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It was my understanding that Dell required vendors to keep inventory "close by" so it could quickly be delivered to the factory but I was not certain of this requirement. A bonded warehouse on Dell's premises is about as "close" as you can get.
Thanks for adding this insight into Dell's business practices.
Your example works for most OEMs but not for Dell.
Dell will order parts and demand a delivery commitment from a vendor. Dell requires that the vendor keep the parts in inventory for immediaate shipment and Dell keeps a minimal inventory. For something like hagh value processors with varying specs, the parts will be JIT and arrive only as build is scheduled.
If Dell doesn't get PC orders it won't take delivery of the parts. If the parts aren't used Dell cancels the orders and the vendor is screwed. A firm non-cancelable order has no meaning with Dell.
Doing business with Dell is a real nightmare. The Dell method of lets be reasonable is: "Do it our way... or get lost. We have other vendor choices."
AMD introduced some PowerPoint slides on the Puma platform and they were really super dooper cool slides. Rivas is just pissed that the questions focus on mundane thinks like sales and ultimately cash flow.
What is the definition of a recession?
It seems the answer is -- as with many things not digital -- it depends
http://www.econmodel.com/classic/terms/recession.htm
Two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP is commonly taken to be a recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research, a private organization, effectively decides when recessions occur, however, and the actual dating process is determined by judgment rather than a formal rule.
AMT Credit Relief
Here is an article explaining how the AMT Credit works.
http://www.fairmark.com/execcomp/credit-relief-1.htm
Beginning in 2007, certain taxpayers will be able to claim old unrecovered AMT credit even if it means getting a refund that exceeds the current year's tax.
On its last day in business, the 109th Congress passed a tax law that was primarily designed to extend certain tax benefits that expired at the end of 2005, but also dramatically changes the rules for claiming AMT credit. The new rule, which takes effect in 2007 and continues through 2012, provides long-overdue relief to many people who deserve it, but also a windfall to many people who don't. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the rule is the poorly designed phase-out rule. Within certain ranges of income people will face a marginal tax rate greater than 100% if their unrecovered credit is large enough. Some of these people have planning opportunities they should consider before the end of 2006.
more
The end of a Pioneer: Netscape Navigator, R.I.P.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7163547.stm
The browser that helped kick-start the commercial web is to cease development because of lack of users.
Netscape Navigator, now owned by AOL, will no longer be supported after 1 February 2008, the company has said. In the mid-1990s the browser was used by more than 90% of the web population, but numbers have slipped to just 0.6%....
Many of the staff moved to the Mozilla Foundation which develops the popular Firefox browser. This browser has a 16% share of the browser market....
"We feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox," he said.
Do you know if Numonyx employees will have a presence on Intel's Folsom campus or will they have to relocate?
The meaning of the "numbers" that I understood is the wide availability of 45 nm parts everywhere in real systems. Those are the numbers that count and they are the numbers that everybody other than Charlie D and the AMD Deadenders can see.
It is odd that a few months ago I recall seeing that the short interest ratio was high.
I recall seeing that information and it listed Intel short position as number of shares. At the time, I thought that was misleading because as a percentage of total shares the Intel short position was not high.
Note that this measurement is short shares as a percentage of float.
Henri Richard was and is a slimy used car salesman. He saw the AMD sh*t storm coming and cut himself a deal with a new outfit.
After the crew that bought Freescale and took it private finishes stripping the company of cash, it will send the remains along with a huge debt load out on an IPO. Good Henri will make out like a bandit with a ton of low priced options that he can dump after a short holding period. Then he can wave goodby to Freescale -- like he did AMD -- as it sinks below the sea.
RE: "ATI acquisition will be slightly excretive in the first year, and strongly in second year"
Fixed
Don't the AMD liars know about the "internets" and what you can do with a quick Google search?
A bit more time would find the transcript for the conference call but it is not worth the effort.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34444/118/
Despite another staggering loss in the third quarter, AMD’s financial health appears to be improving. Not only company executives believe that it may have a “shot” at posting a profit for the current quarter [Q4 2007]. AMD is regaining trust again and there’s hope that the company is sailing out of what we called a “perfect storm” in April of this year.
AMD’s stated revenue goal for Q4 is $2 billion accompanied by a gross margin of 40%. Chief financial officer Bob Rivet noted during the Q3 conference call that this combination would enable to about break even in the Christmas quarter. Considering AMD’s current competitive position and the fact that the firm just posted a hefty $394 million loss for Q3, some could argue that this goal will require a small miracle to come true.
