Re: When was the last time there was over a day between posts on this thread
INTC is a lot less interesting a stock, than it once was. It is the high cost, but still very profitable, leader in several segments. Of the markets it has a significant presence in, none are growing quickly. It has most of the CPU market, so it can pretty much only lose share there.
It is at least possible for Intel to continue to gain share in the flash market (which it has been doing, recently), but it's main competitor has just started producing a product that looks set to give Intel's flash business a lot of trouble. OTOH, the flash market seems to be starting a recovery, so there is hope that Intel will be able to grow its flash revenues, even if its share begins to slip, a bit. AMD still hasn't shipped its new mirror-bit flash in production volumes - until it does, Intel is sitting pretty. Whenever AMD gets to volume in mirror-bit, Intel's flash business looks set to take something of a dive.
Intel is valued at about 8 times sales - it's not likely to go up much, from here. Its big competitor, AMD, has some significant new products in the pipeline (a whole lineup of 64-bit chips, desktop, mobile, workstation, and server), but they won't arrive until Q4, at the soonest.
So Intel isn't a great short right now, either - things can go wrong at its competitors, too, in which case it may do quite well (which is the present expectation of wall street, and why it is priced so high, right now).
So, Intel's fate basically rests in the hands of AMD, not Intel itself - there isn't much to talk about when it comes to Intel, except AMD's progress. So most of the discussion by people interested in Intel is going on in the AMD thread.
If AMD pulls off its entire roadmap, on schedule, Intel is in a lot of trouble. But AMD probably won't manage to flood the market with desktops, notebooks, 2-way workstations and servers, as well as 4-way and 8-way mid-range servers by early next year.
So, Intel's future depends on how much 64-bit product AMD can ship, and how soon - so there isn't much point in debating what Intel, itself, is doing.
That's my take. |
