14 DAY TRIAL // According to a recent report, an official representative of the Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices claims that its main competitor, Intel, has made an exclusive deal in 2005 with leading computer system vendor Apple. The AMD executive further states that the deal between the two companies has enabled Intel to become the only supplier of processors for Apple, consequently preventing AMD from gaining from Apple's business.
In a recent interview with Cnet, Tom McCoy, AMD's senior VP of legal affairs, said that Intel had benefited from a deal with Apple since 2005, when the Cupertino, California-based system vendor transitioned from a PowerPC (IBM-Motorola) chip architecture to an x86 one. Although Apple made no official statements, the fact that the company hasn't yet used an AMD processing unit in any of its products still remains potential evidence of Tom McCoy's claims.
The statements made by AMD's representative come at a time when Intel has received a serious slap on the face from the EU Commission, which has recently fined the global leading chip maker with US$1.45 billion for violating antitrust rules. Aside from the considerable fine, the accusation also refers to some of Intel's business practices, which were ultimately designed to restrict AMD's access to the products of various PC makers.
“They made a deal when they were porting over from PowerPC to x86 as to how much Intel was willing to pay for that port. My guess is that Intel asked for and won exclusivity in return for the help that they gave Apple to port,” McCoy said in the interview. “That deal will not be exclusive forever and when that exclusivity is over, I'm sure they (Apple) will choose on the merits. We'll have a chance to compete for Apple's business when Apple is ready,” he then added.