Paul - RE: "Go back through the AMD archives"
Speaking of past posts, It seems like the K7 hype is almost as big
as the K6 hype was back then, except this time, it doesn't look like
AMD will have analysts pushing it. There was hype the K6 would
be the "fastest Windows processor" when it was slightly faster
then the PPro and PMMX. Also, when the chip came out, there
were NO Tier 1 OEMs onboard officially.
You were noticeably absent on the thread during the days leading
up to and after the K6's launch. (In the 8000s) The bears telling
people to sell were Victoria Gate and Rod MacPherson.
Last time, it was Klamath whose benchmarks looked poor, this
time it is the K7's.
At that time, the AMDites were VERY confident, this time, I
believe we are more patient to make conclusions because of ALL
of AMD's SNAFUs.
Like last time, this time it is all a matter of execution. Piper's
Kumar and an other analyst from Prudential have said that K7
yields are better than expected. I don't remember reading anything
like that when I read the old posts from around the K6's release.
So, unless I have missed something, at this point, the K7's
INITIAL yields look all right. This can't be said of the K6, and
THAT is why the stock tanked. This time, ASPs could again tank
AMD, but Flash is picking up and it may counterbalance the
negatives, however we don't know if analysts will even care
about Flash when the K7 is obviously more important.
ANY sign of K7 production problems is obviously a sell signal.
There is another deja-vu factor. Last time, when the K6 came out,
AMD released an unexpected profit instead an expected small
loss. Now, a medium sized (for AMD ;) ) loss is expected. We all
know Sanders would LOVE to wow everyone and attempt to get
as close to break-even as possible. I don't know what caused the
unexpected profit in '97, but Jerry said they shipped 10K K6s in
that Q, as opposed to the 40K K7 expected this Q at a much higher
ASP and similar size die.
Does anyone have any serious thoughts on the past hype compared to this hype?
BTW, one thing I also noticed - last time Vinod Dham (sp?)
seemed to be Jerry's right hand man while this time it is Atiq
Raza. |
