of wrong opinions about economics that have been uttered in
human history surely exceeds the number of humans who have ever lived.
In any case, we have empirical evidence that at least some versions of
central planning don't work.

Ah, but if you were in charge it would work? IBM in the 80's was a
giant exercise in central planning. It didn't work either. Why do you
think that IBM lost the PC market?

I definitely wouldn't make the claim that, if I were in charge it would
work. Examples of successful central planning, like the Interstate
Highway System, are readily at hand, just as examples of spectacular
failures of central planning are readily at hand. Neither warrants a
blanket generalization about central planning.

People tend *not* to advertise the success of monopolies because their
methods are unattractive and because the success of monopolies doesn't
fit in with au courant preconceptions about the way the world works.
Time was, though, when a sovreign (person or state) wanted to begin
something new, the first thing to do was to grant a monopoly.

Questions about how large organizations manage capital investments like
R&D are probably better left to business school classrooms.



snip


I've tried to make it clear that, on my scale of ethics, the damage
done to the public good by Intel doesn't make it into the Enron or
Worldcom league. Probably Healthsouth, too, but there I don't know the
story well enough. You're free to make your own value judgments. Just
don't expect your value judgments to be universally accepted. I don't.

If only enron and worldcom hadn't been bothered by the government, they
would still be in business and have done no harm. The harm was caused
by the fallout of them going under due to the meddling of the government
exposing the fraudulent accounting. See I can play that game too.


If you really believe that, we are in disagreement, but I don't think
you really believe that. Enron and Worldcom damaged many lives.


Competition is good. Free markets are good. Bureaucracies are bad.
Who are the elite that they should determine what is best for us proles?


Just this very afternoon, I was recounting for myself the number of
people now in--what would you call them?--policy roles I had known as a
lad--no doubt because, being an overachiever myself, I tended to be
around other overachievers. The ones who have made it big tend to be
on that Milton Friedmanish end of things. They are definitely the
elite. They are definitely making, or trying to make, decisions for
others. Marvelous things, elites: they can make anything work for
them: bureaucracies, monopolies, free markets, whatever's going.
That's why they're elites. You really should break up all those Wall
Street Journal editorials by reading, say, a little Nietzsche.

Still not as bad as those folks who only want to fix all the problems by
taking from the productive folks (tax the rich, as claude pepper used to
say) and use it to make themselves feel good.


Class warfare is so out of style. Values warfare is in. As to the
"still not as bad" part, we don't agree.

RM

keith wrote:
On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:24:08 -0700, Robert Myers wrote:

Del Cecchi wrote:
Robert Myers wrote:


Much of the progress of civilization and been built on the creation of
monopolies, and competition is not always good. Many of the activities
that technologists admire and dream about require enormous
concentrations of power and of wealth, and the ruthless creation of
monopolies has more often than not been what has allowed those
concentrations to appear.

What do you think the computer industry would look like if it hadn't
been for IBM's ruthlessness? Follow comp.arch for a while and try to
grasp how much of the work was done by IBM when it was a monopoly.
What IBM didn't do, AT&T Bell Labs did. The insularity that went along
with IBM's enormous wealth and influence, not the actions of
regulators, eventually brought the monopoly to an end. AT&T was
brought down by regulatory activity, and it was not necessarily a good
thing.

Ah Robert, your historical revisionism again. IBM was never found to be
a monopoly after 1956.

Pass my post along to IBM's legal department. I'm not taking back a
word. *I* find them to have been a monopoly long after 1956.

Ah, and you fry Yousuf for making the same sorts of arguments about Intel.
Nice double-standard there, RM. Most of us call that "hypocrisy".


Perhaps you should stick to the sports page. Yousuf all but called me
an idiot for not knowing that Intel already was a monopoly by some
legal standard that I should have known about.

I've reached a point in life where I've realized that, in many ways, I
probably could fairly be assessed to be an idiot, but the way that
Yousuf accused me is not one of them, so I took him on.

It was not an argument about opinions ("I think Intel is/isnot a
monopoly"). It was an argument about facts ("By an objective legal
standard Intel is/isnot a monopoly").

It was, is, and likely ever shall be my opinion that IBM exercised
monopoly power in computers long after 1956. Many in the Justice
Department, which continued to pursue IBM, would apparently have agreed
with me.

I don't think Intel has the kind of monopoly power that IBM enjoyed
when it was defining just about everything in computing that people
would spend the next three decades talking about and reinventing. And
what IBM didn't define, AT&T did.

RM

On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 04:25:09 -0700, Robert Myers wrote:



keith wrote:
On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:24:08 -0700, Robert Myers wrote:

Del Cecchi wrote:
Robert Myers wrote:


Much of the progress of civilization and been built on the creation of
monopolies, and competition is not always good. Many of the activities
that technologists admire and dream about require enormous
concentrations of power and of wealth, and the ruthless creation of
monopolies has more often than not been what has allowed those
concentrations to appear.

What do you think the computer industry would look like if it hadn't
been for IBM's ruthlessness? Follow comp.arch for a while and try to
grasp how much of the work was done by IBM when it was a monopoly.
What IBM didn't do, AT&T Bell Labs did. The insularity that went along
with IBM's enormous wealth and influence, not the actions of
regulators, eventually brought the monopoly to an end. AT&T was
brought down by regulatory activity, and it was not necessarily a good
thing.

Ah Robert, your historical revisionism again. IBM was never found to be
a monopoly after 1956.

