Misguided
In a bitter response to the FTC's law suit against it for "anticompetitive tactics" on Wednesday, Intel called the case misguided, expensive to the taxpayer and uninformed.
"Intel has competed fairly and lawfully. Its actions have benefited consumers," said the firm in a statement which went on to say that "the highly competitive microprocessor industry, of which Intel is a key part, has kept innovation robust and prices declining at a faster rate than any other industry."
"The FTC's case is misguided. It is based largely on claims that the FTC added at the last minute and has not investigated," the statement continued.
"In addition, it is explicitly not based on existing law but is instead intended to make new rules for regulating business conduct. These new rules would harm consumers by reducing innovation and raising prices."
Not everyone agrees with this sentiment though, with the president of the American Antitrust Institute Bert Foer telling HEXUS that Intel's pricing strategy was choking innovation and stifling any advances made by AMD and NVIDIA by pushing OEMs into a corner.
"It's clear AMD and NVIDIA have a better mousetrap," Foer told HEXUS, but said investors would not put significant amounts of money behind a technology if they knew a powerful entity like Intel would simply step in and freeze that product out through overly aggressive pricing and bundling.
Intel's new general counsel Doug Melamed certainly seems to be getting a baptism by fire, noting "this case could have, and should have, been settled."
According to Melamed, settlement talks "had progressed very far but stalled when the FTC insisted on unprecedented remedies - including the restrictions on lawful price competition and innovation set forth in the complaint - that would make it impossible for Intel to conduct business."
