Replies to post #85140 on Intel Corp (INTC)

[Professor MD]

It is illegal for Intel and AMD to negotiate an agreement to stop discounting. It is however legal for Intel and AMD to comply with the EU and NY demand to stop discounting (or bribing). This agreement is a windfall for both companies.
Intel will have to stop offering rebates (bribes). I hope Intel will dedicate the billions of dollars, that were previously paid to the big customers, to its long-suffering share holders in the form of dividend.

[Joey Smith]

Tench, re:They got cash, they got a renegotiation of the cross-licensing agreement, and they got the authorities to put enormous pressure on Intel.

Reealistically, the cross-license would have happened anyway, right? Cash is not a big deal, and actually a lot less than the max amount. Isnt the purpose of the deal is to now take the watchdog pressure off?

I cant see how Intel could have done better, unless they actually took AMD to court & won a long, drawn out legal battle. This is better for shareholders, imo.

[chipguy]

Plus there's nothing to suggest that AMD won't pull off the same shit five or ten years from now. And AMD will likely be in a far better competitive position when they do.

I disagree.

This settlement does not change the fundamental differences
between Intel and AMD at all. AMD is worse off now than at
any time in its history thanks to divesture of manufacturing.

Intel holds significant advantages in both product design
and process technology development and both will increase
as time goes on because of superior resources and having
designers and process/manufacturing people under one
roof all pulling towards identical goals*. Arguably Intel's
global brand is somewhat tainted by the settlement but that
is at worse a minor temporary setback.

*As opposed to design by AMD, manufacture by GF, and
process technology by IBM. If you think those three are
fully aligned in their goals maybe you see Duke about his
NY bridge.

[The Duke of URL]

One major victory in the settlement agreement is that it will cut down on the AMD faithfull posting on this thread. That, alone, I consider to be a strategic victory.

[Windsock]

I think this a very good settlement for AMD.

It does surprise me a bit that AMD is smart enough to take the deal with all the emotional jihad that AMD had invested. However, Dirk Meyer represents a new management and the old management is gone.

The $1.25 billion buys AMD another couple years of life. AMD can also freely pursue its foundry business model using GloFo or probably anyone else.

GloFo will not have an X86 license that it can spread to the world, something that would have resulted if GF was a fake subsidiary under the AMD license. This is a big win for Intel and it was done without litigation.

Don't worry about AMD 5 to 10 years down the road. AMD will not then exist in its present form if at all. How did Netscape do after the Microsoft settlement? AMD may be around as a niche graphics chip house but it will have no more significance in the X86 business than Via.