AMD has finely gotten someone to take a stand against Intel's bullying approach to doing business with computer makers. While the U.S. continues to 'investigate' Intel's practices, the EU has taken action.

Has anyone else read about this? Comments from the better informed?

Yeah but the EU's forte is whacking computer firms with astronomical fines. Microsoft have had the shit kicked out of them as well.

They just seem to have a yen for that.

The EU also thinks its a good idea to frown on airline alliance groups. Apparently things that save consumers money and add value and convenience to an industry that barely scrapes by is bunk for these people. Do they know that all their bullshit doesn't save the consumer any money at all? In fact it costs the consumer more through increased prices in order to leverage out the impact of those fines.

As for AMD, I like their chips but Intel has the better processor. It doesn't seem right to punish a company for making a superior product and aggressively marketing it. Perhaps overly aggressively but there is of course the burden of proof. Granted it is more costly to buy the Intel chip and all the associated hidden costs of the upgrade so I have only gone Intel once in the past 10 years. For my budget, AMD is the way to go. I don't need a thousand dollar processor to do what a 150 dollar one does, be it slightly slower. Be better off spending the money on a SSD or better video card anyway. There are plenty of people who probably see it in the same light, so AMD isn't going anywhere.

Hopefully these rulings to not adversely impact one of the few industries the US has left in what is a real rough patch economically. In fact, I hope Intel tells the EU twits to stuff it.

The EU has been taking shots at all sorts of industries where price fixing and bribery are rampant. Intel's habit of "selling" chips at a much lower price to computer makers that only use Intel chips reduced competition by doing this.
The Commission found that between 2002 and 2007, Intel had paid manufacturers and a retailer to favour its chips over those of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8047546.stm

Here's a sample from 2007:The EU has fined power equipment manufacturers for their roles in a price-fixing scheme. It's the largest fine ever imposed on a single cartel and German engineering giant Siemens will take the brunt of the penalty.

The fines imposed by the European Commission for breaking antitrust rules on 10 companies based in the EU, Switzerland and Japan amount to more than 750 million euros ($975 million), the commission said.
German firm Siemens will be punished with a fine of 396.6 million euros ($513 million). According to the commission, it is the largest fine ever imposed on a single company for a single cartel infringement.

The 10 companies penalized are: Alstom, Areva, Fuji, Hitachi, Japan AE Power Systems, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Schneider, Siemens, Toshiba and VA Tech.

The heavy equipment in question is gas-insulated switchgear, which is used to control energy flows in electricity grids and is the major component of turnkey power substations. Substations are auxiliary power stations where electrical current is converted from high to low voltage or the reverse.

"Between 1988 and 2004, the companies rigged bids for procurement contracts, fixed prices, allocated projects to each other, shared markets and exchanged commercially important and confidential information," the commission said.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2324897,00.html

As for AMD, I like their chips but Intel has the better processor. It doesn't seem right to punish a company for making a superior product and aggressively marketing it. Perhaps overly aggressively but there is of course the burden of proof.

As mentioned, the fine has nothing to do with being successful and everything to do with being anti-competitive. Who has the shinier widget at any given time is up to the market, who lied, cheated, and stole is a legal issue.

Took them long enough. They have been investigating for yeaaaaaars. They should rape the EU on computer costs next time they upgrade to make up for it. Because I guarantee they all use intel chips. I know we do!

Large buyers like governments don't care what the processor is. They just want the best deal from a PC maker for a bulk order to fit their needs. Governments and large organizations get more hung up on things like operating systems, end user support, power consumption, effects on the thermal load of a building, noise etc etc. They want the platform to be uniform and the guts of a computer tend to be more uniform than software regardless of who made it. At work we have more AMD powered boxes than Intel as far as work stations but that just depends on when they were purchased. If it has Windows on it, its running XP Pro still and THAT is the kicker. Eventually all the workstations will go thin client, but again, its not the boxes that are the big deal. Its software. Training and licenses are the big money item. Servers I can't speak for nor do I honestly care. At the root of it, AMD used to make chips under an Intel granted license. They are both x86 architecture. If you can use an Intel box you can use an AMD one.

So, the consumer really doesn't win or lose here. It just how the manufacturers get pressured. Leave it to the lawyers! Leave it to the EU as well too to pay for socialism by going after bad capitalism.

Of the few hundred computers we had, not a single AMD. Go go Dell.