Bill,
If the "glue-less" SMP is really glue-less, and if AMD provides necessary support for mobo-makers, so that making for example a 4 way system is as easy as plugging 4 Sledgehammers to an off the shelf motherboard, the white-box market will go crazy with SledgeHammer, and AMD may even win a support from Tier 1. But it means AMD will have to have all the "issues" resolved in a timely manner, prior to the release.
Economics is hard to argue with. While you will hear the usual BS. from the Tier 1, RAS and all that, and how price is way down on the list of priorities, compared to all the big issues about reliability, support etc. in reality, price is very important, and it is the major reason for the success of Linux.
Someone posted a survey of Sun customers, and in it, price was way donw on the list of priorities. But this is a survey of people who are still Sun customers, and who continue to pay their prices.
There is a lot of fat in the >2 processor market. AMD may be able to offer a lot of new entrants an avenue to get some of it, if AMD executes well. If AMD will offer a way to build a 4 way system for $3,000 to $5,000 instead of $10,000+ a lot of companies would be interested, primarily for the database applications.
Unfortunately, the execution has been sub-par lately. AMD does not have enough depth to execute well on all the fronts they are entering. There are so many projects on the table, and budget that allow only so many employees to work on these projects. As a result of lean times, the ability to bring more talent on-board is limited. AMD needs even higher percentage of processor revenue to be a competitor to Intel, able to match Intel on all fronts. Hopefully Hammer will provide just the boost AMD needs to move to a higher level.
Flash rebound would be helpful as well, since AMD has capacity in place to supply a multiple of their current demand. I am interested in hearing what AMD is doing to gain market share. I wonder if the change in the head of the memory group has something to do with a new approach to be more aggressive.
Joe |
