And while a search for Meyer’s replacement is underway, I’m told it could easily extend into the summer.

It didn’t take long for rumors about “takeover chatter” concerning AMD to emerge, and briefly yesterday, Dell was mentioned as a possible buyer. AMD shares traded up 4 percent for part of the day but closed down 3 cents during the regular session. Dell more or less shot down the rumor. During its earnings conference call, CEO Michael Dell, answering a question on acquisitions, said, “…we’re looking for relatively smaller sized ingredient acquisitions where we can leverage them with our substantial customer access and distribution.” With AMD currently trading at a valuation north of $6 billion with about $2.2 billion in long-term debt, it’s not the kind of target that would qualify as “smaller sized.”

There will always be rumors of this sort about the perennial number two in the PC microprocessor business. Those who trade on them don’t get something fundamental about AMD: That it would be a complicated company to buy and to own.

Any deal to acquire AMD will necessarily include a third party: Intel. For decades Intel and AMD have operated under a series of patent cross-license agreements that give AMD access to the crown jewels of Intel’s intellectual property, including the x86 instruction set. These patents are on the technology that make a PC a PC, and they are fundamental to the success, or failure, of both companies.

When AMD first sought to spin off its manufacturing operations into the company that became GlobalFoundries, Intel asserted that AMD couldn’t assign access to these patents to a third party without its say-so. This dispute ultimately got the two companies talking and resulted in what I like to call the Treaty of Maui, the settlement of a sweeping antitrust dispute in 2009, a story I reported at the time for BusinessWeek.

There are, however, some limits governing Intel’s conduct in this scenario. When it settled an antitrust case against it last year, Intel agreed to hold off on suing any company that buys one of its competitors for a year, in order to hold “good faith negotiations” over the terms of that patent cross-license agreement. What this all means is that any company that first concludes a deal to buy AMD will then have to pivot and face the possibility of lengthy negotiations with Intel that could, if not successful, end in a costly and distracting patent lawsuit.

Intel may turn out to be willing to play ball, and cut a reasonable deal with any new owner, but the fact remains that every so often the cross-license arrangement has to be renewed. And that’s not to say a determined buyer couldn’t ultimately cut through all this and get a deal done. Dell has $15 billion in cash and could conceivably get a deal done, and being an AMD customer could arguably benefit from owning AMD over the long term, but it has signaled that it’s not interested, and probably never was in the first place.

There are other considerations: AMD is 20 percent owned by the Mubadala Development Company, the investment arm of the Arab Emirate of Abu Dhabi, which changes the potential deal dynamic a bit. Then there’s the big question concerning the wisdom of competing with Intel. As AMD’s prior CEOs will tell you, simply grappling with Intel in the marketplace is a dangerous, thankless job.

But the complication of the Intel cross-license agreement alone should be enough to give any company mulling an AMD buyout serious pause. At the same time it should serve as food for thought for anyone wanting to trade on the latest AMD buyout rumor. This surely is not the last.

Worth about $7.8 billion, the deal is believed to include liquid-crystal display panels for the next iteration of the iPad, as well as mobile application processors and NAND flash memory chips used for the U.S. company’s iPhones and iPads.

One unknown: Whether the displays reportedly included in this deal are the rumored Super PLS panels that offer not just a wider viewing angle, but superior visibility outdoors. Another: Whether this deal is somehow related to the $3.9 billion component supplies and capacity contract Apple COO Tim Cook mentioned during Apple’s first-quarter earnings call.

“In the past several quarters we’ve identified another area and come to some recent agreements that [CFO Peter Oppenheimer] talked about in his opening comments, in that these payments consist of prepayments and capital for process equipment and tooling,” Cook said back in January. “And similar to the flash agreements, they’re focused in that area we feel is very strategic. And so I’d prefer not to go into more detail about what specific area it’s in, but it’s the same kind of thinking that led us to those deals that led us to the flash deal.”

