Intel Corp (INTC)

[Windsock]

Executive Summary: Probably not, Yes and Yes

A) they are totally blind to the concept of pissing off their customers,

I think that AMD sees the cliff coming and believe they have no choice but to try a law suit in order to obtain a competitive advantage of some sort. As a result, AMD has no choice except to take a hit with customers.

IMO the platform strategy of Intel will have a devastating effect on AMD and AMD is aware of this. See the success of Centrino technology -- Intel's first platform initiative. AMD does not have the resources to counter Intel's platform initiative. It is all aoubt infrastructure and AMD of necessity relies heavily on others for chipsets, system designs etc.

B) they are crossing their fingers and hoping that they will find something more incriminating, or

A big yes. AMD had few specifics in their complaint and a lot of statements about Intel's bad intent. AMD is hoping that it will find some bad documents floating around and it will succeed. But a few bad documents don't make an antitrust case. Intel will find some bad documents for AMD too.

C) none of this is meaningful anyway, and all AMD wants to do is make themselves look like a hero to the press.

AMD is playing in the press to an extrordinary degree. The issuance of a subpoena in a business litigation is routine and totally ho-hum. But every time AMD issues a batch of subpoenas it also issues a press release and comments. Totally weird.