Ted, <Tench, you may not have noticed but Raza is not at AMD anymore....the reality may have been that the stink was not coming from AMD.>
I don't think you understood what the quote was referring to.
Yes, Atiq Raza is gone, but I remember hearing Jerry Sanders repeating that exact same quote a couple of weeks later. Anyway, Atiq said that quote, "Profits are a good deodorant, but we stink" in reference to execution troubles between Intel and AMD. He was saying in fact that Intel also has its fair share of problems, but because they make a lot of money, the public is willing to forgive Intel more than they're willing to forgive AMD. (I must admit, though, that a lot of problems have been hitting Intel in the last few months, a lot more than I feel comfortable with.)
Right now, AMD's booming Flash business is serving somewhat as a deodorant for them, since without it, they wouldn't be hinting at a break-even 4th quarter. That was my point. Of course, once Fab 30 gets going, then the real money starts rolling in. But as of now, even though AMD is ramping up Athlon speeds a little faster than I expected, their MPU business is still losing money, which was Elmer's point.
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