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Ok, I can be civil if you want to be.
I evidently mistook your post for that of a disillusioned/vindictive INTC stock holder who is going to lose his/her butt tomorrow.
To tell you the truth I really don't understand why Barrett hasn't called yet. Maybe his successor will. I've got a lot of good ideas.
You may have a point about this being a macro thing, but as far as I can tell the jury is still out on that one. There seems to be as much evidence that this is a INTC specific problem as much as a worldwide pandemic. We'll have to wait for more data to determine which company has demand for its' products. I did express the fear, in one of the posts, that a general down-turn would hide the real progress AMD has made.
Dump the confused moniker. It's like placing a "kick me" on your back.
Very good questions. Perhaps Elmer can tell us? Nah.
That's what I'm afraid of.
The SOXX is probably going to tank tomorrow, and unless there is something to keep AMD afloat we'll probably follow it, though nothing like INTC.
Gradually it seems like opinion is changing. The analysts may not be giving up on INTC, yet, but at least they're starting to take a more unbiased look at AMD.
Your moniker says it all. You obviously don't appreciate what runing closer to capacity can do to the bottom line in a very fixed cost business. Granted AMD can't make much of a dent in INTC sales, without fab36, but as AMD nears capacity not only do margins get better, but it also allows all sorts of room to raise prices. This ability to raise prices is solely due to the K8s you seem to think so little of.
I'm not familiar with your biases, but if you can't see the advantages AMD currently has it's probably best you refrain from investing in AMD. Indeed, if you aren't invested in AMD, and seemingly so biased against AMD, what are you doing posting on an AMD board? And please don't tell me it's to save me from AMD.
We're thinking the same thing. This may turn out to be a niceguy quarter.
OK guys/gals this is it.
INTC, as expected, did a belly flop of a dive today. Undoubtedly AMD is going to take a hit tomorrow, as they have in after hours. But there is some light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a freight train full of INTC processors.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/02/technology/intel/index.htm
"However, Tai Nguyen, an analyst with Susquehanna Financial Group, said that it sounded like Intel's problems are mainly due to the inventory buildup and not a major softening of demand. That could mean that other chip companies like Texas Instruments, which will give its own mid-quarter update next week, will not have to lower sales targets as well.
"I would say at this time that it's more of an Intel specific issue," said Nguyen, adding that it probably will take Intel another quarter to completely rid itself of extra inventory."
" Cody Acree, an analyst with Legg Mason, said Intel's comments about weak demand for PCs are a bit of a surprise since PC leaders Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM all indicated in their recent quarterly updates that sales of computers, particularly notebooks, were fairly brisk.
"There is a certain amount of disconnect here," Acree said."
Me...
Well, this is what we have been waiting for; the only question is whether or not AMD can take advantage of the situation.
A couple of things bother me. If INTCs inventory really is getting out of hand they may dump some of it on the market to help the bottom line and also to keep AMD from having a good quarter. The other thing that bothers me is that I don't see a short-term solution for INTC. This probably means lower ASPs since INTC has nothing else to fight AMD with. Having a ton of capacity in a market that doesn't want what your producing is a problem like nothing INTC management has ever had to face.
On the AMD side, the thing that is causing all the problems for INTC is the thing that will reduce the chances of a price war, namely, the k8s. Having a totally differentiated line-up is really going to start paying off. If I'm right INTC is going to be trying to sell Edsels into a Toyota market. Any way you look at it AMD now has products that are equal to or better than what INTC has to offer in practically all segments.
The really interesting thing is that some of the products with the best outlooks are just now starting to appear (laptops), or are just starting to make a dent in new markets (Opterons). AMD already has the high-end desktop market and Semprons, replacing Athlons, seem positioned to work some magic on ASPs.
My biggest worry is that the overall market has slowed down enough that the progress made will be hidden. This having 60% of you sales at the end of the quarter must be driving Hector nuts, it is me.
I hate feathers, but crow tastes like chicken I hear.
Anyway, what's the big surprise out of IDF going to be, a dual core Itanium? What INTC needs is a dual core Nocona, but according to INTC management Nocona reeks like a 3 week old dead fish. While we're on the subject of what INTC needs, how about something like HT and replace that north bridge with an onboard memory controller. And if we're really going to get into it, get rid of Barrett and Otellini, etc., etc.
