I never thought it would happen, but AMD is suing Intel for monopoly abuse. You can read more at ZDNet and AMD’s own website. The official 48-page complaint filed by AMD in federal district court can be found here (warning: pdf file).

Antitrust cases have been brought before Intel in the past by the FTC, Japan, and the EU, but never by AMD as far as I know. It’s interesting that this comes soon after Apple announced it would abandon the PPC in favor of Intel’s x86 chips. Obviously, Intel dominates today’s x86 market, but it doesn’t seem AMD is doing that bad, at least in the tech enthusiast market. And while it’s true that AMD has better chips (in my opinion) but smaller market share due to the marketing power of Intel and general consumer ignorance, I don’t think Intel is breaking the law in the process. In any case, this will be an interesting story to follow.