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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wanna_bmw who wrote (56114)	9/23/2001 6:22:48 PM
From: TGPTNDR	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

wab, Re: 56114 LOL... EXCELLENT I especially liked 'The only thing that is going to get Hammered is AMD, unless they can find a way to get at least a little support from the big OEMs.' ROFLMAO!! But I suppose you're right, in a sense, as they would get hammered if CPQ, HWP, GTW & IBM, etc. weren't selling their goods. And if they hadn't gone from ~ 10% of the mobile market to ~30% in the last 9 months. And if they didn't command the high ground of the flash market. There is a lot riding on INTC's bet on the obsolete PIV which is JUST NOT GOING TO WORK in the commercial space in general. And I'm looking forward to the next $15.00/share that I'm going to make on INTC. ;-] tgptndr

To: wanna_bmw who wrote (56114)	9/23/2001 7:58:30 PM
From: pgerassi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

Wanna_bmw: Can't seem to leave your rose colored glasses off for even a minute. P4 is lousy at current x86 software. One of the huge selling points that Intel used to extract server market share was the wealth of applications already running on x86 systems. This vast wealth of applications, that was optimized for Pentium Classics, IIs and IIIs, runs very poorly on P4, but very well on Athlons and its derivatives. Now Intel has thrown that baby out with the bath water by attempting for the fourth or fifth time to switch architectures to IA-64 from x86. It will not be able to use as a selling point that vast supply of x86 applications and whereas a recompile could help P4, a rewrite is required to make it run well on a IA-64 box (still hearing of compiler troubles with IA-64). That kind of thing usually nets you about 5 to 10% of the market which usually chooses the software and then, if necessary, the hardware. Pioneers can be very fluid. The rest of the market will fight before switching. This is not AMD's problem. All the wealth works without a change. Testing of that wealth takes about 6 months to a year for compatible hardware. For incompatible hardware, add 1 to 4 years, if ever. A great performance or a great price may shrink the time for the ramp, but testing still takes the same amount of time. X86-64 is compatible. It does not need IA-64's lag time of a year or more. Given that for untouched x86 applications, P4 has between 33 to 66% of the performance at same clock of P3. Against Palomino, 25% to 50% of the performance at same clock. IA-64 in compatibility mode has 5% to 10% of the performance of P3 at same clock. Have not seen enough native mode IA-64 real world software times to compare. X86-64 has three big reasons for superior desirability of existing customer base. X86 applications work at full speed completely compatible (just plug in and use). Hammer will have much higher base performance (x86-32). Hammer allows for a 64 bit mode that is piecewise upgradable (start with 64 bit OS, and move applications over one at a time when they are ready). A bonus is that 64 bit performance will be even better than the already great IA-32 bit performance (flat register set, twice the GPRs and SSE(2) regs and no more segment registers (easier for a compiler to optimize)). IA-64 will be dropped even faster than it was pioneered. After taking a brightly lit four lane interstate off ramp, IA-64 pioneers have faced a road that turned into two lanes, then became twisty, graveled with under construction signs, numerous partial washouts, centered with grass and lastly two mud tracks lit with construction beacons terminating with a bridge with signs of McKinley Bridge and FUD river. The other side is shrouded in dense fog and what you can see of the bridge is strewn with gaping holes, rebar and lumber. Next to the bridge is a interstate on ramp signed x86-64 Hammer. It is well lit and looks just like what you left way back there going twice as fast or more. What do you think most pioneers will do? You guessed it, they will leave the IA-64 way in droves saying "they don't pay me enough for this sh--!" They have found out about AMD in notebooks and left Intel in droves. You hope it will not happen with IA-64. P4 Xeon may have more chance, but don't bet on it. Pete

To: wanna_bmw who wrote (56114)	9/23/2001 8:22:09 PM
From: Dan3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Re: your post is nothing more than a combination of speculation and wishful thinking. I can almost hear the words, "I like AMD. My friends like AMD. So they world must be switching to AMD It's great to hear how unconcerned a typical Intel supporter (and employee?) is that AMD has gone from 12% of the market to about twice that in roughly 18 months. In another 18 months, how much of the market will AMD have left for Intel? you and others seem to think that AMD's 64-bit success is nearly guaranteed, even though they are at a complete loss for support. You just don't get it. Unlike Itanic/Mckinley, Hammer doesn't need special support. That's the genius of AMD's strategy and the achilles heel of Intel's strategy. AMD makes it very easy for its customers, while Intel forces them to bend their IT programs into pretzels to make life easy for Intel. Large businesses don't want tier-3/4 OEMs servicing their IT department Large businesses grow slowly and will be buying very little new equipment for quite a while. The real growth comes from small and medium size businesses - the ones AMD is targeting. And those are the companies that are buying (to the degree that anyone is buying). Fast growing, moderate sized companies often prefer to buy from other fast growing, moderate sized companies knowing that they'll get better attention and service as a medium sized fish in a medium sized pond.