Its extremely unlikely that IBM is making K6s. If they were, especially if it were without the consent of AMD, AMD probably would have told us about it by now, because it's material. In fact, there has been something in each of AMD's recent 10-Q's that specifically says that AMD believes the K6 is an AMD chip, not a NexGen chip, and therefore isn't covered by NexGen's agreements with IBM. If IBM were to "steal" the K6, as you suggest, AMD would have a duty to correct this information so it wasn't misleading.
This is just my opinion of course, no guarantees. You never know with AMD.
A year ago, nobody would have guessed that the K6 would see the market acceptance that it has seen. Of course, we also wouldn't have guessed that AMD's production problems would be so bad. If AMD can solve those problems, it has a bright future. For the first time in a long time, it has a product that competes with Intel's best, and if it can make its roadmap happen, this will be true for the foreseeable future. Can AMD build the chips it designs? I'm cautiously optimistic given the recent loosening in supply of 233 mhz chips, and AMD's historic manufacturing performance.
Kevin |