Simply amazing
It really shows how badly INTC management has handled things when INTC isn't able to staff all its’ projects. This is especially notable when the R&D budgets of AMD and INTC are compared. Madison delayed again, wasn't chipguy just saying things would be different when the 9M arrived. Well, I guess anon isn't a word INTC is familiar with.
From a macro point of view, AMD's decision to go with a K8 base for everything it makes (no new k7 work going on), except for the embedded stuff, seems to be paying off big time. Further, AMD's emphasis on "X86 everywhere" is reducing the number of platforms it has to worry about. Then there's the advantage of dual core and HT, which enables AMD to scale in ways INTC can only dream about.
Because of poor planning at INTC and the resulting too diverse product line, INTC now finds itself with niche products that don't really address where the market is going. For Itanium and P4, comparisons with the K8 products their supposed to match up with are becoming more and more difficult. Then there's Nocona which INTC's management doesn't seem to think is anything but a waste of time, which again just goes to show how screwed on backwards their heads are.
Frankly, INTC seems to have gotten itself into such a mess that a solution now seems to be very far off at best. Should be good eats for AMD for quite awhile.
It will be interesting to see how this works out, but for sure AMD's decision to go with HT seems to be have been very insightful.
When I think of this stuff I'm always drawn to the parallels with the way the human mind is laid out. With two hemispheres connected by a corpus callosum and specific centers to handle very disparate input it's remarkable that it works at all. Yet it all works reasonably well and for some reason humans alone have been elevated to the current level of consciousness.
If you think of Horus as the corpus callosum and each Opteron as a function area the parallels seem apparent if not pronounced.
Only time will tell if the similarities continue, but Horace seems to be a move in that direction.
CJ
Slightly confused. You posted on SI:
The best performance has up to 4 Horus chips connected together in a tetrahedron. Each Horus directly connects to up to 4 Opterons, which might not have any other cHTT connection. Each Horus chip holds a copy of the caches of all of the Opterons in the system. So when an Opteron needs data that is cached, it is one hop to its local Horus and back again. In essence, each Opteron has the same response as it would in a dual system, but with up to 16 sockets. There would be more latency for an uncached memory request, though. Still, this could be on the order of using unregistered PC3200 versus registered PC2100 memory. i.e. the difference could be measured, but...
Me...
The thing I don't understand is if Horus is going to have a copy of all the Opteron caches and it's only 1 hop to the local Horus why does Opteron need any cache itself? More likely why does it need anything other than L1? Especially when considering the need to sync up the caches when there is a change to any of it, and the added burden of finding the most recent data for a read? Just keeping the 4 Horaces in sync seems like challenge enough. It seems like having all the cache in one place and having the processors access it as needed would simplify things greatly.
Of course I still don't understand exactly how multi-threaded programs work. I guess I'm too much of a serial thinker, but it seems like dividing up most programs into tasks that don't all compete for the same resources(data) would be quite a challenge.
I do understand running multiple programs(MFT,MVT), as they have since the 370 days, but true multiple tasking would seem to require a very different way of thinking and a program with very specific needs not to mention a compiler much more advanced than anything available today.
Nice response EOM
Well, so far multi threading seems to be something less than advertised. And as far as dual processors go, there seems to be a real problem keeping them fed. We'll have to see how that works out.
I keep reading how Itanium will do this and that, mostly from INTC supporters, but so far on a price/performance/TCO basis Itanium isn't replacing sliced bread. I like you eagerly await more sales data.
Another thing to keep in mind is that these are the first Opteron forays into "big Irons" turf. Expect baby steps at first. In the meantime the middle of the market will make good eats for the Opteron. I expect the Xeons to keep the very low end of the server market (32 bit).
As far as Opterons being better than POWER4/5, IBM is afraid of something or they would be pushing the Opterons more, especially given the superior characteristics of the Opterons (low heat/power) in products like blades.
Yes, that stuff is pretty well known. The point I was trying to make was that the Itanium was an attempt to create a proprietary product that would have no competition. Well, in that sense they succeeded, but the jury is still out as to whether Itanium will ultimately be a success. The last thing INTC or HPQ ever wanted was to get into was into a competitive situation with other "big Iron". To the end, as you said, they successfully eliminated the alpha, etc. The trouble that I see is that the product took too long to evolve and events have passed it by. The same thing could be said about all big Iron. From my point of view the days of the monolithic computer are nearing an end.
