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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scot who wrote (83234)	12/16/1999 10:52:00 AM
From: Scot	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1579927

OT, but this issue has come up before and I think it is great news: -Scot forbes.com SEC vote strikes blow for the little guy By Anne Granfield NEW YORK. 10:05 AM EST-Corporate investor relations departments will be scrambling to react to yesterday's U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission vote, which proposes new rules to ban selective disclosure of material information by public companies. Stock analysts, who are often the recipients of such information through closed conference calls and private meetings with management, are sure to oppose the proposal. Proposed Regulation FD would essentially require companies that intentionally reveal nonpublic information on a closed conference call to immediately issue a press release or risk the wrath of the SEC. "By the SEC voting on this issue, they've signaled to the markets that they won't tolerate selective disclosure any longer," said Mark Coker, founder and president of BestCalls.com, a Web site devoted to publicizing earnings conference calls that are open to the public. Coker, who started his company in March after being denied access to a closed conference call for a company he held stock in, said the SEC proposal will be extremely controversial but will ultimately pass. After a 90-day period for public comments, the Commission will consider opinions, tweak the proposal and then take a final vote, probably within one to five months. Once passed, Coker thinks companies will change their practices immediately. "Companies fear nothing more than an SEC investigation, and what it does to their stock price," he said. Coker estimated that when he first launched his site, 75% of public companies would not allow individual investors to listen in on conference calls--not that people had been clamoring to get in. At that time, fewer than 5% of individual investors were even aware of closed conference calls, he said. In the past six months the percentage of companies restricting access to calls has dropped to 50%, due to pressure from SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, who has been criticizing the practice for more than a year, and the advent of online trading. People have been getting used to having access to the same information available to institutional shareholders and analysts, Coker said, and have started lobbying companies for better access. Interestingly, tech companies have been much more willing to open up conference calls to individuals, in spite of the pressure on them to curry favor with analysts in order to keep stock valuations high. Coker thinks this is because they are much less burdened by corporate legacies and are more willing to "eat their young" and reinvent themselves. In his remarks to the SEC Dec. 15, Chairman Levitt said: "Sixteen months ago, I voiced concerns over what I saw as an emerging culture of gamesmanship within the financial reporting process. A culture that allowed the pressure to meet earnings expectations to come before long established precepts of financial reporting and ethical restraint."

To: Scot who wrote (83234)	12/16/1999 11:52:00 AM
From: Goutam	Respond to of 1579927

Scot, Thanks for posting the Forbes article. Here are two articles from The Register: theregister.co.uk _______________________ Posted 16/12/99 1:29pm by Mike Magee Rambus Intel contract set to expire Sources have told The Register that the 10th of January 2000 is an extremely important day for the Intel-Rambus partnership. On that date, Intel exclusivity with Rambus expires, allowing the chip giant to discuss other, alternative memory technologies. ... More ... __________________________________________________________________________ theregister.co.uk _________________________ Posted 16/12/99 12:52pm by Mike Magee Gateway stealth-launches Athlon PCs... Even though neither Gateway nor AMD have yet confirmed they're in a little huddle about Athlon microprocessors, information on the former's Web site seems to confirm that the deal is on. Two weeks ago we were told by a highly placed source at Gateway that it was sending out samples of PCs using the microprocessor. If you point your browser to this URL gateway.com , you'll see that the support staff are giving advice on installing the Athlon microprocessor in machines. And meanwhile rumours are continuing to fly that Dell is playing around with the Athlon, although other sources close to AMD plans told us that while the companies had "talked", it was probably just a way for the heat to be turned up a little on the Chipzilla front. ________________________________________________________________________ Goutama

To: Scot who wrote (83234)	12/16/1999 12:15:00 PM
From: L. Adam Latham	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1579927

Scot: Re: http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/99/dec/1216/feat.htm This article is riddled with inaccuracies: <1>The company, which had $29 billion in sales for 1999 - Even though the author posted the number as fact, 1999 isn't over, thus full-year revenues are unknown. <2>Currently, the world's fastest PC processor, the 750-MHz Athlon, is not manufactured in San Jose, but instead in Sunnyvale, Calif. - We'll never be able to agree who has the faster processor, but the author also mistakenly implies Intel is in San Jose. HQ is in Santa Clara, and there is no manufacturing in San Jose that I know of. <3>The chipset [820] is yet to be introduced - Flat out wrong. The Intel 820 chipset was introduced on 15-November. <4>Intel, on the other hand, still produces its chips using a 0.25-micron process. - Wrong again, 0.18-micron parts launched on 25-October. This author is horrible. Is this average for Forbes? Adam

To: Scot who wrote (83234)	12/16/1999 12:49:00 PM
From: Charles R	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579927

Scot, <The word from Intel's (nasdaq: INTC) sprawling campus in San Jose, Calif., is that Dr. Craig Barrett, the cerebral, sometimes professorial chief executive, is a very angry man. > I have heard these stories myself. Barrett is apparently going around and chewing his top guys on how a well resourced company like Intel can fall behind this badly. Rumors of some high level departures and some layoffs in Santa Clara are rampant. <Intel is said to be having trouble getting optimal performance out of the chip at speeds above 700 megahertz. > I noted this one a few days back. Merced is in great shape except MHz. It will be interesting to see how Merced will compare with Athlon derivatives at launch. I have a feeling the gap is going to be pretty large. <"It is quite clear AMD is pushing them and Intel is taking chances," says Dan Scovel, semiconductor analyst with Fahnestock & Co., a New York-based brokerage. For years, he says, it was AMD that was under pressure, and now the roles have been reversed. > Nice to know Wall Street is finally waking up. <Barrett and company need to learn to live with such constant scrutiny--that is the cost of being the biggest and best chip company in the world. > Yes, Intel does have this going for them... Chuck

To: Scot who wrote (83234)	12/16/1999 1:06:00 PM
From: greg nus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579927

Elmer, Here's proof of Barrett "Bouncing off the Walls." By Om Malik... The word from Intel's (nasdaq: INTC) sprawling campus in San Jose, Calif., is that Dr. Craig Barrett, the cerebral, sometimes professorial chief executive, is a very angry man. Barrett has good reason to be upset. The hot wind he feels on his neck is not from the desert. It's from AMD.