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

To: enzyme who wrote (87556)	1/17/2000 12:32:00 AM
From: Elmer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572171

Re: "Elmer, it is possible to attain all time production records and still leave money on the table. " You have a talent for stating the obvious. Re: "This money is allowing AMD to survive. If Intel did not want AMD to survive then they made key strategic mistakes. If Intel does want AMD to survive then they are executing flawlessly. I do not think Intel wants AMD to survive thus I think they have made key strategic errors in not having enough capacity to fullfill demand." First off I think you are attributing superhuman powers to mere mortals. Intel does not have the power to direct the course of all things. Considering that Intel was (and still is) running at 100% capacity then there are only 2 possible mistakes their management could have made. #1. Not having a clear enough view of the future when committing to building new fabs. Again I think you are expecting superhuman powers of prediction here and Intel is not superhuman. All they managed to do was produce more processors then anyone else in history. Still not good enough for you. So be it. #2. Intel did not shortchange Compaq or HP or IBM to satisfy Gateways demand. Quite a predicament to be in. If they had borrowed from Peter to pay Paul, we would hear condemnation from the AMDroids that Intel punishes the companies who do business with AMD, in this case CPQ, IBM and HP, while rewarding the faithful, Dell and GTW. Having heard no such complaints from the infidels, we must conclude that Intel treated all customers fairly. A fact that annoys the AMDroids to no end. Capacity was gone enzyme. Sold out in the greatest quarterly demand in history. If Intel failed to plan properly, just where did this failure occur? Was it in failing to commit to new fabs several years ago or failing to play a shell game with their customers? If you think they should have diverted more product to Gateway then who should Intel have shortchanged while still avoiding charges of punishing customers who stray? You have been quick to criticize but never specific. Just where did Intel fail? EP

To: enzyme who wrote (87556)	1/17/2000 1:33:00 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572171

I feel it is atrocious that AMD has taken this long to get Dresden on line. I wonder if the delays are due to engineering or monetary problems or both. As for Intel, yes I think mistakes were made a while ago... and I also don't think it was 3 years ago. I think Intel does have incredible abilities in bringing Fabs on line and can do so much faster than AMD... which brings me back to the previous paragraph 'zyme, after your comment re Intel, I looked at Intel's sequential revenue gains from Q'3 to 4 for the past 4 years. The increase from quarter to quarter for each year was: 1996.......$1.3 1997.......$0.4* 1998.......$1.6 1999.......$0.9 And the increase from Q1 to Q4 for each year was: 1996.......$1.8 1997.......$0.1* 1998.......$1.6 1999.......$1.1 After looking at these numbers, it is clear that the 1999 rev increase up from Q3 to Q4 fell within normal parameters for the past 4 year period with the notable exception of 1997, a recession year. Further the 1999 rev increase from Q1 to Q4 also was within normal parameters again with the only exception being the recession year of 1997. {BTW I purposely did not break out the cpu division's numbers since Intel longs have long complained that you can not look at one without the other.} These rev increases indicate there was nothing unusual with the Q4 sequential increase in revs in 1999 nor with the increase from Q1 to Q4. Given that scenario, it would seem that Intel had adequate time to prepare for Q4, 1999, and that they should have planned for at least a $1.5 increase in revs, and planned capacity issues accordingly. Yet they fell considerably short. Why? Do you all think it was poor planning? If capacity was the issue, were measures taken to avert a problem like putting the fabs on three shifts? Was fab space reallocated to the CPU division (which I believe is one of the most profitable divisions at Intel) to insure sufficient product? Why weren't non fab buildings that take less time to build put up to free room for cpu production? Obviously the answers to these questions would have to come from PB or Tench if their NDA's permit. If yields were not a problem as Intel claims, it looks to me that quarter planning is not anywhere near a science at Intel. Any thoughts? And before the Intel longs go into cardiac arrest and start trashing this post, remember a reasonable discussion may put this issue to rest once and for all. ted *denotes recession year