Dwight, The question was rhetorical. My point was that the majority of users, (existing, new, home, business), don't have a great need for the power of PII.
Many of the people on this thread are power users and tend to view user needs from their standpoint. But if you look at what the majority of owners do with their PC's, P54/55 are quite sufficient. What's lacking is a killer ap that the average user wants, and that requires PII performance.
My observation is that people are starting to put the incremental dollars into peripherals, (ie; scanners, foto quality printers, 17/20" monitors, etc). You can build a great system around a $999 PC if you stick another grand into the peripherals.
I think Intel will maintain 80% CPU market share if for no other reason then they are the only one's with the fab capacity.
The question is, what will be the product mix in these fabs? While Intel maintains the PII will achieve 50% share after 12 months, this assumes 50% of the market wants PII in 12 months, (May `98). I think Intel will have to build what people want, not what their business plan dictates. Can they convince people, (manufacturers and consumers), they want the PII? That's the $64K question.
If I were Intel, I'd raise the price on the P55C. Takes guts, but AMD and Cyrix aren't going to do much more harm than they already have. |
