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And what makes you so sure? What kind of magic happens at the 25-30% MSS area? AMD climbed as high as 22% during one of their quarters in 2001, IIRC. What followed shortly thereafter was the ramp of Pentium 4, which brought AMD from their high prospectives down to a "sea of red" (as you call it). Gee, if they had only gained 3 extra points of market share, things would have been much different... is that would you're saying??
Me...
Granted 25 to 30% is somewhat arbitrary, it might be 35%, but somewhere in that Neighborhood INTC will start to feel enough pain that major changes will have to be implemented.
During 05 it is to neither AMD’s nor INTC's advantage to get into a price war but particularly for INTC. With both AMD and INTC capacity constrained and INTC suffering from inferior products as well as inferior production processes the inevitable price war has been put off until 06.
With the dawning of 06 both AMD and INTC will be bringing on more capacity than either currently needs. Currently, INTC though having inferior production processes enjoys the benefits of 300mm-production capacity. That's probably the reason they haven't been more capacity constrained despite having both lower bin splits and yields than AMD.
Another thing that stinks in the sty is INTC's inability to predict its' chipset needs, while at the same time predicting, with incredible precision a quarter in advance, what its' revenues will be. INTC management must think its' stokholder are a bunch of idiots.
Anyway, since INTC will most likely be the first out of the gate with 65nm I suspect INTC will make the most of its' dual advantages (65nm, 300mm) and attempt to take market share before AMD replies with fab36. Since INTC will still have inferior products in everything but the laptop market they will have to resort to lowering prices. I'm not sure how well this will work given the changes in market strategy AMD has implemented over the last couple of years. For the higher priced products AMD now favors the effects will probably be minimal. In the low-end stuff where price is much more important it could mean AMD having to pull back some. All in all though I expect the price war changes to have a limited effect, as the new relationships AMD has been fostering will only come to bloom next year.
Certainly AMD will continue to take market share in the server, high-end desktop/gamer and workstation areas where production costs are just a gnat. I would also expect AMD to continue making inroads into the laptop area which is fairly insensitive to price. Though in laptops growth will be slower as this is probably where INTC will draw the line.
How well INTC's price war works is going to depend on how long it takes AMD to bring fab36 online at 65nm. Once that happens then INTC loses its' dual advantages and AMD is at parity or better cost-wise once again. I say parity, but I suspect better than that given AMD's lead in SOI/DSL and the problems INTC had with 90nm production. But that's just a guess.
There could be a transition period in which AMD has 90nm and 300mm working. I suspect this period will be relatively short and of not much consequence in the price war.
Anyway, with production process parity AMD is then free to extend INTC's price war. This is sort of inevitable given the huge amount of extra capacity AMD will then have.
OK, so how does this affect INTC's and AMD's bottom lines. Well the price war is going to lower revenues as ASPs get lowered and volume doesn't increase to compensate. Even though growth in h106 will probably be decent, this will probably not be enough to offset the decline in revenues due to lower ASPs at INTC. This at a time when AMD is at its' most vulnerable. From AMD's point of view they will probably see stagnant to slightly lower revenues in h1. However, as the year progresses and AMD brings on more 65nm capacity the price war will shift to AMD as the initiator.
At that time AMD will still have the best designs, probably the best production processes, and capacity issues will be a thing of the past. Combine this with the new relation ships AMD is developing and it will be high time to stick the INTC pig in the jugular and hang it up to bleed.
If you can admit that, then you have sure chosen a poor metaphor when describing a pig going to slaughter.
Me....
INTC used to be a $500B company; Yahoo now lists it as a $150B company. I would say if the pig didn't go to the slaughterhouse it at least spent a few months at the fat farm. For comparison AMD used to be a $3B company and is now a $10B company, quite a striking difference. Even with those changes in capitalization’s though it should be obvious to anyone just based on relative sales that those figures are going to have to change some more.
Yeah, I know INTCs the greatest thing since sliced bacon.
PIC at $299 vs eMachines Sempron at $369 makes me think that the emachines is a way better value
Me...
Year, but can you drop the EMachine on the ground and expect it to operate. Different markets and different products. If I were looking for a machine that my young kid could use to access Nick jr. a PIC would probably be a better choice. Also if the person being targeted lives in a hut with dirt floors something all sealed up would probably be a better choice.
