AMD silences paper shredders

Some 30 companies including the biggest PC makers in the business will be keeping all of their documents handy for the time being thanks to a court order issued this week.

U.S. District Court in Delaware approved a petition by Advanced Micro Devices asking companies subpoenaed in the AMD v. Intel battle to preserve their correspondence and other relevant evidence.

It's the latest development in AMD's anticompetitive grievance against its larger rival. Late last month, lawyers for AMD filed a 48-page lawsuit against Intel in the United States and then followed it up with two related antitrust legal complaints in Japan.

AMD claims that Intel is using monopolistic business practices, such as threatening retaliation against customers that do business with AMD or using its market development funds and other promotional sales tactics to squeeze AMD out of a particular market.

Intel has refuted the charges

While the case is still in its pre-trial phase, AMD's legal eagles have been working overtime engaging in discussions with PC makers, distributors and retailers asking them to keep a lid on their e-mail and other communications.

The list includes PC makers such as Acer, Averatec, Dell, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, Lenovo, NEC, NEC-CI, Rackable Systems, Sony, Sun Microsystems, Supermicro and Toshiba.

Distributors like ASI, Avnet, Ingram, Supercom, Synnex, and Tech Data.

And worldwide retailers including Aldi, Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Dixons, Fry's, MediaMarkt, Office Depot, and Vobis.