WE’VE JUST HAD a call from Intel's chief spinner Chuck Mulloy, who reckons that the INQ got it all wrong in a recent article on the AMD vs Intel antitrust case; the saga of the “lost” documents.

Chipzilla is supposed to be handing over millions of emails to AMD's lawyers before the big anti-trust trial kicks off. But, due to “flaws in Intel’s retention system”, which have now apparently been fixed (better late than never?), some “sent emails” pertaining to the case were inadvertently deleted. Or just not saved. Take your pick.

According to Mulloy, emails and documents were absolutely not lost. They just can’t be found. They could, possibly, be amongst the 150 million pages of documentation which Chuck says were, er, chucked AMD’s way a while ago. Or maybe not. But that doesn’t mean they’re lost. They just might be.

Mulloy claims that even sent emails that can no longer be found (since we won’t use the word “lost”, which upsets Intel so) was backed up on tapes that were not deleted or even recycled. Sure, there were problems at a Munich office where “a handful of tapes” were purportedly snatched by EC regulators in July 2005, but the tapes have apparently since been given back and faithfully restored to Intel’s non-deleted, non-lost, inventory. Which just can’t be pinpointed right at this minute.

However, these back up tapes may also even be amongst the 150 million pages of documents handed over to AMD. Or not. But just because they have yet to be located, does not mean they are lost. Saying so is apparently very rash of us here at the INQ. How dare we!

Apparently Intel in no way suffered any kind of setback resulting from Special Master Vincent Poppiti’s order for the company to hand over records of internal employee interviews about the ‘missing’ documents/emails. In fact, Mulloy reckons that the Special Master took the right decision in making them hand over the documents without forcing the company to hand over "core work-product”, or the mental processes of Intel’s lawyers, which Intel claims would have violated attorney-client privilege.

And Chuck also wanted us to know that Intel’s retention system works just fine now, thank you very much, and that multiple systems were now “in place to insure retention is complete”. Apparently even the email he sent us to tell us how little he appreciated our coverage of the subject. Now, if only the White House would take a leaf out of Intel’s book… oh, wait, never mind. µ

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