AMD on the road to recovery.

[humbug]

And still they didn't do anything illegal. I don't even know why you insist, the EU court found them innocent, what else can someone do to prove his innocence to you? You have to realize what you are doing is actually bonkers, and you wouldn't be doing that if it was amd instead. I can't fathom how you can, with a straight face, just discount EU high courts decision and go with your own personal biased beliefs. Don't you understand how ridiculous that is?

I agree with @Eddie99

It doesn't even matter now, AMD survived, just. And that tactic doesn't work anymore, Intel will kill themselves if they keep trying.

 

[TrixP10]

And still they didn't do anything illegal. I don't even know why you insist, the EU court found them innocent, what else can someone do to prove his innocence to you? You have to realize what you are doing is actually bonkers, and you wouldn't be doing that if it was amd instead. I can't fathom how you can, with a straight face, just discount EU high courts decision and go with your own personal biased beliefs. Don't you understand how ridiculous that is?

how little you know.

 

[humbug]

Tuesday...

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is set to post earnings after the bell on Tuesday. Shares of the California-based semiconductor company have risen sharply thus far in 2023, rebounding from about a 50% decline in 2022. While analysts remain broadly bullish, according to Seeking Alpha surveys, the stock has been downgraded multiple times shortly before the earnings release. Additionally, EPS and revenue expectations have been revised downward 28 and 29 times, respectively, in the 90 days ahead of the results.

“In recent months we have been growing more wary of potential PC dynamics, both given the market outlook as well as exacerbated by Intel's semi-destructive behavior as of late as they use both price and capacity as a strategic weapon, continuing to overship even amid broader breakdowns in the industry," Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon wrote in a note to clients, moving the firm’s rating on AMD to Hold.

Intel’s (INTC) inauspicious earnings result and guidance in the week prior weighed on shares of AMD ahead of the print.

Consensus EPS Estimates: $0.67
Consensus Revenue Estimates: $5.52B
Earnings Insight: AMD has beaten EPS and revenue in 7 of the past 8 quarters

Earnings week ahead: Amazon, Apple, Meta, Alphabet, ExxonMobil, GM, AMD and more

Meta Platforms (META), Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Ford (F), GM (GM), AMD (AMD) and Exxon (XOM) are among the stocks to watch next week.

seekingalpha.com

both given the market outlook as well as exacerbated by Intel's semi-destructive behavior as of late as they use both price and capacity as a strategic weapon

Yeah we can see that...... its destructive alight.

 

[Calin Banc]

Considering the current climate, maybe we should buy Intel more to help out the little guy, like the mood was with AMD. After all, we don't want a single player in the market, right, riiiiiiight? )

 

[TrixP10]

Considering the current climate, maybe we should buy Intel more to help out the little guy, like the mood was with AMD. After all, we don't want a single player in the market, right, riiiiiiight? )

lol, yep, another player indeed. Trouble is I don't count Intel as a 'player' - more like a pariah.

 

[Hotwired]

Considering the current climate, maybe we should buy Intel more to help out the little guy, like the mood was with AMD. After all, we don't want a single player in the market, right, riiiiiiight? )

What mood.

Buying AMD to help out the little guy? AMD was selling products with good price for their performance bracket for years.

Because they didn't have anything to brag about when it came to performance.

 

[VersionMonkey]

And still they didn't do anything illegal. I don't even know why you insist, the EU court found them innocent, what else can someone do to prove his innocence to you? You have to realize what you are doing is actually bonkers, and you wouldn't be doing that if it was amd instead. I can't fathom how you can, with a straight face, just discount EU high courts decision and go with your own personal biased beliefs. Don't you understand how ridiculous that is?

The decision to which you are referring is only the latest round in the case. That decision by the General Court is currently under appeal to the ECJ:

https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/08/eu_to_appeal_intel_general_court/

The Commission claiming that that most recent decision by the General Court erred as a matter of law "in denying any overall assessment of the capability of Intel’s practices to foreclose competition in the light of all the relevant circumstances of the case and in misinterpreting the guidance given in that respect in the judgment of the Court of Justice of 6 September 2017, Intel v Commission, C-413/14 P, EU:C:2017:632." amongst other things:

https://curia.europa.eu/juris/docum...g=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=14237

So while you may be sort of correct in that the current status of the case is that the General Court found that the Commission had failed to demonstrate an anti-competitive effect to the necessary standard; the Commission (who may quite like the billion Euros back, but aren't otherwise subject to your suggestion of biased beliefs especially between two US companies) quite clearly still believe that Intel did behave anti-competitively.

It is known, and Intel are not now denying, that they paid OEMs to prevent them from buying AMD processors. I, and maybe others, would view that as pretty underhanded; whether or not it was illegal. The Commission and, initially, the General Court found it to be illegally anti-competitive. The back-and-forth in the case in the EU is on the technicality of whether it was sufficient to drive out a competitor that was as efficient as Intel (which would make it anti-competitive) or AMD were just rubbish and deserved to go bust.