Like I said PIC is not and end-all/be-all system, but a starter product designed to fill a particular niche. That AMD logo on the outside of the case will be constantly visible.
Enough sarcasm for today. Or maybe not. 300 bucks for a PIC is impudent - but well, the people targeted with it are the usual victims of rip-offs. Now it's enough.
Me....
Personally, I think there's a big market for these devices. Further I expect the prices to continue to drop. The devices need to be looked at for what they are, namely first forays into the world of computing/internet. These are not intended to be the only computers the person buying them ever purchases.
It's been a couple of years now since we first started hearing about the PIC and during that time there have been more and more announcements by various companies/groups about adopting them. Personally, I think Hector has big plans to use fab30 in the manufacture of embedded processors and PIC type devices.
In any case the market will determine the viability of the PIC devices. So far they seem to be doing ok.
It's going to be very humorous to revisit this line in another 12 months. Don't worry about forgetting it, because I'll remind you.
Me...
I predict selective recall.
On the subject of black and white, all you guys/gals seem to be able to differentiate is 2 shades of gray. INTC isn't going to disappear from the planet next year. At best, If AMD were able to sell everything fab30 and 36 could produce AMD would still only be able to take about 50% of the market.
What you seems incomprehensible to you is that once AMD gets to 25 to 30% of the market all sorts of things change. At that point INTC looses control of pricing and has to follow AMD with price cuts down to AMD's ASPs. That alone would be disastrous for INTC earnings, but to counter the effects of reduced revenues INTC is then forced to start closing fabs and laying off personnel to try and get costs in line with revenues.
INTC is used to operating in what might be called the Cadillac mode of operation with too many people and levels of management. Having to make the necessary adjustments will be very disruptive to the company and result in all sorts of dislocations that will ultimately affect both products and customer relationships.
The way I see it in 06 is that AMD continues the HP model with more and more INTC only clients slowly adding AMD product lines. Even Dell eventually is going to be forced to face the music.
Looking at Dell and INTC kind of reminds me of a couple standing on the deck of the Titanic(Itanic?) embracing each other as they await their fate.
PIC continues to grow
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/business/technology/12781034.htm
360mhz should be ample for such restricted services. As I've said I still have a k62-350 that the wife occasionally uses and it works just fine for such needs. Of course that machine has a lot of memory and fast HD's, but it's surprising how well the machine performs in comparison to my much faster Athlon machine performing similar chores.
see your point, Bob. Intel's earnings are an indicator of past performance, so given that you believe they are in deep dodo, you expect earnings to fall off subsequently in the upcoming quarters. Glad you spelled things out so succinctly, but I'm afraid you'll see just like all the other 'Droids who have predicted Intel's demise since the launch of the K7 that things won't work out like you predict. So I guess we'll continue our quarter for quarter wait-and-see, and at each passing earnings release, the 'Tubbies will have to listen once again that the impending doom is just right around the corner....
Me...
Yes, we'll have to see just how those soon to be released new INTC products are going to bury AMD in a sea of red ink.
I don't think you guys have any idea how things are going to change next year. Up till now INTC hasn't had to worry about AMD taking market share because they only had a single 200mm 90 nm plant. In a very real sense INTC had a captive market as OEMs couldn't risk more dependence on a capacity constrained AMD. All that changes next year. INTC is a fatted hog ready for slaughter and you guys are like the parasites that live on such beasts, too close to see the doors of the abatoir directly ahead.
INTC tunnel vision
I find it amazing the way the Intelatubbies tend to fall back on earnings whenever defending the total irrationality of INTC as an investment. Besides the fact that INTC is living proof that what a company earns doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the value of its' stock there's the thing that I keep talking about, namely, that earnings are a trailing indicator. As such earnings are usually the last thing to fall when a company is in deep do do because falling earnings are the one thing stockholders and the BOD cannot ignore. As such, a company in trouble does anything it can to keep up appearances while a company on the rise usually is more focused on making sure all of the prerequisites to rising earnings are in place.
As an investor I'm much more concerned with what the stock price does than what the company earns. After all I can't take a company's earnings to my bank; I can only take what someone else is willing to pay me for my stock. From that point of view sizzle is just as important a product as any widget anyone has ever invented. Indeed hope is a company's most basic product.
