> It was due to much more than simply losing the
> performance crown.
Yes. As I stated before, there is not necessarily a causal relationship.
> goals so set on gaining market share that they dropped
> ASPs down to the point where they are losing money on most
> of the processors they sold
Yeah. As you likely know, that's my major beef with them. ^_^
> How are their relations with other OEMs that have
> pledged exclusive relations with Intel?
Uncertain, but perhaps better. Tiny, a large UK seller which became exclusive on Intel in Q3 (eg, the quarter where Intel had performance advantage) is allegedly now planning on selling computers based on the Athlon XP. My indirect analysis (eg, blind guessing for the most part) of the market suggests that demand for the AMD chips is not decreasing, despite the increase in their chip prices.
> ASPs are up, but will it last? They are already falling,
> and some news sites predict a large price drop along with
> Intel's price drop on Monday.
For AMD (and to some extent Intel), prices on the open market consistently drop well before the official price drops. The prices we're seeing here (on Pricewatch, for example) are representative of the after-drop prices. This means that we shouldn't see a large drop until a few weeks before AMD's following price drop. Will there be one in November or December? Well, until then, the most expensive Athlon XP will be at least 80% more expensive than the most expensive Athlon was in the third quarter. I find this absolutely stunning (and really, really surprisingly chutzpahy for AMD). |
