Re: Looks like the same "Price Protection" to me ...intel has the same price protection AMD has
Nice find. But another piece of the puzzle is that list prices must be lowered in order for price protection to help keep the pipeline clear - which AMD did during October. AMD's hope was that they'd be able to keep inventory from building up in the holiday season, despite signs that demand might be slowing.
By the way, I never meant to imply that AMD wasn't facing the same demand collapse that Intel faced. Just that, when it comes to demand collapses, AMD had the recent experience of the K6 getting creamed, and knew to make a drastic and immediate response this fall. I think Intel took a watch and wait approach for about 6 weeks, until early December, and lost some sales momentum.
You are quite right about Intel having the most of the notebook and almost all of the server market to themselves, but both of those markets seem to be slowing as well. AMD can look forward to unit sales gains in the server market (off a near zero base). Unless AMD gets a mobile Athlon into the market, their notebook sales and share will fall, but there isn't much left there to lose, at this point.
I think (there's your favorite phrase, again) that Intel is going to heavily dominate notebook sales for at least the next half - but I don't think that's enough to maintain profits.
If SUN really does start selling Athlon servers with aggressive pricing and full SUN service and support, it could give AMD a moderate presence even in a tight server market.
Signed,
"Kemosabe" |
