wbmw,
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.
You could be right about the $200 pre-bubble, but I would be curious about 2001 to 2006. I believe there was a multi-year period of stability in $150 range prior to 2006 dive.
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.
While there is a lot of talk, NAND replacing NOR, it has apparently not materialized go a significant extent. It is just that the natural NAND market has grown very fast, much faster than NOR, and NOR has been under more intense price pressure after Intel's 2004 price implosion. It is not natural for all market competitors to lose money at the same time, for number of years in a row. That's worse than the airlines.
Cell phones are growing, but it's not like there's any fear of using a cell phone processor as part of your PC.
I didn't mean to suggest any kind of competition between PC and a cell phone. I just meant to point to some parallels: -- One component of the cell phone (flash) has been struggling, following the price implosion, while the cell phone market has been growing. It has not recovered fully yet.
- One component of the PC market (CPUs) could be in the middle of similar price implosion even though the overall PC market may be healthy...
Joe
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