"This "visibility issue" has to be a smoke screen. If it is true that these companies cannot project sales three months out, they should reconsider their marketing budgets. They are not getting what they are paying for. It should be a lot less complex and more accurate than sampling 500 likely voters to determine how they are likely to vote in a Presidential election. "
I disagree, because of order cancellations and double-bookings.
During the recent boom times, customers ordered things they weren't sure they could sell, and they often double-ordered. When the bubble popped, massive cancellations.
(I applaud AMD, by the way, for pursuing a suit against Alcatel for ordered a huge pile of chips and then cancelling. Orders are contracts, and contracts should be enforceable. While it may not always be wise to sue potential customers, this business of customers thinking they can place orders and then cancel them willy-nilly has got to be dealt with.)
"Intel should stop spending so much money running those cute little ads with the funny looking men painted in blue, and spend it on some real marketing people and forecasting tools."
I expect they have very good people in these jobs. When Cisco's sales go to near-zero in Jan-March, forecasts made in December are not of much use.
(If your point is that Intel should have known about Dell's or Cisco's business, no comment. If they could do this they would then be better off getting rid of all manufacturing and just operating as a hedge fund.)
--TIm May |
