Paul, re: Bert McComas,
I personally met the guy last fall. Yes his articles and public statements definitely have an anti-Intel, anti-Rambus slant. Yet in person, he seems to be very intelligent and knowledgeable, a guy who sees eye to eye with me on many technical issues.
As for his statements about Intel and X-Box, they carry a grain of truth. I have no doubt that Intel really did "bid whatever it took to get into the X-Box" and keep AMD out. However, the reason why Intel did this was because they could. Intel's Coppermine has a tremendous cost advantage vs. K7, not to mention more appealing power requirements. Therefore, Intel's break-even point is lower than AMD's.
I laugh when I read the quote from an AMD spokeswoman, "[AMD is] not going to sell its Athlon processors for the Microsoft X-Box at giveaway prices." Perhaps for AMD, Intel's low bid is a "giveaway price," but not for Intel.
The only harm now is the low price margins that Intel will now have to sell these X-Box processors for. But that won't matter much, because X-Box is slated for release in late 2001. By that time, Intel will be ramping up Northwood and other 0.13u products, and ramping down the 0.18u process. What better way to utilize fully-depreciated 0.18u equipment than to make them manufacture el-cheapo X-Box processors?
Besides, despite Intel's design win, I still think Sony Playstation 2 will wipe away the competition. This means Intel won't have to sell too many low-margin X-Box processors!
Tenchusatsu
P.S. - It was very entertaining to watch the sour grapes on the AMD thread. |
