Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[wbmw]

Dhellman, Re: AMD plans to release about 100,000 K8 processors in the first quarter of 2003, rising to 300,000 units in the second quarter and five million units in the third.

That's quite a bit more than they alluded to during their Q3 conference, when they said that more emphasis would be put on Opteron than Clawhammer. It appears that they have once again changed strategies, to get a larger ramp of desktop parts. That tells me one of three things:

A) (If you're the optimist), AMD is moving faster with Hammer than they originally predicted, and thus they can accelerate their ramp to H2 2003 from H1 2004.

B) (If you're the realist), AMD realized that pushing Opteron wasn't going to be a huge win for them without tier-1 support. Likely, they are also having issues getting 64-bit software, and perhaps they even have had trouble securing a tier-2 design win. The solution - sell Opteron into the whitebox market, and fund Newisys, while ramping Hammer as a desktop part.

C) (If you're the pessimist), AMD realized that Barton would not be competitive with Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading and 800MHz front side buses, and they would be sunk if they lost any more of the desktop market. Therefore, cut back on Opteron to save the sinking desktop ship.

Pick your favorite scenario.

wbmw