PREVIOUSLY: Apple Using Cash to Secure Cache of Components

“We strongly believe that one or more very strategic opportunities may come along, that we are in a unique position to take advantage of because of our strong cash position,” he said. “You know, we’ve demonstrated a strong track record of being very disciplined with the use of our cash. We don’t let it burn a hole in our pocket, we don’t allow it to motivate us to do stupid acquisitions. And so I think that we’d like to continue to keep our powder dry, because we do feel that there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future. That’s the biggest reason.”

That remark spurred all sorts of speculation about what sensible large-scale acquisitions Apple might make. And while it was certainly reasonable to conclude from Jobs’s remarks that Apple is preparing itself for some big M&A plays in the future, there was another equally plausible conclusion: What if by “strategic opportunities,” Jobs was referring to supply chain investments–money spent to overcome impediments to growth? Apple has done this before, most notably in 2005, when it arranged to purchase up to 40 percent of Samsung Electronics’ holiday NAND flash output for use in it iPods. It inked a similar iPhone-related deal in 2008, forcing Samsung to reduce its supply to other customers to fulfill its obligation to Apple. And there was another half-billion-dollar deal with Toshiba is 2009.

And according to COO Tim Cook, Apple just did it again–but on a much grander scale. During the first-quarter earnings call last week, Cook said the company had invested $3.9 billion to secure component supplies and capacity.

“We’ve historically entered into certain agreements with different people to secure supply and other benefits,” he said. “And the largest one in the recent past has been we signed a deal with several flash suppliers back at the end of 2005 that totaled over $1 billion because we anticipated that flash would become increasingly important across our entire product line and increasingly important to the industry. And so we wanted to secure supply for the company, and we think that, that was an absolutely fantastic use of Apple’s cash. And we constantly look for more of these. And so in the past several quarters we’ve identified another area and come to some recent agreements that [CFO Peter Oppenheimer] talked about in his opening comments, in that these payments consist of prepayments and capital for process equipment and tooling. And similar to the flash agreements, they’re focused in that area we feel is very strategic. And so I’d prefer not to go into more detail about what specific area it’s in, but it’s the same kind of thinking that led us to those deals that led us to the flash deal.”

For what particular components, he wouldn’t say. There are some likely candidates, though: The high-res LCDs used in the iPhone 4 and iPad; solid-state drives like the ones in the new MacBook Air, which are presumably headed to other portions of the MacBook line as well; or perhaps some new system on a chip that will infuse the next-generation iPad and iPhone with significant performance gains. I’m sure there are others as well. And all fit quite nicely into Jobs’s vision of “strategic opportunities.”

Redmond argues that Motorola is contractually bound by agreements with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to license the IP at issue here under “reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions,” but hasn’t done so, opting instead to squeeze it for allegedly inflated sums. Said a Microsoft spokesperson, “[These] commitments are designed to benefit all parties that rely upon these standards, and Microsoft has been harmed by Motorola’s failure to honor them in recent demand letters seeking royalties from Microsoft.”

The iPhone exclusivity deals are fast becoming an anomaly, with Apple inking more multi-carrier distribution agreements in markets it first entered with a lone partner. The latest to undergo the transformation: Germany.

Come November, Deutsche Telekom’s three-year run as the iPhone’s exclusive German carrier will end, as rivals Vodafone and O2 add the device to their smartphone lineups.

Which means iPhone carrier exclusivity is a phenomenon now limited to countries like the United States and China, and even there it seems to be on its last legs.

Rumors have been circulating for months now of new partnerships with China Telecom and Verizon (VZ) that would make both countries multi-carrier, which is in Apple’s (AAPL) best interests financially as it tends to dramatically increase sell-through.

On Tuesday, the company released an AT&T (T)-compatible version of the device. Now comes news that Google is prepping one for Sprint as well. No word yet on availability or pricing, though Sprint (S) says it plans to keep the latter “simple.” Odd that the company would announce the device without divulging a price.

Today’s announcement means the Nexus One will soon be available on all four major U.S. carriers and that we’ll finally get to see whether Google’s (GOOG) plan to upend the consumer-carrier relationship by selling the device directly to consumers over the Web is going to work.

