Chip firm AMD has followed up its antitrust suit against Intel earlier this week by filing discovery requests against the major OEMs mentioned in its action. Nine firms, including Best Buy, have agreed to cooperate with AMD so far, while others are treading water and one, Toshiba, has refused to talk to the firm's lawyers. Other companies are Sony, Sun, Acer, Circuit City, Gateway, Lenovo, NEC-CI, Rackable and Tech Data. Each agreed, said AMD, at a minimum, to preserve the documents of the custodians listed "while some have agreed to broader preservation". AMD will reserve the right to serve subpoenas only if talks break down. "If granted leave to do so, we intend to serve subpoenas, however, on those companies that either have refused to negotiate in good faith or who have failed to even acknowledge receipt of our request." AMD asked the court for leave to serve document preservation subpoenas and also wrote letters to "large, well heeled international corporations," including Dell, IBM, Lenovo, HP, Gateway, Sony, NEC, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Hitachi. It also said that it sent letters to big retailers including Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Office Depot, the German Media Markt and the UK Dixons. The full list of OEMs in alphabetical order are Acer, Averatec, Dell, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens, Gateway, HP, Hitachi, IBM, Lenovo, NEC, NEC-CI, Rackable Systems, Sony, Sun, Supermicro and Toshiba. Distributors who got letters are ASI, Avnet, Ingram, Supercom, Synnex, and Tech Data. Retailers are Aldi, Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Dixons, Fry's, MediaMarkt, Office Depot, and Vobis. In its notification to the court, AMD said it asked only that the company sequester the data of a small number of specifically identified employees which are known to engage with Intel's sales force, and has "carefully limited the documents requested to narrowly drawn categories". For example, said AMD, it asked Lenovo to keep documents in 16 categories belonging to 18 employees, while in the case of Circuit City, AMD identified six employees belonging to the buying department and those in their reporting chain. The filing added: "AMD's preservation request invited all recipients who nonetheless considered the request too burdensome to engage AMD in discussions to find ways to ameliorate the burden." Fourteen of the companies have already responded and nine have said they will work with AMD. Best Buy agreed to comply without limitations. Toshiba acknowledged receipt and refused to negotiate. Dell, Hitachi and CompUSA have acknowledged the letter - the first two will respond later. Eighteen companies have not yet responded. This document also quotes the Rogister's Ashlee Vance as saying Intel "usually makes sure its executives and salesfolk don't put anything that could be construed as damaging down in writing". Intel has so far not responded to three calls AMD's lawyer, Chuck Diamond, made to its offices, he said in an affidavit. Here, as an example, is the request AMD made to Acer and others in PDF format. It names a large number of Acer and the other firms' employees, and also wants data relating to previous employees who worked with Intel. ยต * THE court also received a filing from Forensic Consulting Solutions, acting as an "e-discovery" agent for AMD, which discusses the risk that the firm faces of "inadvertent spoliation of electronic evidence in the hards of third party OEMs, distributors and retailers". Once a firm has received a request in connection with litigation and the custodians of email or IMs, they should suspend the "systematic destruction" that occurs in the normal scheme of things. Specific software used to track sales transactions must be preserved. Source: The Inquirer
