Youang Re..<<<<<<<This post says AMD's recent success is due to luck, no more no less.<<<<<
Youang, the simple fact is that many great companies were founded on luck. Look at AT&T. Graham Bell applied for his telephone patent mere 6 hrs. before his competitor submitted his. Coca Cola was founded when the founder of Coke bought the formula to Coke for $75. Ray Kroc ate at a fast food restaurant in California and started McDonald's. The greatest luck of all might go to Intel which was probably headed for obscurity until IBM picked Intel to supply the new chip, primarily because the 8086 was the worst chip, not the best. (could Intel be hoping lightning strikes twice with its IA-64?) In addition, as that article points out, Intel stole part of the design for the 486 from Dec, but because of Dec's perilous financial condition, settled with Intel, rather than persuing a lawsuit, which could have resulted in a huge payoff for Dec. It was AMD's bad luck that Intel was chosen to build the IBM chip, not the Z-80, which AMD was fabricating as a second source at that time. It was also AMD's bad luck that the earthquake hit Taiwan last sept. delaying the Athlon.
Don't let anyone kid you. Luck plays a role in everyone's life. All of us here in some ways are counting on more problems from Intel; which will give us a bigger payoff over a shorter period of time. Some people will say that it is luck that Intel is screwing up. Others will say that it is probable that a company with such arrogance will get its come-uppance eventually. I believe in the latter. Any company that thinks of itself before the customers will eventually lose those customers. Apple, in order to maximize profits, closed it system and lost it's customers. IBM tried to push the microchannel on us and lost its customers. Now Intel tried to push Rambus on us. Will the outcome be the same? |