 

[eddyr]

And still they didn't do anything illegal. I don't even know why you insist, the EU court found them innocent, what else can someone do to prove his innocence to you? You have to realize what you are doing is actually bonkers, and you wouldn't be doing that if it was amd instead. I can't fathom how you can, with a straight face, just discount EU high courts decision and go with your own personal biased beliefs. Don't you understand how ridiculous that is?

Intel was not deemed innocent as you like to repeatedly put it. The fine was annulled due a technicality - an error meant the prior conclusions weren't deemed to have met required legal standards.
There was not a ruling that they are innocent of anticompetitive practices. The legality or illegality of what they did is still ongoing, so expect it to be back soon.
I've highlighted your point about AMD's capacity to supply demand the the excerpt below, it is relevant to what happened, but you misinterpreted it.

The EU General Court's 2022 Intel Judgment: Back to Square One of the Intel Saga

European Papers

www.europeanpapers.eu

III. The 2022 General Court decision in Intel​

On remand, in its 2022 judgment in Intel, the GC annulled the Commission's decision, which according to the court was justified by a single error resulting from the failure to take into consideration, in the initial judgment, Intel’s arguments that challenged the Commission’s AEC analysis, which was applied to test the legality of the loyalty rebates. The GC was clear that the naked restrictions were not subject to the same standard, and they did not require further assessment.[30] The GC also accepted the characterisation of the rebates at issue as “exclusivity rebates”.[31]

The main reasoning of the judgment is drawn from the CJEU’s 2017 ruling, according to which the presumption of illegality of fidelity rebates granted by a dominant company stands but that presumption does not allow the Commission to disregard evidence submitted by the dominant company during the administrative procedure, in which case the Commission has the obligation to assess the anticompetitive effects of rebate schemes.

The ratio of the GC’s judgment was that the presumption of illegality of fidelity rebates can be rebutted if the dominant company provides evidence that its conduct is not capable of anticompetitive distortion of competition. In that case the Commission must analyse the foreclosure effect by reference to the criteria outlined by the CJEU’s 2017 decision, namely: the extent of the dominant position; the conditions and arrangements for granting the rebates; the share of the market covered by the practices and their duration and the possible existence of an exclusionary strategy.[32] In addition, the AEC test is not an indispensable part of this analysis but because the Commission decided to conduct the test, the GC had to revisit the Commission’s AEC test analysis in accordance with the CJEU’s judgment.[33]

The GC accepted that the evidence adduced by Intel cast doubt on the correctness of the Commission’s findings of the AEC analysis.[34] In particular, it concluded that the Commission made an error in its application of the AEC test, affecting in particular the calculation of the contestable shares (i.e. the proportion of a customer's demand that could be captured by an as-efficient-competitor) and the value of the conditional rebates. The court found that the evidence relied on by the Commission to conclude that the rebates granted to Dell and HP were capable of having a foreclosure effect throughout the entire infringement period was not established to the requisite legal standard.[35] In addition, the court found that the Commission had not established, to the requisite legal standard, the validity of the conclusion that Intel’s rebates granted to Lenovo were capable of having or likely to have anticompetitive foreclosure effects on account of errors made by the Commission in the assessment of the non-cash advantages offered by Intel to Lenovo. According to the court, this ultimately affected all the component parts of the examination of the rebates granted to that OEM.[36]

Similarly, as regards the rebates granted to NEC, the GC found that the Commission ”made two errors of assessment, first, by using an exaggerated value for the conditional rebates and, second, by extrapolating the results which it obtained for the fourth quarter of 2002 to the entire period of the alleged infringement.”[37] Next, the court accepted that the Commission’s AEC analysis for the rebates granted to MSH was validated by an error, given that the Commission extrapolated the results obtained for the fourth quarter of 2002 for the whole of the alleged infringement period.[38]

Finally, the GC concluded that the Commission had failed to properly evaluate two out of the five criteria that should be assessed in order to establish a foreclosure capability as set out in para. 139 of the CJEU judgment, namely the share of market covered and the duration of the rebate schemes.[39]

The Commission has decided to appeal the GC judgment. It will therefore be interesting to see what happens next.[40]

The Intel Effect

my.slaughterandmay.com

Overview​

On 26 January 2022 the European General Court (GC) partially annulled a 2009 European Commission (Commission) decision, in which the Commission found that Intel had abused its dominant position by implementing a strategy intended to exclude its competitors from the market for x86 central processing units.[1]

The GC’s findings are, in many ways, a natural next step following the 2017 judgment of the European Court of Justice (CJ), which made clear that the Commission should have analysed the effects of Intel’s conduct when assessing whether it had infringed Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (see here).[2]

Nonetheless, the judgment also provides some welcome clarity on the degree of analytical rigour expected of the Commission when performing such an analysis.

