

Fine is the largest ever levied for antitrust violations in the EU












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RE: Competition
By mars777 on 5/13/2009 3:47:31 PM , Rating: 4
If these rebates were so 'anti-competitive', why wasnt AMD offering the same thing? Intel wasnt putting a gun to anyone's heads - they were just playing hardball

Let me give you an example:

- you are an OEM
- a am Intel and have 80% of market share
- John is AMD and has 15% of market share
- You sell roughly the same percentage of products as our marketshare
- I offer you 15% discount if you don't sell Johns stuff
(this is more than the profit from John)
- Do you reject?
(if you dont reject you sell the same amount of stuff because there is demand but you gain 15% more profit, I loose 15% profit but gain 15% marketshare and that covers it)
- If you don't reject, try this in the other way:
- Would you accept the same deal from someone who has 15% market share?
(that 15% from John equals somewhere like 3% of the profit from the other supplier... you loose profit)

Well, you just learned what does anticompetitive monopolistic behavior stand for.

Why is this illegal? Because consumers did not have choice to buy Johns stuff, and less choice means the only supplier can set prices higher. After that consumers loose money, not only choice.

RE: Competition
By mars777 on 5/13/2009 4:54:25 PM , Rating: 2
And if there is no choice, customers will still buy the product offered since they need it, no matter the price.

There is to note that the increased price is only transferred to the customer, not you. Since you gain more margin if the prices increase.


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