Sources close to the investigation told the Wall Street Journal
that the report it has submitted to Kroes said that she must act
now or drop the case altogether.
Any decision to take action against Intel will be considered
carefully. The EU's antitrust action against software maker
Microsoft has been going on for almost 10 years and is still the
subject of disputes between the parties. Kroes may not have the
appetite for a second such fight.
The investigation stems from a complaint by Intel competitor
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). AMD alleged that Intel abused its
market dominating position and punished computer makers who used
AMD's chips.
Though AMD's fortunes have improved significantly since it made
the complaint and its market share has risen as Intel's has fallen,
Intel is still the larger supplier and has been under investigation
since 2001.
Investigators raided Intel offices in the UK and Germany in 2005
as part of the investigation. The dawn raids were carried out
simultaneously on Intel offices and those of computer sellers.
The EU inquiry has taken over an existing German investigation
into potentially anti-competitive behaviour by Intel. It had been
examining claims by AMD that Intel had put pressure on retailer
Media Markt to sell computers with Intel chips and not AMD ones.
That investigation was subsumed into the EU case last year.
By the middle of this year Intel will have cut its workforce by
10,000 people in a cost cutting plan announced in September of last
year. The slashing of 10% of the Intel workforce could be used to
try to show that Intel is not profiting from any alleged
anti-competitive behaviour and that AMD does not need the help of
the EU in holding Intel back.
"I think this is an argument that Intel will put forward but I
don't think it will make a difference," Angelo Basu, a competition
law specialist at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM,
said last year. "It is one of those things where you are damned
either way: if you have benefited it is bad and if you haven't
benefited it's bad luck, but neither of these would strengthen a
competition case."
