AMD exec "would never buy" AMD

Despite a massive settlement by Intel after accusations of anti-competitive behaviour against its smaller rival AMD, the US Federal Trade Commission is still chasing the company - but Intel has revealed an interesting fact from the era in question as part of a filing in its defence.

As reported over on Tom's Hardware, the filing quotes the executive vice president of the day, Henri Richard - who has since left the company - who stated in an internal AMD communication that "if you look at it with an objective set of eyes, you would never buy AMD [processors]."

In the internal e-mail, Richard goes on to opine that "I would never buy AMD for a personal system, if I wasn't working [for the company]."

While the comments don't get Intel off the hook - the accusations levied against it regarding "threats and rewards aimed at the world’s largest computer manufacturers, including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM, to coerce them not to buy rival computer CPU chips" still stand, and the FTC is going to want answers regarding such behaviour - they must certainly prove awkward for AMD. Further, current Intel staffer Chuck Mulloy has stated that this is merely the tip of an increasingly large iceberg of embarrassment, claiming that Richards' e-mail - which Intel received as part of the discovery process during the trial - was simply the start, and that "more and more [of] this kind of information will be available in the case."

So far, AMD has not commented on the filing by Intel - nor on the comments made by Henri Richard back in 2004.

Are you amazed that a high-ranking executive at the company could be so disparaging about his own products, or is this proof that Intel wasn't AMD's biggest problem back then? Share your thoughts over in the forums.