Despite FTC Settlement, Intel Can Ship Oak Trail Without PCIe

MojoKid writes "When the Federal Trade Commission settled their investigation of Intel, one of the stipulations of the agreement was that Intel would continue to support the PCI Express standard for the next six years. Intel agreed to all the FTC's demands, but Intel's upcoming Oak Trail Atom platform presented something of a conundrum. Oak Trail was finalized long before the FTC and Intel began negotiating, which means Santa Clara could've been banned from shipping the platform. However, the FTC and Intel have recently jointly announced an agreement covering Oak Trail that allows Intel to sell the platform without adding PCIe support — for now."

Re:Am I the only one who is confused...

[cappp]

Okay as far as I can tell

The FTC sued Intel alleging Intel had violated Section 5 of the FTC Act.

A little more digging brings us [computerworld.co.nz]

The FTC filed its complaints against Intel on Dec. 16, 2009. It charged the chip maker with illegally using its dominant position to stifle competition for decades. The complaint was filed just a month after Intel had settled antitrust and patent disputes with Advanced Micro Devices for US$1.25 billion.

The FTC site adds that [ftc.gov]

").(1) Section 5 of the FTC Act prohibits "unfair methods of competition," and was amended in 1938 also to prohibit "unfair or deceptive acts or practices.

Seems to have been part of a broader move against Intel at the time, I admit I don't remember it very clearly, but Reuters adds [reuters.com]

A wide range of antitrust enforcers have gone up against Intel for its controversial pricing incentives. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo accused Intel in November of threatening computer makers and paying billions of dollars of kickbacks to maintain market supremacy. The European Commission has fined Intel 1.06 billion euros ($1.44 billion) for illegally shutting out AMD. In June 2008, South Korea fined Intel some $26 million, finding it offered rebates to PC makers in return for not buying microprocessors made by AMD. Japan's trade commission concluded in 2005 that Intel had violated the country's anti-monopoly act. The case before the FTC is "In the Matter of Intel Corporation," docket number 9341.

Oh and that case can be found here [ftc.gov]

Re:Am I the only one who is confused...

[pavon]

Here is a good article [arstechnica.com] about the original antitrust settlement.

Basically, Intel refuses to license it's new DMI or QPI bus protocols to NVIDIA, so they can no longer make chipsets for intel processors (like nForce). Furthermore, it has been feared that with the push towards systems on chip, that Intel would eliminate the PCI-e bus as well leaving no way for any graphic company to supply a discrete graphics chip for netbook or notebook computers.

Re:Please explain.

[jgreco]

Please re-read, it's Intel, not IBM... and there's lots of useful info in the comments.

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