Analysts said they were more concerned with the sluggish personal computer market, price cuts, pressures on profits and some losses in Intel's dominant market share than with its legal battle with the FTC, which could drag on for years.

The FTC charged the chip giant on Monday with violating antitrust laws by using its monopoly power to bully customers into sharing their intellectual property with Intel.

The government cited three separate cases where Intel's chip customers, Intergraph Corp, a workstation maker, Digital Equipment Corp, and Compaq Computer Corp, all had sued Intel for patent infringement, only to be told by Intel they would no longer receive advance information about its future products.

One company, Huntsville, Ala-based Intergraph, said that it had been been harmed tothe point of having to sue Intel. Intel argues that it does not compete directly with Intergraph, a customer, in the market for workstation computers and that Intel's customers can buy processors elsewhere.

The FTC said that Intel's customers need its products to stay in business and that Intel's microprocessor competitors, namely Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Cyrix Corp -- a National Semiconductor Corp unit -- do not offer as broad a product line as Intel which has more than 90 per cent of the PC microprocessor market.

``The FTC is coming in and saying, `We have to fix this situation,''' said Nathan Brookwood, a Dataquest Inc analyst. ``The market forces are already fixing it up... My overall projection is that Intel will continue to lose market share this year.'' Dataquest said Intel had a 93.2 per cent of the $20.1 billion market for PC micro processors.

``This company has gone from being in absolute control 18 months ago to what appears to be a free-for-all in the microprocessor market right now,''said a Cowen & Co analyst Drew Peck. ``Intel is really facing increased competition and that competition is not likely to abate in the next couple of years... This is the least of their concerns right now.''

Some Wall Street analysts and a few antitrust litigators said they were unimpressed by the narrow case filed against Intel on Monday in Washington, but that the case would likely loom for several years over the Santa Clara, California-based chip maker.

``The case is one how they are dealing with customers and if that is their (FTC) whole case, I just don't think they are going to get very far,'' said a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter analyst,Mark Edelstone.

``That is not going to change Intel's business prospects at all.''

``If this is the strongest case they have, it ought not to have been brought,'' said Charles Rule, an attorney with Covington & Burling, a Washington law firm, and a consultant to Microsoft Corp, which is involved in its own antitrust lawsuit, which was filed against it last month.