Yesterday's Wall Street Journal editorial (Intel in Euro-Land) disavows traditional U.S. antitrust principles that have protected competition and consumers for more than a century--ideals most recently endorsed by the Supreme Court in an opinion by Justice Scalia.

At the heart of the Journal's mistaken analysis: European authorities are “absurd” to believe that “the same commercial practices [that] would be entirely legal if the company in question were not considered dominant” are illegal if they’re practiced by a monopoly.

Here's where the history of American antitrust law comes in. In the 2004 Trinko decision, Justice Scalia made a careful distinction: Mere monopoly status is not illegal. But the use of anticompetitive conduct to gain or to maintain a monopoly is illegal, because such practices block the dynamic potential of competition.

This is the distinction employed by the European authorities in their statement of objections against Intel. They did not base their case merely on the size and success of Intel. Rather, the authorities concluded that Intel waged a sustained campaign to leverage its monopoly status to coerce computer makers into boycotting AMD.

Thus, as the European Commission explained, Intel's conduct is “bad for competition and consumers.” And that’s exactly the kind of conclusion that justified the century of landmark U.S. antitrust decisions spanning the decades from Standard Oil, through Alcoa and AT&T, to Microsoft.

Intel’s conduct is a time-worn tactic designed by a monopolist to coerce exclusive dealing and to insulate itself from innovation and price competition. This is the conduct that Japan Fair Trade Commission has condemned. This is why consumer groups have indeed complained about Intel.

There is a reason why Intel is losing with governmental bodies around the world. Its conduct violates traditional antitrust principles on which free markets and consumer protection rely.

Thomas M. McCoy

Executive Vice President, Legal Affairs and Chief Administrative Officer

AMD

Thomas McCoy, despite your company's desperate pleas and flailing, Intel is not a monopoly.

But thanks for making my next purchasing decision! AMD it's not. I don't want to fund your dishonesty.

AMD has perfomed some very important services--namely the delivery of true 64 bit computing platform to the mass market long before Intel wanted it there. Intel has since migrated to the AMD 64 bit solution, largely giving up on the Itanic.

In any case, a competitive market is important, and the reason Intel has not established a total monopoly is largely due to AMD's efforts.

I have been a very happy user of AMD 64 bit technology since SuSe first made an OS available for that processor (version 8.2 of SuSE) and would note that it has served me very well, and in particular I like the power saving features--it's very green technology.