I know most of the server sales $s are still "Big Iron", but things are changing rapidly. Not to long ago the server market was divided into "Big Iron" and low-end 1 and 2 way servers (really just glorified PCs). That all changed with the introduction of the Opteron which was pitted against the Xeons. Suddenly there was a middle fork in the road. Not only were these machines 64 bit, but they could run all the programs that had run on the low-end Xeon machines as well, and they cost less. To make things even worse the Xeons couldn't keep up with the Opterons, especially as the number of processors increased. And then to add insult to injury the Opterons scaled up to 4way and 8 way machines with little effort.
Suddenly the low-end user wasn't forced to limit his options to one and 2 way machines any more. As far as I can tell the Xeons remain no match for the Opterons, and things look to get worse from a Xeon point of view as more 8 way machines appear and we see 16 and 32 way machines introduced.
When the Opterons were 1,2, or 4 way machines, while they were significantly better than the Xeons, they represented no competition to "big Iron". However, with the 8 way and up machines, either here or soon to appear, the game will again be changing. These are the machines the Itaniums will have to go up against on a price/performance basis, and from that point of view it's unlikely that they will be able to support the sort of margins HPQ/INTC expected. Itanium may not even be able to match the margins Xeon had?
So despite the true design purpose of the Itanium as a proprietary product with high margins, I doubt that will ever be the case. And if, as I expect, "big Iron" is a dead end then HPQ/INTC could find themselves fighting for their very existence. Something AMD is quite used to and very good at.
It should be quite interesting.
It doesn't surprise me. HPQ has too much of a split personality, kind of an Eve. HPQ longs for the good old days of high margins and proprietary products, today they're getting eaten up by the low-cost people. I'm sure that's why HPQ embraced the Itanium solution so whole heartily. As far as I can tell Itaniums proprietary aspects are the only reason the chip exists. It's also a good reason for DELL to stay away from it.
IBM has a similar problem with the Opterons, basically because the Opterons are just too good.
SUN is the only OEM to have really jumped into the Opterons bed. From my point of view Opterons success is going to be very dependent on SUN and the 2nd tier guys. I expect the tier 2 guys to continue their hearty endorsement of Opteron as it gives them a unique means of combating the IBMs and HPQs who will be pushing their own proprietary solutions rather than the Opteron solutions the buyers may want.
Cray is a sleeper. Enterprise Opteron systems could be a nice niche for them.
Nice, a U is a little over an inch high isn't it? Doom3?
Sounds about right though I don't remember the number of processors. As I remember it INTC sold about 6k Itanium servers in Q1, but I don't think I ever saw anything about how many processors that was. More likely I just don't remember.
Valid complaints. But then I find myself also occasionally falling into that mode(Itanic). This is an AMD board after all so you have to expect some biases to show.
I did wonder about that 490 figure. For SUN, given their limited X86 exposure, all sales are probably very positive. I wonder what kind of service contracts they signed?
490 Opterons isn't going to help AMD much. But then AMD only sold 31000 Opterons in q1 and q1 wasn't a full quarter of Opteron sales for SUN as I remember. The big Opteron push from SUN will occur over the next year as Andy Bechtolsheim's products start to come to market. Q2 for SUN wasn't all that much better.
Another ho-hum day
Sellers slightly out-number buyers, but volume is so low it's impossible to draw any conclusions. Dog Days of summer.
Itanium vs Xeon posturing
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/24/intel_xeon_itanic/
Intel's strategy is also a tacit acceptance that Itanium has failed to hammer high-end Risc. Priestly cited Gartner numbers that suggest Itanium has a 3-5 per cent share of the high-end iron market. While he claimed Intel's forecasts anticipate "significant inroads" into the Risc market, he didn't offer up a timescale.
ashok's doubts about AMD
http://www.newratings.com/new2/beta/article_459817.html
Same old stuff, but it does fit with the previous posts.
semi market continues to expand
http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/040824/tech_semiconductors_gartner_1.html
Research group Gartner strengthened its forecast for 2004 global semiconductor sales on Tuesday, saying it saw the market growing by 27 percent to $226 billion, up from "more than 25 percent" it predicted previously.
