Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lee who wrote (76720)	2/29/2000 9:40:00 AM
From: gnuman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

zdnet.com

To: Steve Lee who wrote (76720)	2/29/2000 10:14:00 AM
From: Earlie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Steve: There's a tiny bit more to the situation than your comment about INTC's price cutting policy would suggest. To begin with, while Intel still held a monopoly, the company would cut prices ( 2 or three times per year) across the board as newer models came into solid production. At the same time, they would slowly but surely turn off the supply tap on lower level chip production, thus forcing everybody into the higher level (higher margin) micros. It was a clever process through which Intel ensured decent margins. Note that in this process, the price cuts were made in accordance with Intel's own schedule. By the way, those price cuts NEVER occurred with anywhere near the current frequency. Today it's another story. Intel is trying to stave off a very formidable foe that now holds a serious performance advantage. Intel endeavors to slow AMD's onslaught by announcing future products that MAY be competitive with currently available Athlons, and by sending out hand-picked ("yield-picking") micros to the magazines for test purposes,... micros that the company simply cannot yet supply in quantity due to yield problems. I also suggest you check out the front end bus specs for the Athlon and compare them with the best current specs for RMBS-Intel memory interface. No contest. Incidentally, I'm not the only one (now) who thinks RMBS is a dead duck. More and more industry insiders are coming out and saying as much. Even the cheerleaders (such as PC Week) are printing articles that point out the problems. One more thing. It isn't wise to make statements that you cannot back up with facts. AMD's new Dresden production facility is probably the best in the world right now (note Intel's statement that they will spend serious money to "upgrade") and the Taiwanese have some surprises for Intel just coming on stream. Intel is fighting this war with price cuts, not proficiency in production, which says it all. Also, it doesn't take rocket science to understand why there was a "shortage" of high end P3s. It wasn't demand (which was, and still is, lousy) it was Intel's inability to supply (yield problems). I'll have more to say on some of the new memory approaches in the near term. More homework required, but very promising at this stage. Best, Earlie