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To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (171539)	10/10/2002 5:15:08 AM
From: Joseph Pareti	Respond to of 186894

Opteron (a.k.a. "bird 'n the bush") vs. fatta pocket :-) ==========================================================:-) With its superior balance sheet, Intel has kept innovating while its rival struggles. In a sour market, balance-sheet strength matters. Just ask execs at the two dominant PC-microprocessor makers, Intel (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Intel, with its superior financial position, is applying the squeeze to AMD. And what is now a two-horse race to control the microprocessor industry may soon become cake-walk for Intel. Only a month ago, AMD warned that it will have to delay the release of its next-generation "Hammer" microprocessors. Then, on Oct. 2, the company cautioned investors that Q3 sales would be just $500 million, sharply down from the $615 million consensus forecast. In contrast, AMD bagged $600 million in the June quarter. You have to go back to 1998 to find the last time AMD's quarterly sales have been this low. Trouble is, lower sales will lead the company to report sharply higher losses. AMD is expected to lose $200 million in both the September and December quarters. And analysts have now concluded that rising losses could spell trouble for the company's ever-weakening balance sheet. Most agree that AMD, at current burn rates, will run out of money by the end of next year. Investec's Eric Ross thinks the company has five quarters of cash left, but "this drops to roughly two quarters if current debt ($367 million) is considered," he calculates. The seeds of AMD's destruction were actually planted more than a year ago. That's when Intel decided to aggressively price its chips to take market share from AMD. Moreover, Intel's massive R&D machine has enabled the company to crank out higher-performance chips while AMD has stuck with its aging line of Athlon and Duron processors. "With its performance lag growing, AMD has been losing share to Intel since the second quarter of last year," CIBC's Quinn Bolton tells Multex Investor. In that time, AMD's market share has fallen from 22.6 percent to 12.6 percent, he adds. Moreover, AMD's relatively weak product line is forcing the company to slash prices. Lehman Bros.' Dan Niles estimates that AMD's Average Selling Price (ASP) slumped 18 percent sequentially in the third quarter to $50. "Intel looks much better with ASPs down only slightly quarter-to-quarter to $154," he adds. The turnaround in fortunes comes as a surprise to those who thought AMD would continue to build market share, as it had done in 1999 and 2000. "We believed that AMD had improved and become more of a competitive threat to Intel," notes GKM's John Geraghty. But now he concedes that "Intel has been flexing its strength with its stronger and more diverse product portfolio and aggressive pricing strategies." To get back on track, AMD has its hopes pinned on a new generation of processors. But the above-noted delay in shipments until the first half of 2003 could be a problem. "Even then, we believe AMD will launch the Hammer starting with a weaker foundation and a lower market-share position than we had anticipated a few months ago," concedes UBS Warburg's Tom Thornhill. As a result, he thinks "AMD will experience market-share erosion in the next several quarters as Intel accelerates the introduction of higher-performance Pentium 4s." Lehman's Niles concurs: "AMD will have to restructure, and their competitive position versus Intel will only get worse over the next couple of quarters." AMD's weak sales could catalyze a vicious cycle in which the company will need to conserve cash by slashing R&D. "AMD will have to lower its capital-expenditure plan for 2003," predicts Thornhill. And there's not a lot of fat to cut. As of now, prior to any possible cuts, AMD is expected to spend $450 million in capex in 2003, according to Sanford Bernstein's Adam Parker. In contrast, Intel maintains an annual capex budget in excess of $5 billion. "Intel's solid financial position is a competitive advantage," says CIBC's Bolton. As of June 30, Intel had $10.6 billion in cash and investments. Look for Intel to keep the heat on AMD. By weakening (and possibly eliminating) its rival, Intel can once again attain the robust pricing power it saw in the mid-1990's. Intel is set to weigh in with quarterly earnings on Tuesday, Oct. 15, while AMD will hold a conference call on Thursday, Oct. 17.

To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (171539)	10/10/2002 6:59:38 AM
From: Mahatmabenfoo	Respond to of 186894

--- Ya know it IS hard to argue with someone who just makes --- shit up or with people like you who impolitely distort what you are responding to. -- Isdn was the phone company's baby that was 64k thru two -- of the unused lines and they wanted 200/month. USR -- figured out how to pump 64 down one line for the cost of -- the modem. Look at what I wrote again. ISDN was around in 1984 at the time AT&T was broken up -- wayyyy before 56k modems, which in case you haven't notice almost never work at 56k, and in many places can't manage more than half that. And ISDN 64k lines could be combined to produce 128k -- pretty hot for 1984 when the standard modem was LESS than 1k (300 baud modems, anybody?). --- do you think laid all that fiber? Petsco or --- att/pacbell? LOTS of companies -- lots. And a lot of them are bankrupt, and should be. A lot of companies doing the same thing is ineffecient and leads to really stupid results, and the current telecom mess is the best evidence of that. The deregulation and insufficient oversight that led to Worldcom going bankrupt many lead to its suppliers going bankrupt may lead to... who knows: check the DOW today and see. Eventually all the debt to put all that useless glass in the ground is going to wind up at the banks, and then in our pockets as the feds bail them out with out tax bucks. The telecos crashed because they made a lot of useless redundant stuff, and because no one wants the hi-tech internet-in-the-bathroom, internet-in-your-belt-buckle fantasies they are spinning. And all the experts who said things like "there can never be enough fiber" turn out to be idiots -- often rich idiots who sold out before the people they were advising. The telecos deserved to crash --only it's too bad their demise is as bad as it is for the economy, and for all of us. - Charles

To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (171539)	10/10/2002 7:14:24 AM
From: Mahatmabenfoo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

"Isdn was the phone company's baby that was 64k thru two of the unused lines and they wanted 200/month" I don't know when you think it cost 200/month. What's amazing is that it was offered in 1984 when the phone company was first broken up -- so who knows how they would have deployed it, and at what cost. My point is -- it shows that your claim that the best the phone company invented was the princess phone is funny, but dead wrong. SECONDLY, ISDN was a lot better and cheaper than you imply. I did a quick search of dejanews and found the quote below -- and that was 1992!!!!! 3 years before the WWW became practical, and at time when the hot modem speed was still 9600. - Charles ============================== Search Result 1 From: Rob Warnock (rpw3@rigden.wpd.sgi.com) Subject: PacBell ISDN (was: Re: What Telcos REALLY Want) View: Complete Thread (2 articles) Original Format Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Date: 1992-05-09 23:34:48 PST <snip> > PacBell has not the slightest interest in offering ISDN to the masses ... > So what is PacBell doing to move ISDN along? Probably nothing. > PacBell has ABSOLUTELY NO PLANS at this time to offer basic rate ISDN > to ANYONE, business or residence ... John, this is simply not true. I can get PacBell ISDN service at home today, for $45.15/month for two lines -- one analog, one digital 2B+D, or "three dialtones for $15/mo/dialtone" -- or $58.97/month for two ISDN lines (four dialtones for $15/mo/dialtone). True, the tarriffs are a bit weird, requiring you to have Centrex service, with a whopping $585 installation charge -- of which $300 is "establishment of Centrex service". But the intra-LATA call rates are exactly the same as voice call rates. [Inter-LATA depends on one's ISDN IEC carrier. Some are the same as voice; some are a lot* higher.] And ISDN Basic Rate service is only available within 18,000 wire-feet of an ISDN-provisioned CO, which at the rate they're going I will absolutely agree with you is nowhere near universal access ... yet. But PacBell is selling and installing ISDN today, in some non-trivial quantity.