Tony-According to this article, Thunderbird will not threaten Intel's dominance of the commercial PC market. AMD may be aggressive with their product roadmap, however does it really mean that much.
Commentary: "Built for speed"
does not necessarily make a chip
winner
Gartner Viewpoint
Special to CNET News.com
June 5, 2000, 8:45 a.m. PT
See news story: AMD debuts new
chips, eyes corporate market
By Kevin Knox, Gartner Analyst
At a time when Intel is struggling
with supply problems, Gartner
believes AMD has a prime
opportunity to break into the
lucrative commercial PC market.
However, an AMD rally will not
necessarily be the result of its
upcoming Thunderbird microprocessor
with its focus on speed. Most
enterprises, and many consumer
buyers, are less concerned with
speed and overall performance than
they used to be. Platform stability and overall price/performance
are the keys for most PC buyers today, particularly enterprises.
As hardware continues to significantly outpace most mainstream
software requirements, Gartner believes that the megahertz rating
game is less important as a key decision metric in buying
decisions. Therefore, Gartner does not expect AMD's enhanced
Athlon microprocessors (Thunderbird) to be key in threatening
Intel's dominance of the commercial PC market.
None of the major PC vendors offer AMD microprocessors in their
mainstream commercial product lines. And it is not because of
performance. What will help AMD gain on Intel will be AMD's
ability to demonstrate financial and technical consistency to PC
makers. Gartner believes this approach is AMD's best bet toward
overcoming Intel's extremely strong brand equity and becoming a
long-term player in the commercial PC marketplace.
PC makers have been hesitant to sign deals with AMD because
of its past financial fluctuations and production issues. Over the
past year, however, AMD has turned the corner financially and
has been addressing some of production concerns (for example,
the problem that it couldn't meet volume requirements).
Right now is probably as good a time as any for AMD to make a
move. Intel has been unable to meet upside demand and deliver
on some of its technologies (processors as well as chipsets) and
continues to be plagued by product flaws. But Thunderbird is not
necessarily a prerequisite for AMD's closing in on Intel.
Thunderbird does, however, indicate that AMD is becoming more
aggressive with its product road maps.
Entire contents, Copyright ¸ 2000 Gartner Group, Inc. All rights
reserved. The information contained herein represents Gartner's
initial commentary and analysis and has been obtained from
sources believed to be reliable. Positions taken are subject to
change as more information becomes available and further
analysis is undertaken. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the
accuracy, completeness or adequacy of the information. Gartner
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