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Technology Stocks : Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Doug Soon who wrote (4938)	5/30/1998 5:56:00 PM
From: Eli Lauris	Respond to of 14451

I wouldn't get too panicky about a 6 month delay, considering the complexity and length of the chip design process. Merced is a state-of-the-art chip requiring new manufacturing techniques. If anyone can pull it off, it's Intel, even if a few months late. Does anyone remember that Windows 95 came out a year late ? Panic by some investors is an opportunity to buy at fire-sale prices for others.

To: Doug Soon who wrote (4938)	6/1/1998 1:35:00 PM
From: John M. Zulauf	Respond to of 14451

> panic on the INTC thread anybody who is surprised by the delay clearly doesn't know enough to be investing in it. That great contra-indicator Jesse Berst even has joined the clueless chorus. zdnet.com Talk about overreaction. He says in the same article that Intel stands at risk from both growing competition and anti-trust actions. To quote the Princess Bride -- "truly you have a dizzying intellect" You want to know what would be enough cause to panic? The worst case is, if in the low-probability scenario (in late 1999) INTC starts to sample the chip and finds unresolvable trouble -- that'll be time to panic. IBM had this trouble with never-saw-the-light-of-day PowerPC 620, and I believe Intel had a similar problem in the late '70's with some 8080 follow-on that allow the Z-80 dominance. In the tight timeline and tight labor markets of the tech industry 6-mo's is nothing. My prediction is that since INTC's partners (including SGI) will have more time to prepare for the chip transition, Merced's launch will be more successful with the delay. At first customer ship with the new schedule, there will be more and better OS support (for NT and the UNIX's), more and better computer systems built around the Merced, and more and better applications utilizing it's abilities. In the tech industry it's almost never a mistake to delay a schedule 6mos (especially with >12 advance notice) in order to do the product right the first time. Shipping a flawed Merced on the original timeline would be far worse for INTC and all it's partners. Given that most computers systems (within a couple of standard deviations) won't need the 64bit addressing abilities (priced out 2-4GB's lately?) until well after 2000, and 64bit file support can be fudged on top of a 32bit CPU, the vast majority will be unaffected by this change. Actually, by announcing the early Intel has probably helped SGI's server and high-end workstation business. Customers expecting an 18 month lead time to Merced, just saw it jump to 24 months, and in the process may have lost confidence even in the new schedule. For mfg's of current generation 64bit systems including SGI, this should push a good number of waffling buyers off of the fence into current purchases. Thanks INTC! Cynically, one could claim that INTC knew of the cy2000 shipdate as the most likely scenario, but publish their optimistic scenario to FUD the competition into folding -- but that would be giving them more credit and blame than I think is accurate. just my humble and unofficial opinion. johnz