RE: Centrino
Let me put it this way. Yes, the Centrino strategy has been great for Intel and I've never said otherwise. Furthermore, Intel is not a charity and has no obligation to provide choices or value to customers when those do not maximize profits.
However, would you agree that that the value proposition to the OEMs and customers would have been better had Intel marketed its components individually rather than under the all-or-nothing Centrino rubric?
If you answer yes, and I can't imagine how anyone could answer otherwise, then Intel leveraging demand for one product (P-M) to force other products that the OEMs have traditionally able to choose. Pentium-M has no advertisement and a lousy name (sounds like the chip that came after the 486) so that only tech-savvy buyers would understand that it is the best of "Centrino," a good and well-advertised name. In other words, Intel is capitalizing on consumer ignorance more than Quantispeed ever did, and it is taking choice away from the marketplace in the only segment where it has the monopoly power to do so.
By the time AMD will have a competing product, maybe 90nm k8, Intel will already have g, however, Centrino buyers will still get stuck with Intel integrated graphics. Unless Intel manages to stay on top in all technologies that comprise Centrino, then there will be an opening for AMD to compete.
How about an ultra-low power 64bit thin+light with the latest wireless protocol, nVidia graphics, bluetooth, etc.? That could be done, and would be a compelling product... and AMD would have alot of natural allies in the effort. Admittedly hypothetical at this time, but meant only to show that Intel's Centrino all-in-one strategy can be vulnerable if either AMD or Transmeta produce something comparable to P-M.
