Albert,
I don't agree with that, to be honest.
The first sub-800 PC to be announced was our HP Pavilion 3260, which uses an Intel P200-MMX.
They have certainly not focused a lot of attention on that sector, but clearly they can deliver products for the segment if and when they want to.
I believe the issue is a more fundamental one. Should they allocate their capacity to the lower-end chips or use it instead for the higher end ones? If you're AMD or NSM, there's no choice, so you go for the low end. If you're Intel, it is quite reasonable to let the other guys take the lower margin businesses. Granted, the margins on the high-end stuff are dropping too, but they still make a lot more on a PII than they do on a P-MMX, and they are able to sell their full capcity in the higher end models, so it is reasonable for them to continue to do so.
So the issue to me is not "is Intel capable?" They are definitely as capable as anybody else. The issue is "where should Intel deploy its own scarce resources?" For now, the answer appears to be "Build as many high-end processors as you can sell, and use excess capacity to build for the low end."
mg |
