Replies to post #129079 on Intel Corp (INTC)

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I expect a spike on POWER 8 launch, but IVB-EX will make it more difficult, and I still think the long-term trend, irrespective of these cyclical upticks, will be down.

[chipguy]

Expect a spike on Power 8 release.

The Unix server market has been shrinking about 15-20% a years since
late 2008. Power7 was a huge improvement over Power6 yet it hasn't
kept Power sales from dropping like SPARC and Itanium. I doubt that
Power8 will arrest Power server sales shrinkage. At best it might drive
IBM's MSS within the shrinking Unix server market even higher but that
is still not a sustainable business model. IBM has been trying to sell
Power for Linux but that is not credible given the economy of scale and
great performance for Linux on x86.

OTOH, mainframe (system z) sales seem to have stabilized and every
new product cycle generates a large, predictable sales cycle.