You provide an excellent explanation of how the Finagle Constant works in the ACP calculation
Re: AMD plans to ramp production of 45-nm high-k dielectric chips in the first half of 2008
Hector Ruiz plans to win a Super Bowl Ring in 2008 but Intel partisans and even some AMD fans think this is unlikely.
Progress on 45 nm is extremely satisfactory" per Hector "Short Timer" Ruiz who will depart soon to pursue other "very exciting" opportunities.
I get a window "The page cannot be found".
I have tuned my TCP settings for my high speed cable connection to get better transfer speed of large files. This works particularly well with streaming video. Perhaps this tuning translates "slow" into "Not there".
The link does not work for me but because others had no problem I assumed it was just something weird in my system.
But don't forget that the Barfo is the world's first True Quad Core. And it is so good that it comes in a Cripple Triple version with Native defects.
I think that the only part of the AMD business that is worth anything is the graphics business. The microprocessor business is in a death spiral.
The merger of nVidia and AMD would never receive an antitrust clearance from the feds. The combination of the nVidia and ATI graphics business would produce a company with > 50% GPU market share and only 1 major competitor -- Intel.
Samsung would be a good candidate to acquire except for the restriction in the Intel Patent License against transfer in the event of an acquisition. IBM has an Intel license but it has no desire to enter the X86 business.
The only practical way that I can see a change pf ownership working for AMD is for a financial sugar daddy to take AMD private.
Abother major AMD innovation from Howling Hector: AMD sells a server processor that is fit for use only after 3 or 4 steppings correct fatal flaws.
A shrewd reversal of "we sell no wine before its time".
Your laughter about quoting Sharikou sent me to Google for a little research on this looney who was unknown to me.
This little gem from a recent October prediction demonstrates well his credibility:
http://sharikou.blogspot.com/2007/10/intels-bk-time-revised.html
When will Intel BK? My original projection was 2Q08. That projection was based on the assumption that AMD would lauch K10 in March 2007. AMD had a six month delay -- which allowed Intel to make profits for two quarters. Accordingly, I adjust my Intel BK timeframe to 1Q09.
The whole post is total jibber jabber. The idea that AMD received a $1 Billion judgment award against Intel is total nonsense.
If the $1 billion award was a fact instead of an hallucination by some fanboy on a blog, there would be articles all over the web on the award. But there are none. AMD's litigation history on its website would certainly mention this award but no such mention exists.
AMD never accused Intel with tampering with evidence. The whole issue concerned a public press release that was not produced before trial. IIRC, there was a difference in the non-produced press release and an earlier public press release that AMD considered significant.
Original deleted and sent by PM. The message included a URL for the image on imageshack that would cause the faint-hearted fans to swoon with the vapors.
There is another type od schedule called the "AMD Plan".
AMD uses the "Plan" dates when it talks publically. If AMD a misses, as it usually does these days there are no legal consequences. After all AMD only said it had a plan it did not forecast or commit to delivery at a particular time.
Watch for the use of the great "Plan" in AMD's public statements and documents. The "Plan" is everywhere.
Reverse engineering is a strange way to describe what AMD did to develop its 386 design. A contractor in Hong Kong literally copied every transistor in the Intel 386, including all of the microcode. Some theorize that the work was done in Hong Kong by a contractor because Hong Kong had virtually non-existent copyright protection and AMD had serious doubt on whether it had a legal right to copy the Intel 386.
The original License Agreement was signed in the late '70s when microprocessors did not have microcode. The 8086 was the first Intel microprocessor to have microcode and it was introduced circa 1981, IIRC.
After AMD introduced a transistor-by-transistor copy of the 386, Intel filed a law suit and challenged AMD’s right to copy the 386 microcode. Intel argued that the word "microcode" was understood at the time the License Agreement was negotiated to mean the code that was used in the micro-systems that were specifically discussed and licensed in the Agreement. AMD argued that “microcode” meant microprocessor microcode.
The first trial resulted in a jury verdict for Intel. AMD requested a new trial by arguing that Intel did not give AMD a copy of a press release during pretrial discovery. Intel argued that the document was public and was in fact contained in a file in AMD’s press department. Intel also argued that both parties followed the normal practice of not producing public documents that were equally available to both parties. AMD also made other, more usual arguments for granting a new trial. The judge, among other reasons, found the failure to produce the press release significant and granted a new trial for AMD.
In the second trial, AMD used trial new counsel and spent very little time using the press release, giving strength to Intel’s view that the press release was basically irrelevant to the real issues in the case. The second trial in 1994 resulted in a decision that AMD had a license to copy Intel’s microprocessor microcode.
