Re: I could be wrong, but I think Intel ASPs have been around $150 for a decade prior to 2006.
Actually, it was more like over $200 prior to the bubble burst. I think it took a deep dive in 2001 or 2002, and then continued its steady decline since then until present day. Centrino was the one exception. It lifted ASPs in mobile quite substantially. But even that has just about neared its end. Centrino ASPs are quite quickly converging with the bulk. If not for yearly platform refreshes, I doubt they'd have stayed up for as long as they have. I really do believe in the platform model for holding on to ASPs, but Intel has certainly done a poor job with Viiv and vPro so far. I have actually heard that Dell has been actively marketing against vPro, while HP has been luke warm. But now I am ranting. The point, though, is that ASPs have steadily declined for years, and only through special circumstances like the right platform at the right time has been enough to keep them up in some years.
Re: Maybe I am a pessimist, but I see a parallel between Intel's 2006 price cuts in CPUs and 2004 price cuts in NOR flash. BTW, more than 2 years later, NOR is yet to recover.
NOR has a different problem. It's not like the market has an alternative CPU type that is rapidly gaining acceptance over x86. And if there were, and Intel tried and failed to improve x86 up to the levels of success the new architecture was having, then I would expect them to do what they did in flash, and start implementing the new architecture into their business plan. Intel is doing this with NAND today, and I think the payoffs down the line will be good.
Re: Like in CPUs this year, mobile phone unit sales have been growing over the mentioned period, with little benefit to NOR flash vendors.
I don't think that's the same thing. Cell phones are growing, but it's not like there's any fear of using a cell phone processor as part of your PC. Well... if you're clever, you'd respond to this with the notion of the iPhone replacing many of your PC functions. But even then, Intel is winning some of the silicon in that device. If there gets to be a particular market shift towards that kind of device over a PC, then Intel's next move should be to make a low power processor to compete for that socket. But I am not too concerned about this today.
Re: More than 6 months. Rev F (DDR-2 version) arrived effectively in Q3 vs. Q1 expectation (probably pushing out Rev G by similar time), so sub-par execution has been going on for year.
Alright, I stand corrected.
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