Me...
Looks like INTC's inventory problems may be fading as AMD is having supply problems. 90nm better be providing a lot more die per wafer, besides lower power usage.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20040824A6028.html
Not sure which way you turn the dial when everything is in short supply.
Them...
While acknowledging the supply shortage, sources at AMD Taiwan said that the parent company will be able to replenish the stocks in overseas markets within the next one to two weeks.
The shortage will make it more difficult for AMD to boost its market share since rival Intel also cut the prices of its socket LGA775 Pentium 4 processors on August 22, market sources said.
Well, I don't know. Maybe DELL/INTC can pull of such a game plan, but very difficult definitely comes to mind. For one thing it seems like you would then be dividing up the Itanium market into high-end and mainstream. So mainstream Itaniums would be competing with mainstream Noconas. I suppose INTC is going to have to do something like this to move the Xeon and Itanium markets together, but I'm rather dubious about such a plan. Then there are the technical matters of merging things as disperate as Xeon and Itanium. Not to mention that AMD is going to be pushing "X86 everywhere" and Opteron will be in the process of becoming an X86 top to bottom server answer.
As far as margins go, AMD doesn't have any, so that wouldn't be much of a problem for them. In that respect INTC would probably have the most problems.
I think you underestimate the demad for smart devices. I wouldn't be surprised if the average U.S. house has 30 or 40 of them in it in another 10 years. Smarts are going to get cheaper like everything else, except energy, but volume is going to grow enormously as everything gets in contact with everything else. The more complicated the device the more smart devices it will have.
Something like an Airplane would probably have many thousands of smart devices all in contact with each other, and no pilot needed. The cost of human labor will contiue to be one of the things on the chopping block, and that means smarter machines to replace them.
It sounds like what your saying is that INTC wants Itanium to be a Xeon replacemet for DELL. Last I heard the merger of Xeon and Itanium wasn't going to heppen before 2007. What do you have in mind?
Your probably correct, there's seldom just one reason for such a move. Still HP is by far the biggest Itanium supporter, and everything I've read seems to indicate that they have the best Itanium infrastructure support. I guess we'll have to see how the tier 2 guys do.
I can see "big Iron " users going to IBM, but have a harder time seeing a move to SUN. I'm not sure I fully understand the situation yet.
As far as IBM goes, fat chance. Anything but token support from IBM for Itanium is really hard to imagine. IBM's support for Opteron has only been luke-warm, as far as I can tell, and Opteron doesn't directly compete with IBM's products. IBM seems to be fighting for the Itaniums market.
Do you really think Dell has the technical capacity to support Itanium? Xeon seems much more like a Dell product than Itanium. Actually, Opteron seems to be the best product for DELL, but that's not going to happen any time soon.
Frankly I'm a little bemused by your response.
There's nothing wrong with either AMD or INTC lowering or raising prices, it happens all the time. For some reason I can't fathom you seem to view the Opterons and Itaniums as competitors. While I would agree on TCO basis the Opteron is a better buy; from a mind-share point of view both companies have positioned their products very differently.
Itanium is "big Iron"; Opteron is being sold into the 1, 2, 4 and 8 way server market where Xeon plays, if it can. I suppose the 8 way Opterons may give some heat to Itanium, but Itanium is not the primary target.
Of course AMD fans know that the Opteron is really Clark Kent and when it gets its big red "S" suit out it makes a really dandy super computer. But that's geek stuff, and not the market AMD is addressing with its' limited marketing $s.
It looks like Cray has big plans for business super computers, using Opterons, but even there, Cray seems rather agnostic. The problem is that Nocona isn't in AMDs league yet so Cray doesn't even consider it. Sun also appears to have big plans for the Opterons in large arrays, but both Cray and Sun machines are a ways off. Those are the machines that will compete with "Big Iron", whether it be from INTC, IBM etc. In the meantime AMD is happy with the soft under-belly of the X86 server market as its target.
In any case the reason AMD lowered prices so much was to stimulate demand for Opterons. How well that has worked is still undecided, but AMD seems to think it will have 10% of the X86 server market by year-end. If so the price cuts will have been more than justified. Also, the price cuts will assume less significance as the move to 90nm progresses.