The ironic part is that it took 4 years of intense litigation and 2 jury trials to determine the meaning of a single word in a contract. The legality of billions of $$ in revenue was at risk over the meaning of the single word – “microcode”.
However, the 1994 decision was not the end of the story. AMD had copied all of the microcode in the 386 and also in the 486. The copyists did not know how the microcode worked or what was contained in the code -- they were just copying transistors -- so it was necessary to copy everything and assure that the processor would function properly.
The Intel License Agreement contained a specific exclusion – added by amendment in the 1980’s – to prevent AMD from obtaining rights to produce In Circuit Emulation (ICE) processors. The exclusion removed any right in the License Agreement for AMD to copy the ICE microcode contained in all Intel 386 and 486 processors.
Intel filed a law suit and challenged AMD’s use of ICE microcode in AMD’s 486. A Court decision in Jan 1995 (or perhaps late 1994) held that AMD had no license for the ICE microcode that AMD had copied and embedded in every 386 and 486.
Big problem for AMD !!
In February of 1995, Intel and AMD reached a Settlement Agreement that ended the almost 10 year litigation war that was started by AMD when it filed its arbitration. All of the pending law suits and appeals were dismissed.
http://www.eetimes.com/editorial/1995/inthenews9503.html
Thanks to Elmer for finding the link on the 1995 settlement and citing it some time ago in a post.
AMD did not obtain the second source rights to the 386 -- period, end of subject.
The arbitrator only ordered an extension of the existing Agreement for coverage of the 386 of the Intel patent license and copyright license for some but not all microcode. The license extension covered the AMD "copied in Hong Kong" knock-off 386 that it started selling before the arbitration decision was made. No second source rights were awarded.
There were a number of other issues in the arbitration that were not related to the 386. Intel did lose on some of those issues and AMD lost on others.
On the big money issue in the arbitration Intel won. The AMD version of history omits the fact that AMD was ordered to pay the royalties on the 286 which it wrongly withheld.
You make the false statement that "Intel lost so bad that they were barred from further litigation" citing a book review in the Harvard Law Review. The statement of facts in the law review article is seriously in error. Most significantly, the law review author thought that the arbitration focused on 386 microcode and did not understand that second source rights include far more technology, i.e. the entire product design.
The author also makes the mistake that the trial court made an award when in fact the arbitrator issued the award. The issue that traveled through the state courts was whether the arbitrator had the power to grant an extension of the patent and copyright license. The California Supreme Court eventually ruled that the arbitrator did have that power.
The original proposed decision of the arbitrator tried to stop the existing federal litigation by barring Intel from continuing its already filed copyright lawsuit in the federal court. AMD attorneys pointed out to the arbitrator that this was beyond his power and requested the arbitrator to remove the bar on litigation.
The arbitrator removed the bar on litigation as requested by AMD and added a patent and copyright license extension in order to reach a final decision in the arbitration.
Intel litigated and won big time.
Corrected.
The arbitrator ruled that AMD did not have a "second source" right to the 386 design.
AMD did introduce an illegal transistor-for-transistor copy of the 386, that violated Intel's copyright on ICE microcode. For good measure, AMD also introduced an illegal copy of the 486.
The big players generally have patent cross licenses that allow design freedom. Particularly, Intel has patent cross licenses with IBM, AMD, Samsung and many others. Therefore, the big players are free to use patents, conference papers and other material as research sources without concern for patent infringement.
Because of the large cost for R&D, patents in the semiconductor processing field are are pretty much limited to the large players who are all cross licensed with each other. So as long as you trade your patents, you are a member of the club and design freedom is the rule.
New and Improved Phenom launch logo
Ahhhh but it's a true Quad-Core
Unlessof course, it is an AMD Cripple-Triple with Native Defects.
Everything you point out about the disadvantages of using foundries and moving to the fabless design house model for AMD is true. But given that AMD does not have adequate funding to build a fab what other choice does AMD have if it wants to continue in the processor business?
AMD has managed to place itself in a horrible position because of its many failures. The use of foundries is the least bad of the very bad and few choices available. But at least it offers survival for a few more years.
Note that AMD's entire GPU business is based on the foundry business model.
I can understand your saying there is little chance, but why do you say there is no chance?
Under the "never say never" rule I probably should have said very little chance. But I think the chance is so small that I used "no chance" although I did hesitate a bit.
