@Doug
We have discussed many many things on our german board after
the conroe PR came in. Its extremly hard to come to early
conclusions just because the near term development is so
much hanging on some things, which are difficult to track.
I think its Keith who praised Socket-Wins all the time and
I could only agree. The more volume AMD is able to manu-
facture and the more market-share AMD has in retail, the
more they will need business design wins. We all have to
take note, that this "sector" is good for around 50% of
all volume. 50% - thats a huge number. We also know, that
AMD is in a very weak position (business sector), just be-
cause Intel looked us out. I really don't know, how this
will develop, but I have hopes, that some contracts has to
be changed and that the OEMs will also play a more "safier" role.
So, here are the risks, when we don't get new design wins and
here are also BIG changes, if AMD could really crack this
market. I'm just thinking of a small share - 10% at the
beginning - thats huge huge additional volume and it would
help AMD in an awefull way. The bigger AMDs share overall
is, the more SKUs will be available and these will be needed
to get new contracts done. I'm just thinking from a company
perspective. Imagine your a buyer and the OEMs should make
some advices for business SKUs. Today it seems that 10 or
more Intel SKUs will be showed and when all works really
well, AMD is also in the game with 1 or 2. So its very easy
to assume, that these are not the best circ. to win big
contracts. So I'm going with Hector, that it has to be the
main goal for the sales people now to get the OEMs to design
and manufacture new business SKUs. New SKUs, more choice and
we WILL, thats for sure, win automaticly market share. AMD
had and has the products, but many or most OEMs hadn't play
with us. Thank to the old contracts, Intel was able to
dominate this game with probably 95% share. I really hope,
that these days are done and that the share is nearing the
avarage which AMD holds now.
So I'm asking myself, what Intel wanted to say, as they
showed NGA devices which doesn't play a huge role for the
next 6 months. When I keep in mind that NGA is around 10%
in Q3 and 20% in Q4, I go with Cravey and think, what the
hell they want to do with 90% 9xx/Celeron and 80% 9xx/Celeron
share in Q3 and Q4? These are incredible huge volumes which
Intel has to sell and which are loosers compared to NGA,
which comes not from me, it comes from Intel itself. I'm
thinking of the pricing strategy which they will drive and
asking myself, at what levels will the price 9xx, if NGA
is so heavily in front and sells for around 500$ (top-bin) a piece?
Will they sell top 9xx bins for 200-300$? Ask yourself how
realistic this if, if you have to sell 90 or 80%? Think about
the ASP implications from this move. Other people have out-
lined the following progress. I don't smell red, no, but
I'm not seeing this - plain and simple, just because Andy
Bryant isn't stupid, he will not let this tanker take a huge
hit. Up to this, I again and again ask myself, how many
analysts can come up with price wars ideas? Are they crazy?
It seems that noone understands this business ... and we
are now seeing what the progress is - AMD increases!!! PRICES
for their desktop-lines. Just the opposite comes true ...
So I don't have much "fear" for the near term, but I'm
wondering, how the SKU-amount will develop. This is the
potential weak spot at AMD and we all have to track this
side when you ask me. The antritrust case will play a huge
role and I come up asking again, when the first trial will be-
come visible? Is their anything official yet - I remember
that the Inq. spoke about Mai/June timeframe. Some persons
, don't know who, spoke about contracts, which will probably
end in the march/april timeframe. It will be interesting to
see, how this will play out and if Intel could place new
INTEL-only contracts with big OEMs. Think about Asus, about
which I spoke today already. Think about new Notebook design
wins, Business Desktop SKUs and of course 1/2P Server/Work-
stations ...
BUGGI |
