Dude, I Got Subpoenaed. Now What?

Generally I’m a fan of free-for-all capitalize. If you’ve got the best product and you dominate the market, so be it. But there are times when a company may have established their position using this method but then use questionable practices to maintain it. I can’t think of two bigger offenders than Microsoft and Intel. For those that don’t keep up on tech news, AMD is taking Intel to court and companies like Dell are getting caught in the middle. Here’s a great article on how Dell is reacting.

You know, and I know that the lawyers are the ones that decided to start selling AMD chips. And we also both know that there is going to be a special place in the fiery darkness for those lawyers. But who do they think they’re fooling? The sad part is they only need to fool the judge. I can’t believe that the judge is going to fully understand how silly it looks that Dell is selling AMD processors.

So, for the sake of the non-technical judge let’s use a more generic analogy.

So let’s say you’re a judge (Dell), and have been know to take a “present” now and again from an attorney. Now let’s say that someone (Intel) approaches you and suggests that if you only take “presents” from him that he’ll not only increase the size of the “present” but he’ll also make sure to bring you the highest profile cases. Which of course are “good for business”. He tells you that the only stipulation is that you can no longer accept “presents” from anyone else. Sounds like a good deal huh? Yeah, right up until the point where someone (AMD) comes to you with a high profile case and a desire to “do business”. You politely turn him down because of your existing arrangement, only to find out that he’s been turned down by some of the other judges willing to “do business” and is talking about exposing the lot of you.

To avoid the ugliness of being exposed, you let it be known on the street that you’re “open for business again”. But to avoid breaking your exclusive relationship, you either have the cases reassigned or you price your services so high that you make it impossible for someone other than your “partner” to find your services useful.

Now I can’t imagine any judge doing something like that, but does that make sense at all judge? Just a little?