The antitrust filing was a huge step and its magnitude dwarfs the issue of the Dresden fab. Even the larger issue of the foundry limit in the Intel license was probably not on AMD's mind when the antitrust suit was filed. But just as in shooting wars, legal wars tend to make folks weary and eventually peace pacts are sought.
Elimination of the foundry limit would be a big win for AMD given its current funding crisis. Therefore, the probability of that result driving a settlement becomes higher if AMD starts thinking logically.
So you think Intel would be willing to release AMD from that restriction?
Yes, I do. It is in the best interest of both Intel and AMD to stop the legal battles and compete in the business arena with in the outlines of a settlement agreement. Intel is logical enough to understand the concept. I think that new AMD management will also understand that logic.
Specifically:
1)What is the maximum percentage ?
(" AMD must manufacture most of its X86 processors").
The foundry limit was once "no more than 20%" as confirmed by Jerry Sanders back in the day when he was CEO. The number may have changed with the 2001 license renewal or by amendment but the limit still exists at probably the same level.
2)How will this be "enforced" or counted if they cheat ?
(I am sure they will, if/when they get desparate).
A nasty lawsuit.
Intel might once have hesitated to file such a suit because of concern that AMD would file an antitrust counter suit. AMD has already filed the antitrust law suit so Intel is free to fire away
3)And ...What are the legal ramifications/penalties if they do not comply ? ... A royalty per processor ??!!
AMD would be found guilty of patent infringement and could lose its patent license through termination. IMO, loss of the patent license is extremely unlikely.
4) Is the agreement "Public knowledge" and posted somewhere
The current Intel Patent Cross License was posted by AMD with the SEC in redacted form. A copy is available at Find Law.
http://contracts.corporate.findlaw.com/agreements/amd/intel.license.2001.01.01.html
Note that AMD has an obligation to pay royalties to Intel, see Section 4
There is no chance AMD filed the antitrust suit against Intel because of a desire to sell the Dresden fab.
Many thought some time ago that AMD would eventually settle the antitrust lawsuit with Intel to achieve a release from the requirement in the Intel patent license that AMD must manufacture most of its X86 processors and allow a manufacture of only a small portion of its processors at a foundry. This would allow AMD to continue business as a fabless design house, a necessary path because AMD does not have the funds to continue building new fabs.
A release from the manufacturing requirement in the Intel license would also allow AMD to sell the Dresden fab but that it is a more recent issue. If the fab deal goes through in the near term, AMD will use some sort of funny deal that arguably complies with the foundry limit. In other words, AMD will take the money and give Intel the finger. Needless to say, a Dresden deal like this would generate another legal battle on the Intel patent license.
IMO, the emotions of Hector and crew concerning the antitrust law suit have now become too bitter for reason to prevail sufficiently and allow a settlement. The desire to finish the crusade to smite the evil Intel and provide an excuse for Hector's failures at AMD has become too strong.
Going out on a limb, I predict Hector will be evicted by the board and new management will be appointed within the next year or so. The new management will then settle the antitrust litigation and obtain the unfettered right to use foundries.
Intel spent a lot of money to renovate the old DEC fab and could have built a new fab from the ground up for less. The purchase of the DEC fab was a bad deal that was needed to settle the DEC patent law suit with Intel.
DEC needed to dump the Hudson fab so that it could could start a second round of talks with Compaq and get acquired. The first round of talks ended when Compaq told DEC that it had to dump the semiconductor manufacturing before Compaq would acquire DEC.
It is probable that the principle reason that DEC filed the patent suit against Intel was to force a settlement that would transfer the Hudson fab to Intel.
Wrong Tom Dunlap. Try Thomas Paine Dunlap of Los Angeles who practices family law.
http://www.martindale.com/xp/Martindale/Lawyer_Locator/Search_Lawyer_Locator/search_result.xml?PG=0&STYPE=N&FNAME=Thomas&LNAME=Dunlap&FN=&CN=&STS=5&CRY=1&ratind=&bc=1
In the words of Jerry Sanders "it's a clean kill" -- by Intel.
Barfolona RIP.
wbmw - Ban this misbehaving poster from the Intel board. He can then post on the AMD thread he moderates. Those that want to engage with mas can do so there. Those that want to ignore not just his posts but also replies to his posts -- like me -- can just stay away from the AMD board.
Perhaps you are the wrong person to address for this issue. If so, what is the proper channel?
Intel paid out far more, over a $1B in total IIRC, to settle
with Intergraph for its cache and VLIW patents.
The payments to Intergraph added up to about $650 million.