Via's ballooning problems?

AS OF DECEMBER 24th, and as we reported at the time, Taiwanese semiconductor firm Via filed new allegations with Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission claiming Intel was using unfair competitive practices. This, in and of itself, is nothing new -- Via first complained about Intel's alleged unfair practices as the result of an issue that ballooned into a problem at last year's Computex.

Whether the charges are ultimately upheld or not, Via is definitely turning up the heat on Intel -- which may be a sign of how much its lack of a Pentium 4 licence, and Intel's response to it, has hurt its business. While the P4 market grew tremendously in 2002, Via's piece of the pie has fallen dramatically, with the last available figures suggesting the company holds less than 10% of the P4 chipset market.

This is quite a different picture than the one a defiant Via painted a year ago when the company took top honours as the largest third-party P4 chipset provider, outshipping rival SiS by almost three to one. The tables have turned -- SIS is now the single largest third-party chipset provider, and holds almost 20% of the market. Although Via has continued to update and revise its P4X line of chipsets and has a competitive feature set with the P4X400, neither motherboard manufacturers nor end users have been quick to embrace the Via-built designs.

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