I was going by memory. I'm pretty sure I've read of Itanium price cuts before. In fact I seem to recall some very severe Itanium price cuts last year? I only remarked because these price cuts seemed a little more than usual. Perhaps they are, as chipguy says, related to a new Madison release?
Follow my logic here.
HPQ is the biggest backer of the Itanium (only significant OEM)? HPQ reported that it was having earnings problems due to slow "big Iron" sales. There have been reports that a significant number of HPQ customers were swithching from HPQ to IBM/SUN for their "Big Iron" because they didn't want Itanium. Ergo, a price cut in Itanium would seem to make sense to increase demand.
Of course this is from an AMD investors point of view. In any case I was more interested in the degree of the cuts than anything Itanium specific. Unlike most of the INTC fans that post here I don't think Opterons and Itaniums really compete with each other. Any overlap is just incidental. AMD wants the middle of the market, not the high or low-ends.
Please define few weeks. Lately I've had a very hard time figuring out what an INTC release is. It seems they come in a multitude of varieties, everything from paper-mache to smoke. However you're correct I wasn't aware that a new Itanium release was scheduled, what ever that means.
I was sort of worried that INTC would cut prices more, which would have been a pretty good indicator of how pressured INTC was feeling. These price changes probably indicate that things aren't going that badly, but I still expect INTC to come in nearer the low end of its' forecast.
It seems like the market is finally figuring it out too. Where INTC used to be more than double AMD's price lately the two stocks have been going in opposite directions with INTC breaching new lows.
Same old, same old
Rising prices on low volume. Clearly supply is not meeting demand, no matter how muted. AMD continues to out perform both the SOXX and INTC so this isn't just a case of techs going up and AMD getting drug along.
To me, it looks like some smart money has awakened to the "New AMD" mantra, but the big boys aren't buying it yet. The only thing that will probably bring the big boys in is increasing margins and concomitant earnings. We might see a jump in AMD's price if q3 earnings live up two the "smart moneys" and markets expectations. Until then I guess we'll just have to be satisfied with the current pattern, at least until the stock gets back around the $14 level where more sellers should start to appear.
Frankly, I don't mind this kind of boredom. I think I'll take a nap.
INTC price cuts
http://news.com.com/Intel+lops+Pentium+4+prices/2100-1006_3-5319946.html
Not much here to worry about. Interesting that Itanium prices continue to fall. This cut isn't probably directed at Opteron, more likely an attempt to slow the success of IBM, SUN.
Looks like another day of low volume and rising prices. As I said yesterday, it seems to be a case of no one selling at these prices. Not that there is a huge surplus of buyers, but there are a few buyers willing to push the price up to get their shares. Personally, I doubt the situation will change much until AMD gets back into the $14 range again. Of course I won't be selling, but that price should bring out others who will.
Pretty remarkable move for AMD given the general market condition and particularly the general status of techs. AMD has been outdoing the SOXX for awhile now, and INTC is going in the opposite direction. Indeed, it looks like AMD may finally be getting the Siamese twin separation operation we have been talking about for low these many years.
Given the limited number of shares trading the buyers probably don't know more than we do. It's probably just a case of a few investors becoming more willing to take a flyer on AMD.
good point EOM
I remember reading something awhile ago about AMD having strained silicon. Basically they were saying all processes had it to a limited extent. The difference with then and now appears to be that AMD has embraced the concept in a more meaningful way. This might explain the big gains in speed and product we started seeing about 6 months ago?
Another positive from this is the implied reduction in the need for low-k and high-k dielectrics at 90nm, and possibly at 65nm. Leakage and crosstalk are going to be big problems as line widths decrease in size. Anything that helps in that regard is a bonus.
It may also indicate also indicate that the IBM/AMD 65nm development process is further along than I thought?
Well I'll be darned, we actually agree on something. The position INTC is in now must be causing fits for marketing. It's going to be hard for INTC to create a 64bit X86 Xeon that doesn't compete too well with Itanium, but can hold its own with the Opterons.
From my point of view what INTC needs is to push the Xeon and let Itanium find its own market. Of course for this to work the Xeon would have to be competitive with Opteron. This is something that probably won't happen for awhile. So right now it looks like INTC has its' tit in a wringer and she can't reach the off switch.
