March Industry Update - RealWorldTech
Back to on topic for a message :)
Thought you might be intersted in this opening page remarks by Dean Kent in his report:
Intel has warned that their quarter will be fairly dismal, and several large OEMs have also indicated that their sales will be disappointing this quarter, which has added to the general fear....However, VIA has reported the pas
two months that their sales are rising, and AMD has hinted that Q1 will be in line with expectations, so the natural
question is whether there is any correlation with the motherboard makers who are reporting some pickup in sales.
Later on he adds:
It appears that at this time the slowest speed Athlon shipping to the retail
channels is 1GHz, with a 900MHz Duron soon to appear. With the fastest
PIII running at 1GHz and the P4 almost stuck at the gate, this is an almost
surrealistic scenario for anyone who has been in the industry for more than
a couple of years. Reportedly, dismal P4 sales have taken their toll on Intel
revenues. With only the Tualatin to look forward to in Q2, there can't be
much to cheer about for Intel supporters, as even DDR SDRAM gives no
real boost to the platform. In fact, by the time Tualatin appears AMD will
already have much faster Athlon parts shipping, and will be approaching
current P4 speeds.
With little new coming out of Intel recently, all eyes seem to be focused on
AMD. Much has been speculated about the delays of the Palomino, and
what is might mean. AMD insists that there are no design or manufacturing
issues, and if one can take that at face value there seems to only be one
possible explanation left. This would be that AMD is controlling the pace
of new introductions, and it is in their best interests to keep the pace much
slower than it has been the past several years.
It also appears that AMD is feeling much more comfortable about their
dominance of the desktop space, and has decided to focus more of their
efforts on the mobile market. This would explain why the mobile Palomino
and Morgan processors will appear before the desktop versions. In fact, I
would not be surprised to see a new AMD roadmap in the near future that
reflects this mentality. Though the high-end server market provides a nice
profit margin, the volume is relatively small, and it appears that AMD is
being patient and methodical. If they can break into the mobile market in a
significant way, there is much less pressure to do well immediately in the
tough and conservative server market.
realworldtech.com
Something for some impatient investors to think about |
