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

To: kash johal who wrote (96665)	3/3/2000 9:14:00 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575119

Thanks for your thoughts, Kash. I'm sure there would be problems going down your route of buying big-name companies like Analog, LSI, etc., but I'm not going to pretend that I know more than you do. <If they had done this type of acquisition 2 years AGO Intel would be FAR FAR along the diversification path.> Sure. And if Intel had taped out Willamette two years ago, AMD would be ashes by now. Was Barrett even CEO two years ago? Tenchusatsu

To: kash johal who wrote (96665)	3/3/2000 10:12:00 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575119

Instead they have tinkered buying chips and tech, dialogic, DSP, Level One. All modestly significant companies - buts folks that had MODEST GROWTH, MODEST PROFITS etc. Kash Johal, I don't agree.....I had shares in Level One and DSP...they were not companies with modest growth and profits....in fact they were very profitable and growing quickly prior to the Intel acquisitions. However, what I had heard with both Level One and DSP is that at the time of the Intel buyout both companies were at the end of the state of the art curve in their product lines. In fact the day of the Intel announcement, Level One was getting its first downgrade and I was getting ready to sell. BTW both these companies are very typical of the kind of companies that CSCO buys. However it seems that CSCO is better at psyching out whether the product lines of the acquired companies have a lot of life left to them and that's why CSCO continues to experience 50% YOY growth even as a mature company. Assuming that I am correct about Level One and DSP, it would explain why Intel's acquistions have yet to show much benefit to its bottom line. ted

To: kash johal who wrote (96665)	3/3/2000 11:20:00 PM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1575119

Kash, Re: Diversification Craigs strategy is BRILLIANT. The execution SUCKS. Try looking at it from the point of view of the investor. Intel is a very successful company, but at this point, they can't find enough attractive opportunities for further investment in their core business that would generate acceptable return on investment. So instead of returning the excess profit to the investors in form of a dividend, they try to become a venture capitalist, private equity investor, investment manager, turnover specialist, creditor. Wouldn't the investor be better off deciding himself if he wants to invest in a bank, or buy into a venture capital, hedge fund etc, and go with the best of the class, rather than have electrical engineers making these investment decisions for him? From the point of view of the management, there are a lot of incentive to hold onto the money of the investors, because they act as a general partner of an investment fund, investing nothing, and skimming a percentage off the top in form of appreciating options. Most mature companies that have achieved saturation in their market do this. If you look back to the 80s, diversification was the trend, and the results were horrible. Recognizing this, companies got out of these side business, and concentrated on their core competency. Is Intel going to repeat this mistake a decade later? Or will Intel succeed where others (including most of the Japanese giants) failed? Joe