He would say that wouldn't he, being at the helm at that time and I'd guess he still has some shares...

"with retailers followed a strict manual which limited the rebates they could offer and other aspects of trading"

That's fine, but what happens first is the retailer is offered a much better price if they restrict / limit their sales of AMD hardware. I would think the same is happening at Dell; though Intel will be careful not to make things totally obvious - i.e. encourage a sales of lower value products at low volumes.

If they have 70% or more of the market I would think they should be considered to be in a monopoly position and regulated as such.

PC world have several PCs for sale without Intel processors, but just try buying one *without* Windows Fista.

(Damn, why is that 'F' key so conveniently close to the 'V'?)

...to make comoanies like Intel and Microsoft *want* to play ball, if we wanted. Simply decide that any company with "anti-trust" status against it is forbidden from having individual relationships with its end customers inside the EU zone, and must instead deal directly through an EU government-controlled subsidiary.

This subsidiary would own the relationships with end clients and businesses, removing Wintel's stranglehold on customers' policy decisions - and preventing them from strong-arming customers based on what kind of relationship the customer has with their competitors.

With the threat of such a hobbling, the big players will play nice as quickly as you can say "Jumping Jack Flash." Unlike a fine, which could take a court case and many years to resolve - removing a company's ability to trade directly with its customers could take effect immediately.

In Japan, there are already similar punishments for companies that behave badly - their licence to trade is simply withdrawn, and they have to close their shutters for several months as punishment. It works, because it hits shareholders in the pocket, and it hits them like a hammer blow.

Oliver.

"I find it very odd that they [the commission] conducted dawn raids on a retailer"

Why odd? The investigation is (partly) into whether Intel are unfairly colluding with retailers to eliminate competition in the PC market. Why then would it be odd to raid the largest UK retailer they could be colluding with if this were true?