Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[jdaasoc]

RE INTC

They have been pushing very hard the 915 & 925 chipset based solutions since AUG with begrudging acceptance. The cheapest, simplest computer, a value system, based upon this new 915g chipset is about $40 more expensive or 10% more then previous 865G based one. This is going to be a hard sell situation going forward unless price decreases are coming. Most people are not willing to pay more for next computer then previous one.
The biggest difference in new chipset is builtin 5.1 audio. Most businesses will not require this or in some cases would want this to be included where as homeowners may see this a useful thing.

Their 4Q sales numbers slightly above the even their own range numbers indicating a demand for some of their products exceeding their own projections.

IMO the older 8x5 chipset based solution were bought to the point of selling completely out all production at year end while not hurting projected sales of newer chipsets and laptops. Intel's solution was to force some oems to take the new chipsets in order to get access to older chipsets. The Register and Inquirer made note of this fact.

I think there is some oversupply of desktops solutions for this quarter that needs to be wrung out but INTC can stuff the channel for several quarters before having to fess up to an oversupply condition. Laptop sales and servers are doing well but desktops are mostly now bought for a replacements rather then for new set of users.