Thread,
I'm a longtime lurker, new poster, and appreciative of all the combined wisdom of this thread. But now isn't the time for introductions. Given the reaction here to Intel's news today, I'm a bit surprised that most on the thread seem to buy the idea that Intel's sales are suffering because of loss of sales to AMD. While certainly a possibility, especially in light of AMD's repeated guidance reiterations, I'm curious as to why there isn't more consideration given to the idea that perhaps the pc slowdown isn't a real phenomenon, and thus a problem that AMD is prone to, also. Sure, AMD has reiterated guidance that would lead one to believe this is an Intel-specific problem. And it may be just that - let's hope. But given that it appears that Intel misled the street as recently as a few days ago about this, why should we assume that AMD is more trustworthy? In my book, Jerry Sanders appears to be something of a psychopath, someone who doesn't seem to have a conscienceable regard for the truth, and is prone to make promises first before he's sure they're able to be fulfilled. (e.g., I wonder about whether the tricky wording of "3.6 million K7 processors in Q3" without breaking it down into processor types was meant to hide the fact that there were very serious infrastructure problems with Duron, rather than, as a previous poster suggested, admitting the problem frankly and talking about the timeframe for a solution.) In this 'darker' scenario, it's possible that the reason we aren't going to hear positive reiteration from AMD tomorrow (which, BTW, I think is a very good idea) is that they may not have good news to tell us, and we'll be unpleasantly surprised on Oct. 11th. I'm not claiming this is the case, but as I said, I'm a little surprised this possibility seems to get such little play on the thread. A second possible problem which concerns me are the rumours that AMD is pressing sales folks to cram as many orders into Q3 in order to meet their promises, so the short-term will look rosy, but at the expense of Q4.
As others have pointed out, if Intel's problems stem from AMD grabbing hi-end market share, Intel's news may eventually have a very beneficial effect for AMD, espeically in terms of it being an opportunity to differentiate itself from Intel, and thus go along way toward addressing the serious problems of perception that have kept the fundamentals story from boosting AMD. I'm interested in any and all comments on these points. In any case, AMD's ability to distance itself from Intel in any manner possible (e.g., sales, performance, percpetion, etc.) would obviously be a very good thing at this dicey juncture. Let's hope they can pull it off. |
