More Intel Strong-arming?
Date: November 27, 2001
David Vorov writes:
A few weeks ago I attempted to order an Athlon
notebook from Compaq (Presario 700) with Windows 2000 as an operating system.
Compaq said they didn't offer Windows 2000 on notebooks. I pointed out that on
their website they offered Win2k on all INTEL based notebooks, but it didn't
seem to be available on any AMD based notebooks. After a lot of back and forth,
the salesperson admitted they DID sell Intel based notebooks with Win2k, but
said that Win2k did not work with AMD processors. I demanded to speak to a
supervisor.
After I listed all the AMD desktop and notebook systems I had running Win2k, and
giving her the Microsoft URL which shows AMD Athlon as compatible Win2k
hardware, The supervisor admitted that yes, it would run on AMD processors just
fine, but their contract with Intel prevented them from offering either Win2k or
XP Professional on AMD hardware. When I mentioned that this would probably be an
illegal contract, she got a bit nervous and said she didn't know if it was
really a contract, I should contact someone else about this, she's just a sales
manager, blah, blah... so I let her off the hook.
Last week I called a friend who has a brother-in-law who works for Compaq in
Houston. Over Thanksgiving dinner he said his brother-in-law confirmed that they
didn't offer W2k on AMD notebooks because of "Intel pressure".
So my question now is: Who do I go to about this? This doesn't seem like it
would be legal. I have two (fairly low-level) employees at Compaq admitting that
they know Intel is pressuring Compaq to squeeze AMD out of a decent operating
system and relegating it to the low end "XP home edition" piece of crap O/S.
So I go to the press. Maybe you can make a difference. Go ahead, try to get
Win2K on an AMD notebook, or anything for that matter.
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