Mary - Re: "MAYBE this BABE is not so fabulous after all - doesn't do all that much homework. "
No - she seems to follow the trends and the BUZZ on the street.
She even jumped on AMD's bandwagon - right before AMD began to spiral into financial oblivion:
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fabmktbabe.com
The Fabulous Market Babe
Stock of the Day
9/24/98
Advanced Micro Devices / AMD
Yes, I am a fan of INTC. Always will be.
But I do believe it is in everyone's best interest to talk about the competition as well, if only to highlight both past and present factors that cause this story to look interesting.
So let's hop to it and summarize the case for AMD.
1. The company has been able to survive in an INTC dominated world.
Let's face it -- the mere fact that AMD has been able to survive vs. INTC is a major positive. Especially in light of AMD still being around post the lockout on technology that INTC initiated; namely with the introduction of the Pentium II, customers were no longer able to place an AMD processor on an INTC board.
2. The company possesses a microprocessor product cycle that you can get excited about.
Most notably, unlike in the past, AMD is exceeding, not matching, INTC's microprocessor efforts. In other words, the company is on the path of no longer playing catch up with INTC.
The recent announcement of the 300 MHz chip, which is actually faster than a 400 MHz Pentium, due to the manner in which the instructions are executed, is one example.
3. The company is much more diversified than just a pure play on microprocessors.
Case in point: AMD currently produces the 3D Now chip which is tailored for playing 3D video games. And if you are a gamer, this is what you want for your endless sessions of Quake II.
Plus the company has a presence in the non-volatile flash memory market. Very, very important.
You might remember from a past column that non-volatile flash memory is RAM, whereby when you turn the power off, the information is still there.
Here are a few examples.
When you turn your cell phone on, your preferences (speed dials, saved messages) are there at your fingertips. Which, while something that is taken for granted, is much better than the alternative of having to manually enter all of this information every time you turn on your phone.
As such, the primary application for non-volatile flash memory are portable devices. Examples within this category include laptops that remember all your downloads, PDA's, pagers, etc., etc.
And believe it or not, when it comes to portable devices, by and large, customers are not going to buy a Motorola phone, or a PDA just because it has an INTC chip in it.
Which, of course, is a big win for AMD.
Plus, these are not the only areas that AMD has a presence in. Chips for the various aspects of networking and telecommunications are examples of a number of other efforts.
4. The trend toward cheaper PC's benefits AMD.
That is, AMD matches, at the very least, the performance of the INTC chips in this segment at lower prices.
Enough said.
5. Christmas is coming.
Yikes.
But given the above, it would be quite difficult for AMD not to experience at least a couple of good quarters.
As always, something to chew on, if nothing else.
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Beware those that sling the Buzz Words !
Paul |