Pass my post along to IBM's legal department. I'm not taking back a
word. *I* find them to have been a monopoly long after 1956.

Ah, and you fry Yousuf for making the same sorts of arguments about Intel.
Nice double-standard there, RM. Most of us call that "hypocrisy".


Perhaps you should stick to the sports page. Yousuf all but called me
an idiot for not knowing that Intel already was a monopoly by some
legal standard that I should have known about.

....and you, sir, are no different. You talk down to *everyone*, even
those who have some knowledge of what's going on. ...the definition of a
pompous ass.

I've reached a point in life where I've realized that, in many ways, I
probably could fairly be assessed to be an idiot, but the way that
Yousuf accused me is not one of them, so I took him on.

Indeed, anyone who thinks differently than to polit-buro allows must be
terminated. ...typical of academia. That *is* your position.

It was not an argument about opinions ("I think Intel is/isnot a
monopoly"). It was an argument about facts ("By an objective legal
standard Intel is/isnot a monopoly").

"Objective" == "not convicted", perhaps. Whether or not Intel (or M$) is
a monopoly isn't the point. Are they using predatory practices to limit
competition is the point. I've seen enough to say that they indeed are.

It was, is, and likely ever shall be my opinion that IBM exercised
monopoly power in computers long after 1956. Many in the Justice
Department, which continued to pursue IBM, would apparently have agreed
with me.

....and? Sorry, but like things economic, you haven't a clue.

I don't think Intel has the kind of monopoly power that IBM enjoyed when
it was defining just about everything in computing that people would
spend the next three decades talking about and reinventing. And what
IBM didn't define, AT&T did.

Irrelevant. IBM was under the consent decree to behave in a particular
manner. That lasted until the mid '90s. ...but don't let the facts get
in your way.

--
Keith

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 19:46:36 -0700, YKhan wrote:

keith wrote:
Ah Robert, your historical revisionism again. IBM was never found to be
a monopoly after 1956. I gather you think monopoly is good? You
probably like central planning as well. Trust me it isn't good.

IBM wasn't "found" guilty in '56 either. There is a reason it's called
the "consent decree".

As far as I'm concerned, IBM was always a monopoly until the early
1990's, when it was finally toppled and therefore no longer a monopoly.

Watch that "was always". What does that mean, exactly? In what market?
As I just told the idiot RM (ok, if you won't directly call him that, I
will), IBM was under the consent decree to practice business in a
particular manner. It wasn't a small issue in IBM almost going under the
waves in '93. I've been around a tad longer Yousuf.

--
Keith

keith wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 04:25:09 -0700, Robert Myers wrote:

keith wrote:



Ah, and you fry Yousuf for making the same sorts of arguments about Intel.
Nice double-standard there, RM. Most of us call that "hypocrisy".


Perhaps you should stick to the sports page. Yousuf all but called me
an idiot for not knowing that Intel already was a monopoly by some
legal standard that I should have known about.

...and you, sir, are no different. You talk down to *everyone*, even
those who have some knowledge of what's going on. ...the definition of a
pompous ass.

Yousuf is free to call Intel a monopoly if he cares to. What he can't
do is to tell me that some objective fact about Intel is obvious when
it isn't. The "objective fact" about Intel is something that AMD is
putting out and wants everyone to accept as obvious but that has not
yet been proven and isn't obvious.

I've reached a point in life where I've realized that, in many ways, I
probably could fairly be assessed to be an idiot, but the way that
Yousuf accused me is not one of them, so I took him on.

Indeed, anyone who thinks differently than to polit-buro allows must be
terminated. ...typical of academia. That *is* your position.


Who gives you the right to put words in my mouth? When have I ever
said or even implied such a thing?

And by what subterranean pathways in your mind does your comment have
anything to do with what I said? Yousuf made a claim, and I rebutted
it. What has that got to do with terminating anyone?

It was not an argument about opinions ("I think Intel is/isnot a
monopoly"). It was an argument about facts ("By an objective legal
standard Intel is/isnot a monopoly").

"Objective" == "not convicted", perhaps. Whether or not Intel (or M$) is
a monopoly isn't the point. Are they using predatory practices to limit
competition is the point. I've seen enough to say that they indeed are.

No. Not proven. Not obvious, and not even related to what Yousuf
thought was the obvious standard. In another piece an AMD spokesman
put it out there that they can only *compete* for 60% of the market:
the exact break point for Section 1 sanctions. That's an AMD claim at
this point. That's part of AMD's publicity campaign: these are the
facts, this is what's happening, this is what any idiot should see, and
*you* are a volunteer in their campaign.

Let the courts figure it out. They'll make a hash of it just like
they've made a hash of every other anti-trust action I've seen during
my lifetime. I think it's hilarious that all the free market
campaigners are cheerleaders for this last bit of nonsense. Have at
it. Just don't spout sports bar big talk at me and expect me to think
you're talking facts.

It was, is, and likely ever shall be my opinion that IBM exercised
monopoly power in computers long after 1956. Many in the Justice
Department, which continued to pursue IBM, would apparently have agreed
with me.

...and? Sorry, but like things economic, you haven't a clue.


Has it occurred to you, Keith, that being an *employee* of IBM doesn't
actually raise your credibility in this matter? Aside from the fact
that decades of corporate newsletters and water-cooler conversations
don't necessarily provide useful information, you are not exactly a
disinterested party.

RM