I hear you. The market still hasn't heard about the "New AMD", not that one can blame it given AMD's rather checkered past and its rather unexciting earnings so far. It's interesting watching the market during the day. There are definitely a few AMD risk takers out there, but one gets the feeling that for the most part the hands that already hold ADM don't want to part with their stock at these prices. Basically it feels like the traders are just trading amongst themselves which means other non-AMD factors are prevailing.
Maybe this will be the quarter in which AMD finally beats both the analysts and the markets expectations; chances do look very good. Like you though I've been disappointed too many times to get really excited at that prospect.
I really don't know where you come up with this stuff. AMD isn't trying to go after the Itanium, why would they want to. That market is in the third act of a Shakespeare play, you know the one where everyone gets knifed, axed or poisoned.
Clearly AMD is going after the Xeon market and if they have 10% of the X86 server market by the end of this year, as is the stated goal, AMD will be making money like it never has. Personally, as time goes on I expect the Opterons to encroach more and more on "Big Irons" turf, but that is nothing Itanium specific.
In the meantime AMD just keeps taking the filet portion of the server market leaving INTC to divide its' resources between Itanium and Xeon, ultimately doing neither well. By the way how's that merger of Xeon and Itanium coming along?
Your talking systems here not processors. Not even apples and oranges.
That's ok you just keep living in that alternate universe of yours and I'll stay in mine. Trouble is yours seems to be colapsing while mine seems to be expanding.
Yes, it looks like INTC's plan to separate the 64 bit world into low-value (Nocona) and high-value (Itanium) servers isn't working very well at all. It looks more and more like AMD is taking a huge hunk out of the middle and INTC is left with little more than scraps. Further, so far INTC seems to have ignored the 64-bit consumer market. The A64 market seems poised for some rather explosive near-term growth.
Personally, I think high-end processors, like the Itanium, are doomed. Just a few more years and lots of cheap processors connected with something like HT and fast switches will completely dominate. Dual/multiple core will also change the field, as single processors become low-end. Small multi-way machines will have too many advantages to be ignored. The sprawling single/dual Xeon processor server farms are also nearing an end. The problem is going to be changing the way programs operate so that they can work effectively in the new paradigm.
The prime directive of top management is to set the direction of the company. In that respect INTC's management couldn't have done a worse job. They completely missed the boat with 64bit and have needlessly placed INTC in a position of weakness not seen since INTC switched from producing memory to processors. HPQ’s management by hooking onto the Itanium star, with all its disadvantages, has left themselves vulnerable to SUN’s and IBM’s large processors, not to mention Opterons which continue to get more powerful. It looks like Carlies going to be replacing lots more management as the Alphas etc. fade into the sunset.
Hp problems with Itanium
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/18/hpworld_users_react/
Good to see Asok is still around and kicking. Didn't he used to work for someone other than Raymond James?
I remember back in the "AMD is roadkill" days thinking that he was just expressing his ex-INTC-employee biases as so many others are wont to do on this board. But looking back, his views about the then current situation, proved more accurate than mine. Longer term my faith in AMD looks like it will be proven out, but at the time Ashok was deriding AMD he was much more accurate than I was. As you well remember, AMD went through a very, very tough period of production problems that seemed they would never end.
Lately he seems to be softening his rhetoric. While not fully awake yet, he is not as comatose as he used to be about AMD. Grudging respect seems more his current view of things. Notably, his willingness to call INTC out for its problems seems to be increasing also. Who knows, maybe someday he may even end up recommending AMD (fat chance).
You know more about this than I do, but it always seemed like the Alchemy chips were looking for products to go in. With AMD's newly refurbished "X86 everywhere" slant, the Alchemy chips just didn't seem to fit in anywhere. Especially after AMD bought the Geode line. At that point I was scratching my head trying to figure out how all this stuff was going to work together.
Lately it seems that both INTC and AMD are showing renewed interest in chips way down the performance ladder, but on which they can still make money. These chips are being billed as 3rd world items, but there are going to be a lot of applications that are going to require processors with significant heavy lifting capabilities, such as wireless phones, but still need a low cost. Right now INTC seems to be a big player in that market, something AMD has undoubtedly noticed.
AMD does seem to have some advantages in the "universal communicator" area such as mirrored flash. Perhaps we'll start seeing more from AMD as it isn't forced to divide its' efforts.