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

To: dmf who wrote (50945)	3/22/1998 8:05:00 PM
From: TCGNJ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Thread, Anyone buying INTC at these levels? TCG

To: dmf who wrote (50945)	3/22/1998 11:15:00 PM
From: Barry A. Watzman	Respond to of 186894

I do think that there will be a surge in hardware sales. I also think that the financial impacts of Win98 are being grossly underestimated by almost everyone (I am talking about the impacts on Microsoft, which might be more of a "buy" right now than is generally recognized). That said, while Intel and (most, anyway) of the box makers are having a difficult time right now, the problem is NOT unit sales, but rather pricing, margins and inventory positions. The pricing structure of the industry has changed, and it is killing Intel and (most, anyway) of the box makers [Dell would seem to have been thus far immune, but I think that their time is comming]. Maybe this is good for the end consumer, maybe not. On the surface, it seems so, but if the loss of profitability leads to fewer competitors and a stronger monopoly for the remaining vendors it may have been short-sighted, even from the consumer's perspective. If this seems crazy, keep in mind that AMD and Cyrix, which played major roles in initiating this process, may well be among the first victims. From Intel's perspective, the best hope of getting the per CPU ASP (average selling price) back up is to get the market transitioned off of socket 7 devices. Ironically, the best way to do this will be to LOWER the price of the Pentium II, from the mostly above $300 range to an above $200 range. People will pay the extra $$$$, in my opinion, but they will have to feel that they are getting something for the extra money that they shell out. Pentium MMX 233's don't give that, and PII/233's are very marginal (at $300). But, a PII/266 at $200 or so will succeed, as will 350+ MHz PII's with a 100 MHz bus at somewhat higher prices, again raising the ASP's, even for the class of user that has been buying socket 7 chips.