I agree with you regarding the past history of AMD. In 1990, (1/28 of current Intel value ago), I owned a bundle of INTC and continually posted about the AMD hot air. THey were unable to write their own microcode, unable to get a competitive chip out the door, and very good at suing INTEL. I remember the experience well, and fortunately was on the INTEL side of the coin. I just think you have a different story now. THe cheif architect of the Pentium became the cheif architect of microprocessor design at Nextgen, and then moved over to AMD. Their team has some serious microprocessor design skills, and the K6 at least sounds impressive. AMD also has the fabs and the marketing to compete. THey are not playing around with a Pentium wanabe, they have a serious competitor to the Pro in a socket 7 design. Cyrix also has an excellent, if not better design than the K6. You have your head in the sand and you will be sorry if you think burying your hopes in the historical success of INTEL will make you rich in the late 1990's when microprocessor design and market will fracture and there will extreme competitive pressures. Intel will do well, but no where near as well as they have done in the past. You just can't sustain the kind of market share, and margin when you have the competition that is just around the corner for Intel.
I think Kurlak is wrong. I thought he and WHittington were very wrong in 1990 when they were lukewarm, to neutral on the microprocessors, because they were using 'old' scenarios back then in calculating demand. If they had any vision at all they would have seen what the Intel/MS open architecture and Win interface would have required from both DRAM manufacturers, and from micro manufacturers. They didn't because they were dealing with old paradigms. They are still dealing with old paradigms. When Intel's market cap is $30 billion and CYrix and AMD's is $3 billion, we may again be in a position to have an equivalent investment. But with Intel worth 300 times Cyrix and 100 times AMD, there will, IMHO, be a realignment.
Good luck with your investments. |
