Yesterday, AMD’s AMD’s vice president & GM of Radeon Gaming, Scott Herkelman, confirmed what we’d long suspected. Nvidia is indeed leaning on AIB partners to attempt to restrict or prevent the sale of its rival AMD Radeon graphics cards through its GeForce Partner Program (GPP).
Herkelman went to a sales event in London and met up with a number of partners to discuss the issue, and afterwards tweeted out some rather direct messages about Team Green.
“I wanted to personally thank all of our resellers who are attending our AMD sales event in London this week, it was a pleasure catching up with you and thank you for your support,” tweeted out Herkelman.
“Many of you told me how our competition tries to use funding and allocation to restrict or block your ability to market and sell Radeon based products in the manner you and your customers desire. I want to let you know that your voices have been heard and that I welcome any others who have encountered similar experiences to reach out to me.”
That’s about as official as it gets in terms of confirmation. A leading AMD executive claiming competitors are using funding and restricted allocations to strong-arm the resellers into focusing on their products, restricting or blocking sales of AMD graphics cards in the process. While Herkelman doesn’t outright say it’s Nvidia, the graphics card market isn’t exactly chock-full of competitors, it’s a two-horse race.
Just this week it emerged the FTC and the EU Commission may be investigating claims that Nvidia’s GeForce Partner Program is anti-competitive, while AMD issued an impassioned statement on what it clearly believes is an attack against the freedoms of PC gaming.
