Today was the day that AMD's legal efforts finally paid off.
In a joint statement the two companies commented, "While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development."
"We really couldn't keep appealing forever, and this time they really had us. We will now stop wasting time with monopolistic practices involving Dell and every other big player and will invest more in actual products."
Under terms of the agreement, AMD and Intel obtain patent rights from a new 5-year cross license agreement, Intel and AMD will give up any claims of breach from the previous license agreement, and Intel will pay AMD $1.25 billion. Intel has also agreed to abide by a set of business practice provisions. As a result, AMD will drop all pending litigation including the case in U.S. District Court in Delaware and two cases pending in Japan. AMD will also withdraw all of its regulatory complaints worldwide. The agreement will be made public in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
"We thought we had them when AMD spinned off the fabs into Global Foundries, as we were expecting to revoke the x86 license. It was bluff and we ended up paying them $1.25 billion and doing a new 5 year cross license agreement on their own terms, so strong were the evidences against us. Damn."
It will be good to see both companies enter 2011 in a leveled playing field, to which Intel only has technology in it's advantage right now. AMD's efforts finally paid off in a big way, helping the company obtain a much needed cash infusion it was deprived off for some many times due to more than unethical business practices. Official court fillings detailed Intel paying as much as $6 billion to Dell over the course of 5 years to coherce Dell to stay away from AMD products. That considered, $1.25 billion was a small sum.
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