It is illegal ... [Bad AMD, blah blah blah] ... Clearly AMD had been lying, even if the customers were stupid enough to believe them in the first place. Perhaps you could document these fairy-tale crimes. I won't hold my breath for anything substantial.
The difference between Intel's "rebates" and AMD's "bribes" is that Intel remained at a profit after the rebates and discounts. AMD's bribes were offered straight out of the shareholders pocket leaving AMD poorer as a result. Perhaps you might argue that AMD had no other customers for those 1,000,000 units so they were going to be written off anyway, but that hardly strengthens AMD's case. A) There is/was no "case" for AMD to defend... It's another fairy tale that exists only in your mind. Can't say the same for Intel's "rebates."
B) You just cannot bear to contemplate that "dominance" (as in, "abuse of dominant position") is a meaningful distinction, in the legal sense. If you can't agree that market power has relevence in the subject of antitrust law, your opinions about subject are meaningless.
Boy I must be crazy thinking that "but stalled when the FTC insisted on unprecedented remedies – including the restrictions on lawful price competition and enforcement of intellectual property rights set forth in the complaint" talks about unlawful price competition and enforcement of IP rights set forth in the complaint.
Yes you must be. The words "unlawful price competition" are your words and don't appear in Intel's statement. Did I say "unlawful?" Oops, habit <tee hee>. I guess you have permission to ignore the remedies for Intel's so called "lawful price competition" practices in the complaint that were prohibited in the settlement.
As you can see, Intel was describing why the issue wasn't settled earlier. Yes, the FTC demanded remedies. The remedies that Intel couldn't accept were set forth in the FTC complaint.
As it was subsequently settled, it is clear that the FTC backed down on their demands. Intel did not agree to license it's IP to all comers and the other draconian requirements were dropped as well, hence the settlement. Get it now? The FTC caved or there would have been no settlement and it would have been headed for Court. The "tough measures" spelled out in the settlement are only tough to you because you assume Intel was acting illegally in the first place. A) You're overblowing the "license it's IP to all comers" issue: The only IP-licensing difference between the complaint and settlement is that Intel isn't required to license it's equivalents to Hypertransport. BFD IMHO.
B) The other "draconian requirements" the FTC "ceded?" 1) Intel still gets to badmouth competitors' GPUs (LOL) and 2) Intel gets to make design decisions that could harm competitors' GPUs, as long as they can show that the design decisions improve the performance of their CPUs. Again, BFD.
C) What demands did the FTC cede to Intel regarding rebates? NOTHING.
Surely you're not proposing that there was a stricter set of FTC remedies that were demanded, and then retracted, all in secret? As in, The Dog
Note that none of these "FTC concessions" relate to any of AMD's complaints.
As far as AMD goes, whatever wasn't handled by the AMD settlement was handled by the FTC settlement.
Pooh pooh all you want; AMD got everything it asked for. Intel got to not admit guilt.
As you can see, there were no detrimental effects of the settlement on Intel's business because Intel wasn't doing anything illegal in the first place. How do you know? Does your fantasyland include an alternate timeline that didn't include all of the various fines and prohibitions that you can compare the real world against?
Regardless, how could AMD have possibly survived in a market where Intel was free & clear to give huge, tailored "rebates" to OEMs to "meet comp"? Has Intel ever had a greater lead on AMD than now, and yet AMD has 20%+ and growing market share?
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