Intel gears up for European throwdown with AMD

Pop up some popcorn, grab a cold one from the fridge and take a seat: the main event is about to begin. You'll recall that last week, the European Union's top anti-trust regulator announced it is issuing formal anti-competitive charges against chipmaking giant Intel. While this was welcome news for AMD, the scrappy underdog of the CPU world, we could only imagine the folks at Intel HQ were none too happy. Now, Intel has fired back with it's own statement, which can essentially be boiled-down to: Bring it on. The company is "confident that the microprocessor market segment is functioning normally and that Intel's conduct has been lawful, pro-competitive, and beneficial to consumers." The statement goes on to say that while Intel would "certainly have preferred to avoid the cost and inconvenience of establishing that its competitive conduct in Europe has been lawful, the Commission's decision to issue a Statement of Objections means that at last Intel will have the opportunity to hear and respond to the allegations made by our primary competitor." Of course, AMD wasn't going to walk away from this completely unscathed and to that end, Intel points out that the charges are "based on complaints from a direct competitor rather than customers or consumers." Oh snap! You'd better believe AMD, not to mention the European Union, is not going to take that last barb lying down.

For more on Intel's statement:
- see this article from The Register