Dan, What you say is true, you want to be able to make the fastest desktop CPU chip, no doubt. However, it's not the end of the world if you don't, for a while, as is the case with Intel now (they're tied WRT max clock speed, and AMD is shipping a few more, relative to the overall quantities of CPU chips being shipped right now, at the highest clock, than Intel). It is just that the typical AMD poster that likes to go na na na na na na about Intel either has no clue about products other than micros and flash, or they avoid the topics because AMD has none of them. Having said that, I know full well that as soon as AMD gets one lillehammer, or whatever they call them, rumored to be on a mobo at Compaq, it'll be all over, and AMD will be on their way to grabbing all that business. (That's a joke). In truth, it will be years before AMD dents the server market. They won't get in on price, because servers have so much other hardware in them, and software licensing costs, that the CPU chip cost doesn't matter that much. Reliability does, and I haven't heard squat about any Xeon problems. Serviceability is big also, and some of the major vendors have done a very nice job making their servers so easy to service that you can pull them apart totally, and put them back together, without using any tools but your hands. To achieve this has required cooperation and joint development with Intel and the other component vendors. Intel has provided other serviceability tools, like Landesk, and measurement tools like Iometer, that make the servers a lot easier to manage and measure. All these things take time to happen, and the server vendors get used to, and expect them. AMD would be coming in featureless in all these areas.
So AMD goes on in what is the slowest growing among the three chip markets of desktop, server and comm. OK, they're good in flash, but that can only get so big vs. servers and comm.
What happens when AMD and Intel come to a balance in market share for desktop chips, which have more boring growth, while Intel continues on the much faster escalator in these other product lines? Seems to me, for this reason, Intel is the stock with far better potential, and the one to own, as seen by the street.
Tony |