Annulment of the entire fine

Although the Commission’s findings were only annulled insofar as they related to the exclusivity rebates at issue (its finding regarding the naked restrictions was upheld by the GC), the GC considered that it was not in a position to identify the amount of the fine relating solely to the naked restrictions.

As a result, and for only the third time in an Article 102 TFEU case, the fine imposed by the Commission was annulled in its entirety.

 

[humbug]

Intel and AMD have a colourful history, they have been arguing since the late 1970's, both feel that the other has done them wrong.

Intel was founded in 1968 by Robert Moore.
AMD was founded by Jerry Sanders in 1969.

Both came from the Fairchild Semi Conductor Company, they knew eachother, they were collogues.

In 1978, i think it was, Intel created X86, for all sorts of complicated reasons this was the start of the modern processor, before this you had far more simple logic possessors that you needed a PHD in computing science to use, AMD was the leading firm making those at the time.
IBM saw the potential in X86 and commissioned Intel to proved X86 chips for the "IBM PC" the Personal Computer as we know it today was born, however IBM was worried about supply and stipulated that Intel must also source manufacturing from AMD, at the time AMD had the worlds second largest fabs (yes that's right AMD weren't supply constrained, they were huge) this meant licensing X86 to AMD, which Intel did.
However AMD never received any orders from Intel, so far as Intel was concerned why should AMD benefit from our invention? Fair enough, eventually AMD reversed engineered Intel's chips and made their own anyway, Intel was more than a little annoyed about this. especially given that by the 1990's AMD's X86 designs were surpassing Intel's.
Eventually, by the mid 2000's AMD's X86 licensing was to expire, AMD created X64, or AMD64 and tagged that on to X86, creating X86_64, 64Bit computing in 2003, it was a huge success, data-centres bought in to it like it was free confectionery, Intel tried to combat AMD64 by creating their own X64, Itainium, it didn't work, Large, hot, slow, flawed. Intel was forced to adopt AMD's X64. that forced a cross licensing agreement that stands to this day.
Shortly after that AMD's market share hit parity with Intel.
That is the moment when Intel started paying people not to use AMD's CPU's, it caused a lot of damage, AMD went from selling at least as many CPU's as Intel to selling almost nothing virtually overnight. That along with the 2008 financial crash left AMD teetering on the brink of bankruptcy by 2012 to 2017.

One could argue AMD were situationally lucky in the 1980's and 1990's, sure i would not argue with that, but AMD have contributed more than enough of their own innovations over the decades to justify their existence in the X86 space, and still do, get over it Intel.

 

[Bencher]

Intel was not deemed innocent as you like to repeatedly put it. The fine was annulled due a technicality - an error meant the prior conclusions weren't deemed to have met required legal standards.
There was not a ruling that they are innocent of anticompetitive practices. The legality or illegality of what they did is still ongoing, so expect it to be back soon.
I've highlighted your point about AMD's capacity to supply demand the the excerpt below, it is relevant to what happened, but you misinterpreted it.

The EU General Court's 2022 Intel Judgment: Back to Square One of the Intel Saga

European Papers

www.europeanpapers.eu

The Intel Effect

my.slaughterandmay.com

If it was annuled then they weren't guilty. Techniality or not, they are innocent until proven otherwise.

Curious though, since the unbiased forum members above us claimed that eu court dropped the case as a bribe for intel to open fabs in eu, how can the case be ongoing?

 

[Hotwired]

If it was annuled then they weren't guilty. Techniality or not, they are innocent until proven otherwise.

The label does not change what happened.

For example we all know Baldwin shot and killed one of his directors on a film set. We're just sitting around waiting to see what kind of legal punishment will come out of it.

A verdict of not guilty of murder (of whatever degrees because America) doesn't erase him killing the woman but he won't get the label of "Murder".

 

[Bencher]

The label does not change what happened.

For example we all know Baldwin shot and killed one of his directors on a film set. We're just sitting around waiting to see what kind of legal punishment will come out of it.

A verdict of not guilty of murder (of whatever degrees because America) doesn't erase him killing the woman but he won't get the label of "Murder".

Exactly. So Intel never bribed retails to not put amd in their PCs

 

[Hotwired]

Exactly. So Intel never bribed retails to not put amd in their PCs

Can you describe what events were the cause of this case?

 

[Bencher]

Can you describe what events were the cause of this case?

They gave discounts or rebates to partners (like dell etc.) if they exclusively use Intel CPUs in their PC's.

 

[Hotwired]

They gave discounts or rebates to partners (like dell etc.) if they exclusively use Intel CPUs in their PC's.

Right and there's no argument that Intel was doing that.