From that point of view an investment in INTC, despite seeming to make sense on traditional market valuations basis such as P/E, makes no sense on a sizzle basis. To more and more investors INTC looks like a giant with vertigo stranded on a catwalk far above reality. People will always pay a lot more for sizzle than reality since sizzle knows no bounds and any expectation can seem reasonable.
OK, what I'm getting at is that AMD's current valuation, based on passed history, is in nosebleed country. I for one have been through this earnings emotional roller coaster too many times to want to go through it again. Indeed I would much rather AMD slowed down a little and let its' earnings and projections speak for the value of the stock. But, as usual, the market gives my desires short shrift and since I'm as addicted to sizzle as the rest of you I'm forced to become Mr. market's plaything.
Having said the above, there is still no investment like a sizzle play that proves itself with earnings. If AMD comes in, as I expect, around $.20 watch out.
One thing about owning AMD it's never dull. God I hate/love this stock.
I wonder whether Intel would also survive better in the event of an economic slowdown which would weaken consumer demand for desktops? (I do understand the argument that Intel's cost structure is less well able to sustain lower prices than AMD's in an economic slowdown. But I'm not convinced. Intel has no debt and lots of cash. AMD has no free-cash and lots of debt).
Me...
That's not the way it works. Your right about INTC not being under any threat due to its' large cash hoard, but long before INTC faces liquidity problems the stockholders/BOD will start asking lots of very uncomfortable questions of INTC management. These questions will result in multiple reorganizations and management changes that will cause INTC all sorts of other problems while it sorts thing out.
Personally, I expect to see cracks turning into fissures about the time AMD takes 25% market share. Up to now AMD has essentially been playing a defensive game. Mainly because of capacity restrictions AMD has been relegated to just retaining existing market share in an expanding market. Next year the flood gates open and AMD goes into full court press, 24/7. That's when INTC is going to feel the real pain of AMD's boot up its' ass.
One thing I haven't seen talked about is the bear trap Hector has set for INTC. The timing of the suit does seem odd unless you think about it in a wider context. After all why not 2 years or even 5 years ago? It isn't like INTC just started these dirty tricks, this stuff has been going on ever since Hector was a pup. The Athlon debut just resulted in INTC flaunting its' arrogance and contempt of AMD in an out of control way.
To me the suit was initiated because of the expected settlement date, late 06. This date just happens to coincide with the time when fab36 will be reaching full 65nm capacity. What I expect from the settlement is an award of at least $2B to AMD and a ruling that INTC can no longer give kickbacks based on customers restricting AMD purchases. Outside of this I don't expect the courts to specify exactly what INTC has to do so I expect a lot of confusion at INTC marketing while the lawyers figure it out. Combine the money AMD gets, the confusion INTC marketing is under, the general revulsion the consumer will feel at the publication of INTC's dirty tricks, the superiority of AMD's products and the loss of sales the INTC only OEMs are going to be feeling and you have a situation that could lead to explosive sales gains at AMD late next year.
Actually it isn't relelvant at all. Sad.
Me...
Maybe not to you, but to me getting out of INTC when I did saved me a ton of money, not to mention the money I've made by switching to AMD. As the article says that shocker remains the biggest haircut investors have ever taken in a stock, more like a scalping.
Another reason I brought it up is that I can see a part due(Italian) on the horizon. Just trying to give you a heads up. By the way how are those INTC options doing?
Still seems relevant, maybe even more so?
I especially like this part:
"Late in September 2000, Wall Street witnessed an unprecedented event. Over the three-day trading window between Thursday, September 21 and Tuesday, September 25, Intel Corporation’s share price fell 30% and erased over $120 billion worth of shareholder value. The stock failed to recover any substantial amount of this loss during the following months, and the event still ranks as the greatest and quickest evaporation of market value for any individual, publicly-traded company in the history of the stock market."
