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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (92542)	11/15/1999 9:21:00 PM
From: Elmer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Re: "Fact is that Athlon is selling very well and Intel still doesn't have anything that can touch it...at any kind of good price or in usual Intel volumes. " Wrong Jimbo. Even a 440BX based system outperforms an Athlon. intel.com

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (92542)	11/15/1999 11:08:00 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Jim, re: questions 4. Will the high end consumer pay premium prices for a secondary brand name? <4. Good question...again depends on the perception.> Would you pay $3K for a Seiko watch even if it was every bit as good as a Rolex. You are right, it depends on perception, and AMD is perceived as a "sub-1K" brand. 5. If you get off SI into the real world, and ask 100 consumers if they have heard of Athlon, how many will say "yes"? 6. If you ask 100 consumer the same question about "Pentium", how many will say "yes"? <5. No way of telling. 6. No doubt "Pentium" is a more well known name to the computer illiterate. It's also been around for 7 years longer than the Athlon not to mention countless millions to make the name known. I wouldn't discount how fast word can spread over the internet, though.> The "computer illiterate" are the vast majority of the population. Believe it or not, a very small percentage of the population spend their time reading SI and obsessing on the virtues or failures of the latest microprocessors. But when these folks go to spend 1K to 3K on a computer, they are comforted to see the familiar "Intel Inside" logo. 7. Is name recognition important to sales? <7. Yes name recognition is important, especially when Intel pays for half the advertising but an increasing number of boxmakers would like to be known and trusted for their OWN name rather than Intels.> Again you are right, the box makers would love to have the consumer making brand choices dependant on their marketing. Unfortunatly, they haven't differentiated their product enough to build brand equity (with the exception of Apple). Without defferentiation, you become a commodity and sacrifice gross margin. Only Intel has the margin and scale to build brand equity. 9. Assuming Mr. Sanders production estimates are correct, if Athlon doesn't sell well in the 4th quarter, what will the excess inventory do to AMD's EPS numbers. <9. Well, right now there are 100k Athlons waiting for motherboards so motherboards are still the limiting factor.> Motherboards? The end user will determine if Athlon is successful. They can sell one million units into the channels, if the end user prefers Intel, sales will grind to a halt. The high end of the market is totally different than the commodity end. This thread (and especially the AMD thread) have a tendancy to treat technology as a virtue and marketing as an evil. The truth is that most computer end users don't study benchmark results. They buy brand names that they have heard of, just as you or I do when we buy expensive and complicated products. BTW, I would bet that much less than 1 in 1000 people would recognize Athlon as an MP. John