Whatever shenannigans happen in the court we know the events.

 

[Bencher]

Right and there's no argument that Intel was doing that.

Whatever shenannigans happen in the court we know the events.

Yeah, obviously they did that, never denied it. So? That's neither illegal or uncommon. Quite the contrary, it's extremely common and pretty much everyone does it. Including AMD, Sony, MS etc. What do you think is games exclusivity? Sony is actively PAYING developers for them NOT to release their games in their competitors platform. How about Sapphire that only makes AMD Gpu's? You don't think they do that cause they get special treatment? Why else would they NOT make GPUs using nvidia's chips which 90% of the market buys?

I could hear the argument, that when a company with bigger marketshare does it - it harms competition more than when a smaller company does it - but the morality of the action itself is the same.

 

[Hotwired]

Exactly. So Intel never bribed retails to not put amd in their PCs

Yeah, obviously they did that, never denied it. So? That's neither illegal or uncommon. Quite the contrary, it's extremely common and pretty much everyone does it. Including AMD, Sony, MS etc. What do you think is games exclusivity? Sony is actively PAYING developers for them NOT to release their games in their competitors platform. How about Sapphire that only makes AMD Gpu's? You don't think they do that cause they get special treatment? Why else would they NOT make GPUs using nvidia's chips which 90% of the market buys?

I could hear the argument, that when a company with bigger marketshare does it - it harms competition more than when a smaller company does it - but the morality of the action itself is the same.

Whatever phrasing you prefer, the point is, we know there was a financial agreement to prevent AMD from competing and the outcome of being able to fine Intel or not for it doesn't change that.

 

[eddyr]

If it was annuled then they weren't guilty. Techniality or not, they are innocent until proven otherwise.

Curious though, since the unbiased forum members above us claimed that eu court dropped the case as a bribe for intel to open fabs in eu, how can the case be ongoing?

If you read through earlier you will see that it is accepted that they engaged in anticompetitive practices, "exclusionary rebates" as they term it, and as such anticompetitive effects are automatically assumed - for good reason. That isn't in question at all and is reaffirmed in 2022, so they aren't 'innocent' of that, but the 'innocent/guilty' doesn't really fit this.
What's being argued is the extent of the effect the anticompetitive practices had on the competition. They basically saying they would need to go back and redo the analysis factoring in arguments put forward by Intel.

Its sort of comical really, they were mulling over a point for 5 years that was raised in 2017.

Moreover, the Court noted that although the Commission considered that the evaluation of all the circumstances and, in particular the price-cost test, was unnecessary to find an abuse of dominant position, it nevertheless chose to carry out such an analysis. As a result, the test played an important role in the Commission’s assessment.[28] For that reason, the GC was required to examine all of Intel’s arguments concerning the price-cost test.[29] The CJEU clarified that the correctness of the implementation of the test should be assessed because it was in the decision and the defendant challenged the Commission’s analysis by providing evidence that challenged the correctness of this analysis. In other words, the case was sent back to the GC on procedural grounds because the judgment had failed to take into account Intel’s arguments in the name of the rights of defence. Finally, the GC’s findings with respect to the naked restrictions were not annulled by the CJEU.

And so in 2022 agreed with themselves:

The main reasoning of the judgment is drawn from the CJEU’s 2017 ruling, according to which the presumption of illegality of fidelity rebates granted by a dominant company stands but that presumption does not allow the Commission to disregard evidence submitted by the dominant company during the administrative procedure, in which case the Commission has the obligation to assess the anticompetitive effects of rebate schemes

 

[Bencher]

If you read through earlier you will see that it is accepted that they engaged in anticompetitive practices, "exclusionary rebates" as they term it, and as such anticompetitive effects are automatically assumed - for good reason. That isn't in question at all and is reaffirmed in 2022, so they aren't innocent of that.
What's being argued is the extent of the effect the anticompetitive practices had on the competition. They basically saying they would need to go back and redo the analysis factoring in arguments put forward by Intel.

Its sort of comical really, they were mulling over a point for 5 years that was raised in 2017.


And so in 2022 agreed with themselves:

Well, from your link, that's exactly what im saying. Intel's practice isn't in itself immoral or illegal, since basically everyone, amd included - does it. It's whether or not Intel was a dominant company - and whether or not it influenced the competition that is in question.

So the immorality isn't in question, the legality is yet to be determined. That's why I don't understand the outcry about "Intel = bad". Amd does the same, Sony does the same, APPLE does the same, MS does the same, everyone does it. Why so much sensitivity towards Intel? I mean i know why, it's a rhetorical question. Amd can do no wrong. See the GPU pricing, AMD has worse prices than nvidia, everybody lost their mind about nvidias prices. It would be comical if it wasn't so sad.

 

[uscool]

whats sad is being loyal to either company so it ends up effecting you lol