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

To: Road Walker who wrote (105490)	7/11/2000 10:31:18 PM
From: Eric K.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

John-- Attempting to reduce other people to simplistic categories tends to be a dangerous exercise. I appreciate Intel's fantastic contributions to human existence and happiness. When I consider the nearly billion-fold increase in processing power and million-fold decrease in cost over the life of the integrate circuit, I certainly thank Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. When I compare this progress to pretty much any other area of human endeavor, I am certainly impressed. However, I'm not going to let that accomplishment or the fact that AMD's majority existence has been as a second-source make me worship a company and treat anyone who doubts that company's present situation and decision-making of the last few years with, alternately, arrogance, scorn, and insults. Moreover, I'm not going to ignore the fact that the presence of National Semi, AMD, et al. maintaining open competition has been integral to the rapid advancement of microprocessors. This has been discussed a lot, but the reason AMD people doubt Intel Capital and its other initiatives is not because AMD people view them as bad areas, but rather Intel's adventures into them, as badly done. I see Intel's forays into graphics, for example, and question Intel's prognostication abilities. Further, I question how much of Intel Capital's huge capital gains have to do with the fact that there are a bunch of large and highly profitable successful companies that instead of taking the traditional approach of paying dividends have diverted these funds into often dubious companies, which, then, due to the amount of capital invested and the small float of most of these companies, leads to a self-fulfilling cycle of appreciation. What should Craig have done with a company that had a 90+% lock on its field to maintain a decent growth rate? Expand into other areas. Don't pride yourself on superior insight for observing this, or think that AMD people are ignorant or haven't considered the merits of Intel's approaches. Whether or not these forays will ultimately be successful, and whether they have led to problems for the core business that is responsible for 100% of the profits, is what AMD people wonder. Finally, your idea that I think Intel is an evil empire and that I own AMD options as a result is preposterous. AMD will have the capacity to get 30% of a ~30B market within a little over one year. I coupled this with an observation of AMD-Fujitsu's being the #1 supplier of flash memory, and carrying a premium for their memory (currently, AMD flash is priced at 150% to 225% of Intel's flash at the same capacity) and an AMD market cap of $2.5B. I compared this to a company with a $300B market cap with an operating income growing at an extremely anemic single-digit rate, with a lot of ventures into areas I consider dubious and with a decent probability of failure and made the rational choice. I suspect your accusing me of partisanship would be comical to a third-party observer. -Eric