14 DAY TRIAL // It's safe to say that most of us believe that the rivalry between the two biggest chip manufacturers is pretty much real and intense. Over time, countless words have been spent on said rivalry, all of them claiming that big players like NVIDIA and ATI have never seen eye to eye. But they do say that, more often than not, appearances can be deceiving - and such could also be the case with these two graphics giants, which are now reported to have tried and might have actually succeeded to collaborate in order to get more money from the end-user.
Believe or not, the rivalry between NVIDIA and ATI might have been just a media show put together to make us believe that one is better than the other, just to constantly have us buying their cards. And reports indicate they might have went even further than that. Just recently, both companies were accused of having reached an agreement in order set the prices for their graphics cards higher than what they should be under normal circumstances.
The allegations brought against NVIDIA and ATI, currently a subsidiary of AMD, claim that both companies conspired to keep prices artificially high, by releasing products at the same time and at similar prices. A legal trial with them as respondents is being held in the Northern District of California, with Judge William Alsup presiding over the case.
From a number of 9 million documents that turned up during the investigation, one proved to be the most interesting. The document in question was an email from NVIDIA's senior vice president of marketing, Dan Vivoli, to ATI's president and chief operating officer, Dave Orton, dated back in 2002.
"I really think we should work harder together on the marketing front. As you and I have talked about, even though we are competitors, we have the common goal of making our category a well positioned, respected playing field. $5 and $8 stocks are a result of no respect", wrote Vivoli.
Despite the defense attorney's efforts to make this piece of information restricted to the public, Judge Alsup considered the email a strong evidence in the price fixing case, saying: "That's not good for the defense. A jury would like to see this."
If this trial concludes with the two graphics manufacturers being found guilty on the price fixing charge, we should be in for a series of impressive changes on the scene. Besides the (huge) fines that will most certainly be applied to both of them, and not only in the US, we might even see them banned from commercializing their products in some countries. If that be the case, Intel and VIA will probably remain the only competitors on the graphics market.
Then again, now we're just in the realm of speculations. Despite the many voices that call for these two companies to pay dearly for their actions, we must not forget that NVIDIA and ATI are major brands on the graphics market, so it is highly unlikely that they phase out anytime soon.