More and more people are going long AMD and short INTC. That's a big drop from $61.50 to today’s close of $23.83. INTC is worth 38% of that Sept 2k price, and what's worse it appears to be in a free fall lately. (As I remember it didn't INTC hit $75)? Anyway, either AMD is going to have to rise or INTC is going to have to fall some more, or some combination of the two before reality is reflected in the capitalization of both companies.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=2y&s=INTC&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=amd
Not a pretty INTC picture, but AMD looks pretty good. Maybe the market does know more than your giving it credit for? Anyway, I just happen to be in the camp that believes that INTC will survive, but not thrive over the next few years. Since I don't have any emotional baggage to carry around I'll go with the stock that looks like it will make the most money (hint it's not INTC).
One thing is for sure, with all those 65nm plants coming on line any slow down in demand, either because of macro conditions or competition from AMD, is going to be deadly. This is especially true since next year is when price will move closer to center stage and INTC's cost structure can't survive on low ASPs the way AMD can. INTC will need to go on a crash diet for that to happen. By the end of next year you should be seeing a lot of changes occurring at INTC. Those changes rather than any “maybe” products are what INTC will need to turn itself around. But that will be a slow arduous process.
The best INTC can hope for from the new products is design parity with AMD. Besides the fact that such a scenario is unlikely, that alone won't be enough in the New World that's about to dawn. The value of the INTC name like good Balsamic Vinegar has been greatly reduced. The days of carrying dead weights around are over, and profit centers had better be that. All in all I see a lot of problems at INTC. Too much fat and terrible management with a hurricane forming on the horizon. (I'll leave it to you to figure out what that hurricane is named).
Falling knife, part one.
http://www.personal.anderson.ucla.edu/pedro.santa-clara/IntelCase.pdf
Me...
Not much mention of AMD and no mention of Athlon. I would like to read the next one of these that comes out, and there will be more. Maybe the market was smarter than indicated and was looking further down the road?
Anyway, I made my decision back in 1998 that INTC was toppy and had only one way to go. Not that I couldn't have been proven wrong at almost any time until recently, but in the end my misgivings about the new (1998) management and the diversification plans and monopoly status INTC had obtained proved correct.
In the next installment I fully expect INTC management to appear front and center as without significant help from them AMD would still be following bubba around wiping his ass as needed.
If they are really making an operational profit then Intel can afford to let the effort continue indefinitely into the future.
Me...
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm hoping for. INTC keeps shoving that money down that rat hole and that distracts them from making something that can compete with Opteron. Anyway, as I said, the market they're primed for is slowly going away so Itanium is basicly an EOL product that will struggle more and more in a dwindling market. Of course that's just my opinion, but a couple of years from now things should be clearer.
I'm surprised chipguy hasn't responded yet, he has tons of figures that show Itanium is making money hand over fist.
Is there enough financial information released by Intel to know if Itanium is operationally profitable from, say January 1 of this year? Do the sales of Itanium cover continued development, marketing expense, manufacturing expense, reasonably allocated corporate overhead, and the like?
Me...
Good to hear from you. Yes, if your willing to ignore all the development costs then Itanium is probably making money, but probably not much. The real problem is that Itanium has been relegated to a mainframe replacenent solution role and as such has probably seen or is near to seeing its' highest sales volumes. The future of mainframes is low-priced, low-power processors packed into small spaces that scale well and use X86 based standards software.
At some point it's inevitable that Itanium and Xeon will merge and INTC propaganda will have a field day touting the combined processor as an Opteron killer. In the mean time Opteron will just continue to rake that vast middle underbelly that INTC has exposed taking more and more market share as more capacious machines are introduced.
Intel had virtually zero share of the market IPF was targeted at before the Madison I2 was launched. In the two years since it has taken roughly 10% of that much more conservative market
segment.
Me...
The real question is, how much of the mainframe market could INTC have taken if they had an Opteron class product instead of Itanium? I would guess considerably more than 10%. It's hard to imagine INTC with a 64bit, X-86, backwardly compatible processor that scaled well, not being able to capture more than 10% of that market. And don't tell me that's what the sorry excuse for a server, Xeon, is doing. But then that's just me, keep on ranting.
Ah, that wasn't so bad.
The good ship AMD outran the hurricane today and is now berthed directly across from pier 24 ready to take on passengers. I'm more than ready for a nice leisurely cruise through earnings. I certainly hope things turn out that way and we don't make a return trip to the Bermuda Triangle so I can back off bird dogging this stock some.
