Why on earth should Intel care about having plausible deniability about that? Buying a company in order to kill it is not illegal. It isn't even considered unethical except by a few utopian idealists. It's a common and accepted practice in the business world.
You get rid of your competition either way, though - either the competing products are now part of your offerings, or they're no longer sold. Either situation leads to the same level of reduced competition.