Intel v AMD

I was researching on what CPU to buy the other day when I saw an interesting article about antitrust lawsuits against Intel. Intel was found guilty of monopoly charges by the Japanese government, South Korean Government and the European Commission against it's competitors. Monopoly charges are also being investigated in the U.S.

Okay here's the gist of it. In 2005 the Japanese government accused Intel of anti-competitive practices by giving unfair discounts that discriminates against its main rival AMD. In 2007 Intel Korea was found guilty of granting incentives to computer manufacturers on the condition that they buy less CPUs from AMD and Intel got fined by $25 million. In May 2009 the European Commission found Intel guilty of granting rebates to computer manufacturers like Dell, HP and Acer on the condition that they buy less or don't buy at all from AMD. Intel was also guilty of paying some manufacturers to postpone launch of AMD based computers and laptops. Intel was fined by a record 1.5 billion euros.

It was really shocking to hear that such a reputable and huge company like Intel is doing all of this shady dealings to drive its main competition out of the market. With a quick look at the Wikipedia page of AMD, it is apparent that competition between the two is fierce dating back in the late 80's when Intel broke a deal with AMD in 1985. What really worries me is that AMD's market share has shrunk in the past few years and they are losing a lot of money as a result of this with the worst case scenario of AMD going bankrupt in the future and CPU advancement slowing down because of lack of competition. Well it's not really worrying because I'm sure AMD wouldn't let that happen. I just need something for week 7.