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

To: Wolff who wrote (95889)	1/13/2000 11:17:00 AM
From: Process Boy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Wolff - <What of the failed Merced P7, and its P8 Willamette which will mean that Intel lost a full generation of time. I guess the fact that Intel has now lost its Microprocesor generation ahead against AMD is trivial?> This statement demonstrates a certain lack of understanding about "Microprocessor Generations". Athlon is no knock out punch on performance compared to Intel's current "sixth" generation. Sure, it's better in some benchmarks, but Coppermine beats Athlon in others. Overall, the performance of AMD's "seventh generation" processor, is fairly similar to Intel's sixth at the moment. As for Merced, you've called it a failure even before it's had a chance to compete, so I doubt any meaningful discussion can be gleaned form you in this regard. It is delayed form the original schedule. So is UltraSPARC III. Also, I'd put Intel's process technology about a generation ahead of AMD's. This is not trival matter either, going forward. I am not dissing AMD's competitive effort. They seem to be executing on the Athlon at the moment. I don't believe anyone denies that this is a serious competitive race at the moment. However, Athlon is not a knockout blow, IMHO. AMD fans will tell you it is, of course. I see the two offerings as very competitive. Of course, Intel will need to bring its seventh generation processor to bear at some point. I will be very curious if Athlon will be able to maintain parity with that offering. In the mean time, I expect Coppermine to hold its own. <Hear me now, believe me later, the CPU will not always be a huge margin part> I believe there is some life left in uP margins. Incrementally going forward, you may have a point, but I seriously don't believe they are near the point of the hard drive in the near to mid term. I admit I can't back up this statement, but I do have an idea of what it costs to make a uP, and my radar still sees see the relatively good margins going forward in the mid term, with fluctuations due to market conditions. <Tell me something of substance, or a question of showing you have even minimal critical thinking and intelligence skills.> I don't know if the above counts, but that's my cursory stab at it. PB

To: Wolff who wrote (95889)	1/13/2000 11:41:00 AM
From: Robert Douglas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Wolff, Hear me now, believe me later, the CPU will not always be a huge margin part, the Harddrive is a highly complex high tech part, the sells for at the barest wimpy margins. Not so different than many semiconductor firms, Intel is the exception. JPN put you head in the sand and think that Intel margins will hold up. If the microprocessor ever becomes a commodity part it will certainly earn commodity type margins. I don't think that day is yet upon us. Your comparison to hard drives isn't perfect. Disk drives makers have been in trouble for a variety of reasons but chiefly because increases in areal densities reduced head and platter count dramatically the last few years leading to falling ASPs and most importantly excess capacity. As each maker fought to maintain market share in an environment of excess capacity a brutal price war was fought. At present Intel is selling as many chips as they can make. Unless you are predicting a severe drop in demand that produces excess capacity, I don't think your scenario will come to pass anytime soon.