Replies to post #56039 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Not a Short]

asp and pricing

My point is :
By AMD keeping their prices ALWAYS lower than Intel's, they are not doing anyone a favour , and are harming themselves.
AMD "must" raise they prices egnerally across the board.
The whole supply chain will be thankful.
Corpoarate buyers will be glad to accept bigger discounts ( without harming AMD'S ASPs too much )

I agree on raising prices for some chips and then using discounts for volume/special customers could help AMD.

I don't think you can do that with the under $200 parts though. There is a clear need to counter the "price is everything" mentality of the buyer that is taking home all those Celerons.

[CombJelly]

"By AMD keeping their prices ALWAYS lower than Intel's"

Most of AMD's sales aren't at retail. Their real customers aren't the Joe SixPacks but HP and the others. All the retail customers see is a system whose price may or may not directly reflect the cost of the components. The scenario that you paint is exactly what goes on, the big OEMs get a discount from the list price, only the small guys pay full list.

[Tiger64]

Look, you guys need to make sure your comparing apples to apples here...those are the older cpu's that they're clearing out for the newer revision E processors...plus you have the slowest part of the year...plus a lot of purchasers might be waiting for the dual core stuff...

[woggut]

A friend of mine ( Dr. in Marketing ) used to say "There's only one thing that motivates in business, and that's 'making money' "
The continual downward price-spiral in the PC business caused effectively by the price-bands remaining constant whilst new product are introduced, means that "holding products in stock" is a dangerous business.

The OEM's are willing participants in this exercise. Since the K6 generation they've been playing the "INTC = business = high margin" vs "AMD = home = low margin" game. The last thing they want is the collapsing margins of the home market. For the last 5 years or so you could (almost) always get a higher performing pc at the same price point using AMD cpu's (more $ for memory / disk / video).
I think it's a bit like game theory's Prisoner's Dilemma. Everyone is better off if everyone cooperates, but the first one to defect generates outsized gains. The difference here is the implicit threat of punishment of the first defector by the dominant supplier. Other than SUN (who wasn't really in the X86 market), we're just getting to the capacity/technology point where AMD can change the game.