“We are very happy that AT&T is now supporting VOIP applications,” said Apple (AAPL) spokeswoman Natalie Kerris. “We will be amending our developer agreements to get VOIP apps on the App Store and in customers’ hands as soon as possible.”

But the new policy hasn’t gone over well with AT&T investors. Shares in the company slipped on the news yesterday and they’re falling still further today. AT&T (T) is trading at $26.21 as I write, down more than two percent from its open. Why? Perhaps due to concerns that the carrier might take a revenue hit when iPhone owners who are using telephony services to make cheap calls switch to low-minute voice plans.

As JP Morgan analyst Mike McCormack notes, voice accounts for $50-$60 of the $95 in monthly revenue generated by the typical iPhone user. If the average user were to drop AT&T’s unlimited voice plan ($99.99/month) in favor of its cheapest ($39.99/month), the carrier could lose upward of 20 percent of voice revenue.

That’s an ugly drop. And while AT&T might offset it by raising its data plan rates, doing so would inevitably outrage customers who are already giving it hell for poor coverage and lousy call quality.

“We are very happy that AT&T is now supporting VOIP applications,” said Apple (AAPL) spokeswoman Natalie Kerris. “We will be amending our developer agreements to get VOIP apps on the App Store and in customers’ hands as soon as possible.”

But the new policy hasn’t gone over well with AT&T investors. Shares in the company slipped on the news yesterday and they’re falling still further today. AT&T (T) is trading at $26.21 as I write, down more than two percent from its open. Why? Perhaps due to concerns that the carrier might take a revenue hit when iPhone owners who are using telephony services to make cheap calls switch to low-minute voice plans.

As JP Morgan analyst Mike McCormack notes, voice accounts for $50-$60 of the $95 in monthly revenue generated by the typical iPhone user. If the average user were to drop AT&T’s unlimited voice plan ($99.99/month) in favor of its cheapest ($39.99/month), the carrier could lose upward of 20 percent of voice revenue.

That’s an ugly drop. And while AT&T might offset it by raising its data plan rates, doing so would inevitably outrage customers who are already giving it hell for poor coverage and lousy call quality.

Since Varney’s confirmation in late April, the Department of Justice has seen a sort of Trustbuster renaissance. The DOJ has begun inquiring into potentially anticompetitive recruiting practices in Silicon Valley. It opened an investigation into the Google Books (GOOG) settlement. And now, the Department is scrutinizing cellphone exclusivity deals like the lucrative one between Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T). Sources close to the DOJ tell The Wall Street Journal that the agency is probing such deals to see if they adversely restrict consumer choice or hamper competition.

The inquiry, which is in its very early stages, follows recent calls for the Federal Communications Commission to open a similar investigation, and it remains to be seen what, if anything, will come of it. For while exclusivity deals may undermine consumers, there’s little doubt that they benefit them as well. After all, AT&T’s iPhone deal with Apple scared the hell out the entire industry, forcing innovations in handsets and networks alike. Were it not for that deal, we might not be seeing the network improvements now occurring–the deployment of high-speed downlink packet access and long-term evolution, or LTE, networks, for example. And we almost certainly wouldn’t have devices like the Palm (PALM) Pre and the BlackBerry Storm.

Since Varney’s confirmation in late April, the Department of Justice has seen a sort of Trustbuster renaissance. The DOJ has begun inquiring into potentially anticompetitive recruiting practices in Silicon Valley. It opened an investigation into the Google Books (GOOG) settlement. And now, the Department is scrutinizing cellphone exclusivity deals like the lucrative one between Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T). Sources close to the DOJ tell The Wall Street Journal that the agency is probing such deals to see if they adversely restrict consumer choice or hamper competition.

The inquiry, which is in its very early stages, follows recent calls for the Federal Communications Commission to open a similar investigation, and it remains to be seen what, if anything, will come of it. For while exclusivity deals may undermine consumers, there’s little doubt that they benefit them as well. After all, AT&T’s iPhone deal with Apple scared the hell out the entire industry, forcing innovations in handsets and networks alike. Were it not for that deal, we might not be seeing the network improvements now occurring–the deployment of high-speed downlink packet access and long-term evolution, or LTE, networks, for example. And we almost certainly wouldn’t have devices like the Palm (PALM) Pre and the BlackBerry Storm.

