Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[woggut]

I fully agree that Itanic is a dog, Intc's Edsel. It's a big enough fiasco that it would have taken down a company with fewer resources and less market influence. I'm sure they wish they could get a do-over on the decision. But talking about the "overall" profitability isn't meaningful in a business context. I still think it was a good decision (corner the mid-high end processor market) but bad outcome/execution. They probably should have cut their losses earlier as well.

That said, the story isn't done yet. It's hard to say how they might adapt to their "learning experience". The key to Silicon Valley is learning from your failures. Itanic has to be like a 2x4 to the head, they'll execute the guilty and some of the innocent, revamp the organization and move forward. They'll be the same tenacious (rapacious?) competitor they've always been.

BTW, I am most definitely not an Intc cheerleader, I'm WAY overexposed on AMD and actually worked for them years ago. Personally, I hope Intc keeps flogging the Itanic and gets bogged down in CYA and blame shifting, but I wouldn't count on it.