AMD, Intel, and Microsoft: The Lawsuit

The partnership of Microsoft and Intel is legendary. Both the companies are equally attributed in bringing cheap computing to the common man. So much so that the popular computers of today are generally called as Wintel products… Running Windows on the Intel Platform. However, Intel is not the lonely microprocessor maker for the PC Platform.

AMD has had an amazing year this year. So much so that they have pushed Intel hard to develop their newer products faster. They came to the market first with their 64-bit processor and they were the first one to show the dual core processors for the PC platform. Now, both the companies are ready with their products in these two fields for the desktop platform with analysts claiming that AMD has done a better job with their processors.

AMD also is now targeting Intel legally in the courts as they have sued the company with an antitrust case claiming they used their market position to hurt AMD intentionally. AMD says that Intel forced the other tech companies in the market to avoid buying AMD products by offering them incentives and even threatening them.

Microsoft is a company, which might benefit in the long term if the ruling of this case favors AMD in the end. At the current stage, they are highly dependent on Intel with their products. Intel has an 80%+ market share and a lot is based on their development cycle for Microsoft to develop their products. The company interestingly launched their Windows XP Operating System for the 64-bit processor in the market only when Intel was prepared to launch their 64-bit processors. This was in spite of the fact that AMD had already made available these processors since quite sometime.

Factors like this would help AMD prove in the courts that Intel have been putting pressures on their business partners since a long time to suit themselves hurting the competition in the end.