The EU have accused Intel of not playing fairly with AMD. Regulators claim they have been offering rebates to customers if they buy Intel products, and encouraging companies to delay or even cancel orders for products containing AMD chips. Intel are also alleged to have been offering processors and chips for servers at very low prices.

If the EU's investigation proves Intel are guilty they could be forced to hand over 10% of their annual turnover as a fine, and be forced to cease their unfair practises. Intel have 10 weeks to request a hearing to argue their point, however, they are adament that they have behaved lawfully, and if anything have been helping consumers and encouraging competition.

Read more via the BBC Newsdesk.

Personally I think its good to see the EU actually using their powers for good and seriously investigating a major company. The only problem is the fine the EU could impose: 10% of Intel's annual turnover. Surely this would be passed on to the consumer, and would be quite a sizeable amount on top of the usual price. Also, for me, my first choice when buying a processor would not be a company that feels it needs to cheat to get business. If Intel are found guilty, they would have to do something special to get my custom back.

Oh so thats what it was about, only briefly read the article on yahoo about Intel getting into trouble. Still, they have some of the best hardware money can buy on the market; but lets not forget EU has gone after Microsoft for the same thing or more specifically trying to Monopolize themselves over there.



Although you can blame them for cheating AMD like that, but that is how business works by out doing the other, and with AMD prices low as they are right now, I believe Intel have to figure something out in order to get customers back, especially since EU is practically a linux country.

I dont know much about EU, actually I know nothing and have never heard of it, but from the topic I have guessed what they do.



I don't see a problem with that at all! That's what business is about, when your competition is cheaper, you either go cheaper to compete, or you do something better to keep the same prices. So how can an organization say thats unfair when it sounds like normal practices?

Mike sniped my comment.
I'm actually not surprised to see Intel using these practices since it seemed to work so well for Microsoft in the US. I'm not sure what the EU's anti-trust or anti-monopoly laws are though, so I don't know whether Intel is breaking them.


I'm sure that when they distribute the 10% over their various products and such, it won't actually be a significant price difference at the consumer level. If, however, they are told to sell their chips at cost, you might see a raise in price.

Either way, Intel is simply trying to stay competitive through whatever means they can.