We absolutely will offer MMS on iPhone 3G S in the late summer, once we complete some system upgrades that will ensure our customers have the best experience with MMS. These upgrades are unrelated to our 3G network. … We plan to offer a tethering plan but we don’t have anything to announce today.

– AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom

Welcome news for folks who love the iPhone, but hate AT&T. The increasing prevalence of exclusivity agreements between wireless carriers and cellphone manufacturers, like the one between Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T), is drawing some government scrutiny. Four U.S. senators are urging the Federal Communications Commission to review such deals with an eye toward determining whether they unfairly restrict consumer choice and hamper competition. In a letter, the four asked that the Commission specifically consider the following:

• Whether exclusivity agreements are becoming increasingly prevalent between dominant wireless carriers and handset manufacturers

 

• Whether exclusivity agreements are restricting consumer choice with respect to which handsets are available depending on a consumer’s geographic region, particularly for consumers living in rural America

 

• Whether exclusivity agreements place limitations on a consumer’s ability to take full advantage of handset technologies, such as the ability to send multimedia messages or the ability to “tether” a device to a computer for Internet use.

 

• Whether exclusivity agreements are manipulating the competitive marketplace between commercial wireless carriers. Specifically, whether the ability for a dominant carrier to reach an exclusive agreement with a handset manufacturer is inhibiting the ability of smaller, more regional carriers to compete

 

• Whether exclusivity agreements play a role in encouraging or discouraging innovation within the handset marketplace

An interesting list and one that seems to single out AT&T, though it doesn’t mention the carrier by name. Indeed, limiting “a consumer’s ability to take full advantage of handset technologies, such as the ability to send multimedia messages or the ability to ‘tether’ a device to a computer for Internet use” is exactly what AT&T will do later this week when the iPhone 3G S and iPhone OS 3.0 debut without the carrier’s support for their new tethering and MMS capabilities.

And then there’s this: The iPhone 3G S is compatible with high-speed packet access 7.2 technology, which offers theoretical peak download speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps. But AT&T doesn’t plan to begin deploying HSPA 7.2 until later this year and the company doesn’t expect to complete the rollout until 2011.

Finally, the company’s refusal to sell the iPhone in rural areas where it provides only roaming coverage certainly restricts “consumer choice with respect to which handsets are available depending on a consumer’s geographic region, particularly for consumers living in rural America.”

Clearly, if the senators responsible for this letter were looking for a case study for the problems with exclusive carrier-device agreements, they’ve got one ready-made in AT&T.

One exception: The Globe’s unionized editorial employees, who have yet to come to terms with the paper’s owner. The Times makes ominous sounds about what might happen–“evaluating our alternatives”–but nothing specific.

Last night, the Times said it was ready to file a so-called WARN Act announcing that it would shutter the Globe in 60 days unless it got the concessions it was looking for. At the outset of negotiations with the unions, the New York Times Co. (NYT) said it needed $20 million worth of cuts to keep the paper afloat; it claims the Globe, which it purchased for $1.1 billion in 1993, is on track to lost $85 million this year.

Here’s the release:

We are very pleased to have reached agreements with six of the seven unions that were involved in recent negotiations. This includes agreements with the drivers, mailers, pressmen, the electricians, machinists, and technical services group. As a result of these agreements, which are subject to ratification by union members, we expect to achieve both the workplace flexibility and the financial savings that we sought from these unions. We are not, therefore, making a filing today under the Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. We appreciate the productive and cooperative approach demonstrated by the leadership of these unions throughout these difficult negotiations.

We are disappointed, however, that we have not yet been able to reach an agreement with the Guild. Because of that, we are evaluating our alternatives under both the Guild contract and applicable law to achieve as quickly as possible the workplace flexibility and remaining cost savings we need to help put The Globe on a sound financial footing.