<< AMD seems to be between a rock and a hard place, they can't make a profit without volume, they can't get volume without discounting, they can't make a decent profit if they discount, they can't market if they don't make a decent profit, they can't raise their prices if they don't market. >>
This obviously isn't universally true, since they clearly had great profits last year despite lower volume, and no marketing. I think it's more to do with a recessionary market, and I think we'll find that Intel, and the rest of the semi conductors are probably in pretty much the same boat with regards to profits.
You've been very critical of AMD's earnings, and their competitive position to Intel. Fair enough, there are no shortage of people who are critical of Intel's earnings here, and I'm not going to jump on that bandwagon because I'm sure you've heard it before.
However, I think the poor earnings of both companies right now is due largely to a few things: 1) No applications that are taking advantage of faster computers 2) The biggest bottleneck in the computer is most often the video board 3) Overall demand and consumer spending seems to be down substantially. 4) Consumers are used to cheaper computers. After we set the new low ceiling, it will be difficult to impossible to convince consumers to raise the ceiling on system cost again.
I think these factors will make it exceedingly difficult for either company to do very well in the near future, and if they continue to price themselves into the ground, then they both will remain unprofitable (relative to past successes) for an extended period of time. |
