Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[I_banker]

Great news day for AMD. Taken together the Intel pronouncement and the IBM position statement basically sets the stage for future AMD64 dominance in the high volume64 bit arena. Intel will copy AMD and IBM will gradually scale down its PC/Server offerings to rely on x86 and Power.

The only fly in the ointment is Intel's ability to outmarket AMD. Intel can promise to deliver quantity (i.e. for the likes of Dell) and has billions of marketing dollars they can use to maintain their market share (think PIII and Athlon).

Also, they will probably employ the Microsoft strategy of adopting and then adding proprietary features to create future products that are not fully compatible with competitors. Version 1 may be AMD64 compatible, but after that AMD will have to add future Intel extensions to remain compatible (SSE, SSE2, etc).