After 7+ years of watching this stock I'm ready for a vacation. Indeed, a new financial love in my life wouldn't hurt either. Not that I'm seeking a divorce, but just getting a little bored now that all the excitement is going out of the relationship. Just a little flirtation with a little something that has a somewhat checkered past but a good story to tell should do it.
Huh? The primary competition for IPF in the HPC market is
POWER in the SMP and capability segments and x86 in the
low cost cluster and capacity segments. Cray barely registers
on the radar at all and then mainly for its vector gear.
Me...
Yeah, INTC is selling tons of Itaniums and the Cray market is just too small to go after. Really, well that market is not too small for CRAY/AMD, and then there's all that cachet attached to the highest end super conputers.
There was a time when the X86 server market only consisted of SMP and low cost clusters, but Cray among others, continues to extend upward the boundaries in which linked AMD64 machines can play. Granted, the Cray machines are very specialized, but the point you keep missing is that the market is sick of proprietary solutions and wants AMD64 based server products. All these legacy big-iron machines are going to be replaced and it doesn't look like Itanium is what is doing the replacing.
Hardly a week goes by where there isn't an article disparaging Itanium sales. And now we're starting to see articles saying even the programming community is redirecting its' efforts from Itanium to where the volume is. Then to make things even worse analysts are starting to say AMD may have as much as 20% of the server (X86) markets next year.
Personally I think too much damage has been done to the Itanium name for it to ever recover, no matter how good the new machines are. And then there's the Xeons which can't even play in the same yard because the Opteron bully kicks the crap out of them every time they meet.
Next year the server market is not going to kind to INTC.
Your right, I got Oak Ridge confused with Sandia. I went out and Googled a little and couldn't find anything more recent about REd Storm and Sandia. However, even if Red Storm is behind schedule it doesn't have anything to do with the excellent results posted in the article at Oak Ridge. I wouldn't be too hasty in writing off Cray just yet, but they do have problems.
I'm sure INTC would love to see Cray disappear as it would open up markets to Itanium that Itanium was supposed to dominate, and it would remove a market for Opterons. I imagine AMD would have more than a passing interest in the success of Cray.
Cray financial problems.
Agreed Cray has financial problems, but there don't appear to be any problems with the Opterons. From the tone of the article it sounds like Red Storm could eventually scale to its' intended 10,000 processors, if the company lasts long enough. I wonder how the other installations of the XT3 systems are going? As I remember it none of the other installations use as many processors as Oak Ridge? Since Cray has already proven it can link 5200 Opterons that may be enough for the other contracts and the smaller XD1s should be doing Ok? Anyway, there does seem to be a lot of demand for Cray processors, the company just needs to get its' costs in line with revenue. Sounds like AMD a couple of years ago doesn't it?
Given the performance listed in the article it sounds like they shouldn't have any problems selling more of the systems with up to the proven number of OPterons. Even at the number of processors already being used the systems seem very capable of solving the mega problems they're being directed at.
On another tack, Red Storm is undoubtedly providing a lot of information that will be useful to Cray in future designs, should they last long enough. I wonder if AMD would be willing to take a stake in Cray if things got to that point?
Anyway, how do the specs listed compare to the largest Itanium designs? Does INTC have anything like Red Storm up an running or on the boards?
Let me know when Red Storm is fully built and operational.
Me...
It looks like it's doing pretty well with one hand tied behind its' back.
Them...
The most recent HPC Challenge results from ORNL, run on 5,200 processors of the lab's Cray XT3 supercomputer, set a new record for the largest system to post results for the tests, surpassing a 3,744-processor version of the same Cray system at ORNL. This is important because the larger the system, the harder it is to achieve outstanding results on every test.
The Cray XT3 system posted superior performance on four of the five global tests in the HPC Challenge suite: high-performance Linpack (G-HPL), global bandwidth (G-STREAMS), G-PTRANS and G-FFTE. On these important tests, which measure performance across the entire system, the Cray XT3 supercomputer's absolute performance was 4 to 13.6 times faster than the next-fastest listed U.S.-made system.
"These outstanding large-scale results show that the Cray XT3 supercomputer is keeping its promise to deliver highly scalable application performance," said Peter Ungaro, president and chief executive officer of Cray. "The Cray XT3 system, with its balanced massively parallel processing architecture, was designed specifically to meet our customers' needs for superior performance when running large, complex applications across hundreds or thousands of processors. We are excited to be working with ORNL to break new ground in science and computing."
