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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices

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To: Maxwell who wrote (32361)	5/3/1998 8:53:00 PM
From: Tiley	Read Replies (1) of 1571911

Maxwell, Re"AMD Strategies": I like talking to you because you're obviously connected to the semi industry and have more understanding than most of the other AMD diehards who like supporting an underdog but have no clue about the business. If my criteria for AMD's success are stringent its because they have such a history of spectacular failures and botch-ups. - 1.5 Million shipped is not more than what AMD had been shipping in prior quarters. Quite a bit of it was attributible to the failure of the other x86 maker - Cyrix. I don't see how you can call it successful. The mobile segment has much higher margins than the desktop. You make it sound as if AMD could have shipped mobile parts but chose to ship desktop. The K6 on .35u was never a mobile part. However on .25u the power consumption is more palatable. Let's see how they fare here. 2) Forget the server side - you've got to be kidding. This is Intel's highest margin business today and the fastest growing. If AMD wants a high ASP they have to go after the high ASP markets. AMD has been competing on the lowend all this while and all it has gotten them are more losses and more spectacular failures. 3) Diverging instruction sets - again you've lost sight of the reality here. Too many more powerful competitors have tried this and failed. AMD can attempt this only after they're stronger and have more pull in the industry. 4) AMD has not been a good follower yet. The last time they were successful was with the 486. They need to beat Intel at the MHz game. People do not buy the PR rating and it only detracts from the performance of a processor in people's minds. No one understands, 4-wide out of order - All people look at is 300/350/400 MHz. If AMD's processors are close in performance per MHz to Intel's (can even be a little less - does not matterthat much) but if they can beat Intel in MHz offered, they would win the war. You offer whizbang graphics that few software vendors support and develop products for, all you've achieved is lost development $s. If AMD were backed by IBM or Moto, then they could carry a different instruction set. However that is not the case. IBM would continue to support Intel and AMD and soon the software developers will be forced to prioritize development (even if they do decide to support both) - its just a matter of time before the K6-3D instruction set dies. I do agree with you on 1) Generate revenue by shipping 5M K6/K6-3D parts but AMD is a far distance from achieving this. And unless they can push up the MHz on the products quick - they will be facing less demand than the supply. I think one mistake in your overoptimistic assumptions about AMD is that you're assuming Intel is sitting idle. I know enough folks in both the companies that I am pretty confident that Intel will continue to be ahead at least this year and when the Willamette arrives, the x86 game will be over - the future is already secured with Merced. However, you can also bet that AMD stock will continue to stay very volatile and there are a lot of $s to be made trading it, Best Wishes, - MJ

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