14 DAY TRIAL // The legal action filed by AMD against Intel in 2006 got new evidence to support AMD's allegations claiming that it had been sabotaged by its Arch-rival on the processor market. According to the latest information emerging from the trial, AMD gathered 200 million pages of documents that say Intel paid its partners to ditch AMD.
Intel has been allegedly involved with major system vendors worldwide, such as Dell, IBM and HP in a large-scale operation of removing AMD from the CPU market. AMD is also claiming that Intel paid those manufacturers not to build and sell AMD-based computing systems, a serious accusation backed up by "several" e-mails between Intel and system vendors.
However, most of the details are kept away from both the public and the press. The two companies have signed a non-disclosure agreement prior to the introduction of evidence, aimed at protecting corporate secrets and confidential information from both Intel and AMD.
On the other side, Intel claims that the company acted in the spirit of free competition on the CPU market, and its cut-throat business should not be regarded as illegal, antitrust measures. "AMD's complaint about Intel's discounting boils down to a complaint that Intel is a more efficient competitor", the company said in its filing.
At this moment it seems that the trial has reached a dead end and AMD comes with additional evidence to gain some more time (a few months) to seek further witnesses. Of course, the lag upset Intel who thinks that AMD has had enough time to build their case. "They're asking for way more than is necessary", Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy said.
AMD also accused Intel of having endangered its stability on the market, since the chip manufacturer enjoys less than 13 percent of the CPU market share. AMD lawyers argued that the figure is "less than half of what it requires to operate long-term as a sustainable business", and Intel should also pay for the damage.