The satelite guys have a serious problem, namely no uplink. Not bad for passive viewing, but real time isn't possible. You can time shift as long as you conform to their schedule, but that's a lot different than communicating with the cable guy directly and having your own viewing line opened up any time you want to see something.
CRAY/AMD update
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/050920/095671.html
What a beast.
I'm not so much of a television watcher that I need to have a premium cable package.
Me...
I don't watch TV much either, and we subscribe to Netflix, primarily for the wife. What I object to is the consolidation of vewing power in the cable guys hands. It's kind of like having Ruppert Murdoch control all the print media.
Yes, cable and WiFi are very different. What I ment is what you surmised, namely that both will be included in the short run.
What I ment by the cable blurb is that the cable companies all seem to be more interested in supplying content than just connecting us to the internet at a very high bandwidth and speed. Personally I would prefer being able to select my content provider for movies, television, music or whatever comes down the pike. In the future I see streaming television as a URL accessible anywhere in the world. This is going to take a lot of bandwidth.
I would prefer it if cable just provided the pipe and not the content. Unfortunately. what will probably happen is that the cable guys will restrict the internet bandwidth so that you and I will be forced to use their programming. That's one of the reasons I hope WiFi takes off. A WIFI system would seem to be much more amiable to a Media Center PC in the home. Right now the cable guys are supplying TIVO type time shifting at the head ends. This fits in very nicely with the control freaks running the studios. The way things are going we'll pay for everything including things that are free now.
I have 1.5 down and 384 up on DSL.
Me...
My cable normally runs at 3+Mbps. But to get that you have to tweek the registry. In partacular you need to adjust your RWIN to the max based on you latency and bandwidth. Teh MTU also needs to be optimized. Speedguide.net has a free an excellent program you can download that will allow you to calculate all the needed parameters.
This tweeking is probably even more important for slower connections.
How about WiMax?
Me...
This whole thing keeps evolving from standards before bluetooth to 802.11bag to 802.11n and cell and all the varieties in between. To cover everything a standard needs to be broadband, high speed, and able to compensate for things like buildings and trees and hills in the way. At 100mbps and using MIMO technology 802.11n could have the bandwidth and speed needed, but there are still lots of problems like adjusting for multiple frequency arrival timing, etc. Distance covered is another factor as more towers means less bandwidth/speed is needed, but there is a tradeoff in closer towers. Another problem is backward compatability, at least to 802.11a is probably going to be a requirement. And then there's the problem of whose ox gets gored.
In the short term it looks like cell and wifi will start to combine, if not merge. The Verison deal being an example. In the long run more bandwidth will come online and eventually one digital standard should prevail, but who knows.
If cable eventually becomes what ma bell became, a service provider rather than a content supplier, there could be a market for ultra high speed connections. Right now we're limited to what say Comcast wants to provide. I would much rather see an internet where content by URL rulled, opening up the whole world.
For those of us with $30 DSL lines, $60 seems like a lot of money
to pay but there are those that pay $50 or higher for Cable
broadband and this would be a way for those users to have their
cake and eat it too.
Me...
I hear you, I pay $45 for Comcast cable. I've had some bad experiences with DSL in the past so I stay with cable. But I sure wouldn't mind seeing some more competition in the market place. In particular I would love a wireless network with enough capacity that it could support all forms of digital traffic. The problem is the robustness of such a system. Even cell reception is a lot less than acceptable where I live. It works much better on the road than it does at home.
The Verizon wireless connection is a WAN (it goes over their 3G network), while Centrino connects via Wi-Fi LAN.
Me...
There should have been a question mark after the Dell not going Centrino. Still it means that since Centrino only supports Wi-Fi and not 3g another card is needed. Or maybe the INTC Wi-Fi chip will not be included? They're not very specific although I would expect an add in rather than a replacement. I wonder how INTC will react to the add-in since it seems to go against the platform concept they're pushing? Also it seems to go against the marketing scheme of INTC only in the PC?
Dell not going Centrino
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050919/tc_nm/telecoms_dell_verizon_dc
Me...
