The problem I see with Intel is that they are "too big" in terms of manufacturing efficiency and supply volume. No one else can build a CPU profitably in 2 FAB, let a lone the several FAB all over the world that Intel has the scale for. Their product is doing well right now on its own, but when the time was tough for Intel, like during the early Pentium 4 era, Intel uses strong arm tactics to prevent AMD from gaining market shares in the large companies like DELL and HP. Intel is also famous for supporting RDRAM, and inferior memory for desktop market as sales had proven, and try to strong arm everyone into using it (Intel get a cut for every sales), but the market revolt by going to VIA's chipset.
It is cases like these that give Intel a bad name. Intel is now not as hostile as before, because it knows that everyone else is right behind trying to take it on: AMD on CPU, nVidia on chipset and graphics (if you consider Intel's junk graphics), Broadcom/Atheros on wireless, ARM on netbook/mobile chips, IBM on game consoles and embedded systems.
I think if it is not because of competition, Intel would still be charging $500 per CPU and force you to buy the latest by obsoleting what you can upgrade to. Look at Pentium 4 and Core2Duo processors, the same sort of interface have so many incompatible upgrade in between, for the same memory types (DDR2). AMD on the other hand, can support all the way up to the current generation with just a bios upgrade.