Word: intel
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...honest plea for justice or just the bared-fang attack of a cornered and wounded animal. The tottering hardware giant had bet heavily on its $2.5 billion Alpha microprocessor to return it to prosperity. Alpha is unquestionably the fastest chip on the market, but its speed hasn't overcome Intel's marketing clout. In 1996, according to Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Mercury Research, Intel shipped some 65 million Pentium chips, or 76% of the microprocessor market, compared with 200,000 Alphas. And this year looks grimmer still: 18 million Pentiums shipped through March, to 60,000 Alphas...
...push the software giant's Windows NT program into corporate servers, the machines that link large computer networks. In 1995 Digital had cut its own Microsoft deal, looking to the burgeoning NT market to fuel its growth. Instead, it is losing ground in a market already dominated by Intel, rather than Digital, chips...
With the ramparts collapsing around him, Digital CEO Robert Palmer must have seen little choice but all-out attack. The lawsuit claims Intel infringed on 10 Digital patents related to Alpha and other chips--though Palmer doesn't claim this piracy occurred during negotiations between the companies in 1990 and '91. Intel was then considering licensing Alpha technology for its next-generation chip; after both companies signed a confidentiality agreement, Dig- gital revealed the Alpha design. But the talks fell apart, and Pentium, sans Alpha, went on to become the soul...
...Palmer was noticing reviews of Intel's new Pentium Pro line that found it strikingly--even suspiciously--improved over its Pentium forebears. Intel itself provided the most damning hints that it had leaned on its competitors for the upgrade. "There's nothing left to copy," said chief operating officer Craig Barrett in an incendiary Wall Street Journal article in August 1996. "We're a big banana now," noted CEO Andrew Grove. "We can't rely on others to do our research and development...
Irritating though such glib sentiments might be to a vanquished rival--and there are many in Silicon Valley who would just love to see something nasty happen to Microsoft and Intel, if only for the change of pace--such bluster hardly constitutes proof of illegal behavior. "I don't think there's any question that the suit is a negotiating ploy," says Mercury Research analyst Mike Feibus. The current industry wisdom is that Digital's aim is to gain an out-of-court settlement that would give it a foothold in Intel's fortunes--either a cross-licensing agreement granting...