More cracks developing. Interesting that Lenovo is also mentioned.
bobs, agreed, apart from maybe To me hand-held, embedded, and Media Center products seem to hold the promise of future explosive growth,
I don´t see that for AMD, but maybe in 2006, who knows. What happened to that unique crazy posting style of yours? Always funny as hell...
Me...
To me the Media Center is what I used to call the "PC in a closet". These things still aren't quite right yet, but they're getting close. When they finally get it right it's going to mean a whole new wave of computer buying. Things aren't getting simpler and anything of any complexity needs at least one embeded processor. Some cars now have 8 to 10 or more processors in them and the figure keeps going up. As far as hand helds go the only thing keeping them from doing a lot more is the power requirements. People are going to continue demanding more and more smarts from these devices and right now the sky is the limit.
wouldn´t this be substantially below what AMD has indicated in their Q2 CC?
me...
As I remember it AMD said normal q3 growth was 8 to 10% and they expected to beat that. 12% is the figure I came up with at the time. That extra 5% is allmost all gravy so closer to 20% seems more reasonable. While these guys give lip service to the server gains, from the blurb it's hard to tell whether these guys even know about the move to upending the pyramid or the increasing ASPs. Gross Margin may be be much better than they expect, especially if flash helps some.
bobs, if there is no other reason for the move, it doesn´t bother
me in the least - long term investments may be out of fashion with many here, but I´m still hopeful that my position will deliver good results.
Me...
While I look at charts and some indicators I'm primarily a fundamentals guy with a very long view of things. I do respect the TA guys just because so many people seem to lean in that direction, but that has never been the way I look at things.
As long as AMD continues to notch up the sort of gains I look at I'm in with both feet. It's taken a couple of more years than I originally thought would be needed for AMD to get where it is now, but we're getting very close to sustained profitability at better than industry growth. Looking back I realize I grossly underestimated the death grip INTC marketing had on the PC markets.
In short the risk/reward proposition now offered by AMD seems very compelling. Certainly it's much better now than at any time I've owned the stock.
Looking at the industry as a whole it's hard to see a lessening of demand for smarts in the proliferation of products we're being bombarded with. To me hand-held, embedded, and Media Center products seem to hold the promise of future explosive growth. You combine this with the growth AMD is experiencing in servers, and laptops and there seems to be more than enough room for AMD to grow as far out as I can see.
Looking at AMD's price gyrations last week, the stock held up much better than I expected until Friday. If one were a cynic I suppose one could ask just why the market held off until Friday to go through its' customary mean centering perturbations? It really is strange the way the market works with all these disparate groups trying to do their own thing, often as not, at odds with what others are trying to do. And that's what makes a market.
802.11n
To my way of thinking this is one of the most important things that will affect the Media Center market in the next couple of years. A standard needs to be set that can work with all the various gadgets in the house besides PCs and HDTV. Not that whatever standard is selected will be the end all standard, but the 100Mbps, MIMO (multiple-in, multiple out) aspects of 802.11n are going to be needed in the consumer electronics, hand portable and personal computing markets. This could turn into a Blue Ray/HD-DVD type of spat with the consumer getting the shaft. The trouble is that there is too much at stake so compromise will be difficult at best.
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/columns/article.php/3548526
From my point of view INTC needs to control this standard as it will be pivotal to continued Centrino sales. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, much, much more is at stake.
Flash price charts
I'm sure everyone already has these, but just in case the Saxman has a list here:
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=4687810&tid=amd&sid=4687...
Keith, you might find this interesting
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=21339111
I wish economaniack would post more, I probably have more of his posts market than anyone else. I don't play in the options market either, because timing is one thing I'm terrible at. But options expiration, particularly tripple witching with index and options settling at the same can cause a lot of short term dislocations. This is especially true if someone is trying to corner the market in some way.
Lots of put settling requires lots of stock selling by the brokers to keep their put/call liability at 0. If someone also has a lot of shares to sell they can drive the market down like today. At least that's the way my Magoo eyes see it.
where´s bobs with the stock manipulation posts???
Me...
Right here. I've been waiting for a price adjustment all week. It looks like the big boys saved all their powder for today to get the maximum effect. I just wish I would act on these sorts of things occasionally. Lately I've been so transfixed on AMD's long term prospects that I've been hesitant to play my usual 75% long 25% near term game.
