Remember what these anti-competive rebates are about. They mean that if you do not sell only Intel the rebates are removed thereby making your Intel products costs hugely inflated. Inflated to such a degree that you go out of business. So going out of business versus another 10% of costs/price increase?
Further to your earlier point.... a companies profit structure can be composed of several things other than just Fixed, and Variable costs. A good Marketing and FInance team will very easily come up with stress tested pricing srtategy that can allow short term drops = long term market share.
It can be a tradeoff for example.... make 3% more profit this year... but risk loosing market share by 1% each year for the next 3 years by not enforcing anti-competitive rebates. Sure profits will be better now... but in 5 years and beyond, market share might be hurt. You get the idea.

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