Intel Corp (INTC)

[Dan3]

Re: huge investments in manufacturing are still paying off, much in spite of the nay-sayers

But it's a bit disconcerting that they can barely meet demand after those "huge investments."

Current demand for Intel products appears to be considerably lower than it was expected to be, partly because total demand is down and partly becaue AMD has had some success in educating the market that performance is not always equal to mhz.

Intel outlook –Q1 ’02
The second half outlook for Intel, and for the semiconductor industry, is positive provided the U.S. economy continues to recover and does not turn down later in the year. There is a relatively high probability of a corporate PC upgrade cycle in the second half of 2002, as an aging installed base of pre-Y2K PCs are refreshed to meet the requirements of the WindowsXP operating system. A corporate upgrade cycle is likely to be in response to, rather than anticipation of an economic recovery, which does introduce substantial risk if the bear view of a double dip recession plays out. If, however, the economy shows steady improvement over the course of 2002, end market demand will improve to the extent that semiconductor demand should experience a period of accelerating sequential growth, which could catalyze a significant rally in semiconductor stocks. Intel will benefit from this scenario. Also believe that 2002 will be a year of improving competitive position for Intel. The P4 Northwood (0.13 micron technology) should enable Intel to continue to ramp the processor clock speed to at least the 3 GHz level by the end of 2002, whereas AMD could find it increasingly difficult to wring additional clock speed improvements above 2 GHz with its aging AthlonXP architecture.
http://www.2020insight.com/otherreports/intelout02.htm

and:
Top 15 Desktops PCs

July 2003 Systems powered by Intel's 3.06-GHz Pentium 4 CPU occupy four of the top seven places on the power side of our chart, but an ABS PC equipped with an Athlon XP 3000+ chip retains the top spot....
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,110658,00.asp