Big volume increase over normal tells you this is a big boy move. They probably have a lot of puts and have stock to sell that they accumulated over the last couple of weeks helping drive the price up. During that period it has looked to me like the small buyers have been doing most of the buying lately (relatively small volumes). The way the price has held up this week it hasn't looked like anyone was selling. Probably the little guys were rolling out until today, or maybe some of them waited until the last minute to decide?
Anyway, the little guys, by themselves, can't withstand an attack of this sort. Perhaps some of the other big boys will enter the fray later? Once the big boys get things going the market timers hop on and the whole thing gets exaggerated. Not to worry though, next week should see AMD around $24 again as the pre-earnings hype takes off.
AMD sure is a great trading stock if your prescient enough. These hit and run tactics must be quite profitable. Anyway, it looks like the sharks will be taking a big bite out of us today.
NVDA syphilitic trickle
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26200
bobs, while INTEL seems constrained almost across the board, I haven´t seen any constraints on AMD´s part, apart from great new products just ramping up and being constrained because of that. Who
knows, maybe AMD can use the quarter to get rid of remaining K7 stuff at relatively good prices.
Me...
Yeah, that was what I was thinking about when I read the Lenovo news. The K7 stuff is probably mostly gone by now and what is left is probably to meet current obligations. By the time q4 is over there probably won't be much, if any, hanging around.
I fully expect AMD to say in the CC that they are running full tilt and that inventory is less than they would like. Considering the almost constant drum beat of wins we've been treated to for the last six months and the seeming loosening up of the OEMs due to the suit I imagine AMD could really use fab36 about now. On top of that you have the Opterons gathering momentum and Turions starting to take off. As jhalada implied this q could be the perfect storm of higher ASPs and maxed sales.
AMD has always been sold on the sizzle. Always a good tale to tell, but not much substance. Even in the Athlon days there was always this feeling that INTC could drop the other shoe at any time. This q could be the one in which we finally get to taste the beef.
BTW, this quarter looks very bullish. AMD is apparently selling more processors at higher prices. There could not be a better combination than selling more processors at higher ASPs.
Me...
That's pretty much the way I see it. Not only does AMD have the H1 processor carry over but I also think that because of the full implementation of 90nm in fab30 and the "E" stepping AMD is not only getting more chips per die and better bin splits, but better yields because the distribution curve was shifted up. Also, as AMD is now running at full capacity in a highly fixed cost business those last chips are nothing but gravy.
Still, I have this nagging feeling that the only thing keeping AMD from literally exploding into the market is the wariness of the OEMs from relying too much on AMD because of the capacity issues. With the long list of advantages INTC had over AMD being reduced to primarily money next years explosion of chips from fab36 should enable AMD to finally throw off the INTC shackles.
Not that next year won’t have its’ own problems. I fully expect INTC to delve deeply into its’ cash in an attempt to confine AMD’s market share gains. I can hardly wait for the main event to begin, 20 rounds, bare knuckles.
"100 percent more bitchin' than Dell."
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id%3B1546659199%3Bfp%3B16%3Bfpid%3B0
He sees the operating systems business as containing three players -- Sun's Solaris, Red Hat's Linux and Microsoft's Windows. For the first time, Sun will be offering full service-plan support for Microsoft's operating systems that run on the new Sun Fire servers, according to Fowler.
The Sun chief executive officer also claimed that HP's HP-UX operating system was a "dead-end" since it only runs on Itanium hardware and that IBM's AIX Unix alternative "locks" user into Big Blue's proprietary Power processor.
"We're preparing for Galaxy to be a volume purchase," Fowler said, while Schwartz quipped, "We hope AMD can keep up."
Me....
AMD needs fab36 right now. The last thing I want is for AMD not to be able to supply not only Sun, but everyone else, with every last Opteron they want. Of course AMD could do that because of the size of the server market, but only at the expense of market share in other areas. In fact I wonder if we're not already seeing some of this in the low-end markets?
The way I see it AMD is going to have a hard time maintaining market share in q3 and most likely will lose share in q4 despite doing very well in the earnings department in both qs.
Sounds like Sun is becoming more OS agnostic?
Thanks to the Saxman.