Replies to post #18856 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Windsock]

Cray has a negative cash flow of $40 M per year. With only $24M in cash, it will not live long enough to produce a working design.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=CRAY

However, Cray should be able to produce some paper announcements, an AMD specialty, before it goes under.

[sgolds]

Dan3, Windsock -

First, Dan, I sure do not share your vision! Sun (a company in a steep downward spiral, but with cash) buys Cray and the unifying force is Opteron? If they were to hold a parade, it would be in competition with the old Day of the Dead celebration!

Now, seriously, AMD has two main OEMs on board for Opteron right now: IBM and Sun. One company very dominant and currently in an upswing, selling more and more Xeon servers which are paving the way for Opteron sales. The other company is in something that looks a lot like a death spiral, gambling all for a turnaround. I am sure glad we have IBM on our side, and are not depending on a miracle Sun turnaround!

After that there is a handful of smaller companies, including Cray and others. I think that we will see HP on board selling Opteron into the Xeon market next year as AMD's production ramp accelerates, but that is just my opinion.

The point of all this is that there are a lot of OEMs out there, some strong, some weak. I don't understand all this focus on the two weakest hands, Cray and Sun. If Sun does actually succeed in a turnaround, it would be great, but AMD has to have enough other OEMs on board so that they don't have too much dependence on the weak few.