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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (19245)	6/5/2006 10:26:09 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Intel puts comms-chip businesses up for sale, says report Mark LaPedus EE Times (06/03/2006 4:02 PM EDT) SAN JOSE, Calif. — Troubled Intel Corp. has put several of its loss-ridden communications-chip businesses on the block, including its network processors, XScale chip lines and other products, according to a report from the San Jose Mercury News on Saturday (June 3). Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) spent more than $10 billion to enter the communications business over the years, but the microprocessor giant lost its shirt — if not millions of dollars in the arena. The reported communications-chip sale is said to be part of Intel’s plan to overhaul the company. Intel is also set to include the layoff or redeployment of 16,000 employees. According to the report, Intel has put the following product lines up for sale: Intel's IXP network processor and communications processor lines are on the block, the report said. Those lines made about $150 million in revenue for 2005, according to the report. Intel's Xscale processor business, including the StrongARM chip for PDAs, BlackBerrys, cell phones, handheld computers and portable media players, is up for sale, it said. That business made approximately $250 million in sales last year, according to the report. Other lines are also on the block as well. Starting in the late-1990s, Intel moved into the communications market in a major way, but the chip giant was hit hard by the downturn in the segment several years ago. It never fully recovered from the downturn. The chip giant also never really understood the complex nature of the communications business and its proprietary standards and lack of part commoditization in the marketplace. It also failed to dislodge its smaller but more nimble competitors in the sector, such as Broadcom, Marvell, STMicro, Texas Instruments, and others. For some time, Intel has been shedding many of its ill-fated communications efforts. In 2003, for example, Intel sold most of the assets of its Trillium Digital Systems Inc. subsidiary to Continuous Computing Corp. Intel paid $300 million for Trillium in August 2000. Most recently, struggling Intel will halt future development of optical physical-layer products developed by Giga A/S, a Copenhagen company Intel acquired in 2000 for $1.25 billion. With little or no fanfare, Intel is moving out of the embedded chip space. And there is speculation that Intel will exit or spin-off its NOR flash unit, which is also losing a ton of money. Still to be seen, however, is what Intel will do with it bread-and-butter microprocessor business, which is losing share to rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. One of the products in danger at Intel could be the 64-bit Itanium processor line, a chip that was late to market and has generated lackluster demand.

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (19245)	6/5/2006 2:03:08 PM
From: FJB	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 25522

I think I have to bookmark this one. Combined AMD/Intel sales are down 52% from last year. I would not be surprised if they are down, but 52% would be quite the drop. We should hear soon. I am curious if this guy was in Amsterdam when he wrote the report.

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (19245)	6/5/2006 8:02:25 PM
From: etchmeister	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25522

Reading the runes on the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics numbers for April... based on the same data - is this strictly because actual versus 3 months rolling average? The price war might be partially due to a shift towards emerging (low cost) markets. Unit growth: predicted a profits warning would soon be forthcoming from Intel Corp. where he said processor volumes fell 21 percent "More intense competition led to a sequential decline of 6.1 percent in sales of microprocessors, offsetting modest growth in the rest of the microchip market," said George Scalise, SIA president, in a statement. Sales of microprocessors, which make up 14 percent of the overall chip market, were up nominally year-to-year, Scalise said. April DRAM sales were up 3.7 percent sequentially and 7.7 percent year to year, he said. "The PC market remains strong, with unit sales of personal computers running 13 to 15 percent ahead of last year's levels," Scalise said. Since both Handelsbanken and SIA make statements on the same data someone must be misleading; and how would one break down CPU sales according to Intel and AMD? And from Don's post actual monthly sales for April are up while 3 months average declined slightly: Now we can look at the comparison of the first 4 months of 06 compared to 05. - ACTUAL MONTHLY SALES(1,000s) - PCT - 2005 2006 DIFF CHG Jan 17305948 17395092 89144 0.5 Feb 17222418 18556818 1334400 7.7 Mar 20549813 23107722 2557909 12.4 Apr 16621575 17135347 513772 3.1 May 16982507 Jun 20270889 July 16806651 Aug 18685898 Sep 23179234 Oct 18308124 Nov 19732889 Dec 21818191 TOTAL 227484137 76194979 4495225 SIA Forecst 245455380 7.9 S&P Forecst 254782230 12.0 Thru Apr71699754 76194979 4495225 6.3