Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clarksterh who wrote (18027)	3/21/1998 1:45:00 PM
From: akidron	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

amat has often alluded to the special relationship it has with intel... they are very much coke and macdonalds... when kumer nathen was still posting this was very much one of his themes.... because intc has been at the forefront of new tech... it has often set prices for new euip... as their margins suffer would in not be reasonable to asume that they will seek to extract better deals from amat et al. this is very much the experience of other industries such as auto's and steel... and that the shrink in intc's margin will drive amat's margins lower at least in their business with intc, but perhaps all over. as for your point that other segments will soon take over from pc's.... this i doubt... and would like to hear other's opinions... and my reason is that growth outside the pc, server, work station markets, such as the new markets for set top boxes, mobile telephoney, and digital tv is in consumer areas that are very price sensitive... I have already posted that TCI's limit price for the cpu in its set top boxes was $10, and that nokia has announced a long term pact with AMD to use the K6 because none of these apps need the latest and greatest, just something that works.... in other words this expansion is taking place in exactly the low margin theatre that intc initialy said they would foresake.... for fear of shrinking margins... in actual fact it seems to me that pc's are the only consumer device anywhere near the market inteligent enough to require cutting edge cpu's, and therefore the market will only really expand again when there is a teriffic new need for more power... however... here as they say is the rub.... the consumer is driving the market right now and the consumer isn't going to pay much more than $1000 for anything... in fact it seems to me that they will just demand the extra power and spped for the same price... in the business market its different ---- for now... but cpq is close (from desperation) to breaching $1000 for respectable business machine, and even if they don't micron, gateway or joe bloggs will... why in the end should the pc market be much different from the tv market... there's one producer (apple) that can like sony get away with a higher price because of a percieved ergonomic advantage, and the rest producing barely profitable versions of each others products.... FYI i know its not as black and white as this... but I wanted to do the broad strkes to see where the general theory is wrong.... FYI gotta go catch my plane now.... have a good weekend ALL