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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Engel who wrote (37144)	9/18/1998 8:06:00 AM
From: gnuman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570914

Paul Engel, re: <You are developing quite a habit of making erroneous estimates, Gene.> Searching for something to gloat about, I see. ;-) For someone who never makes earnings predictions you won't ever be accused of being wrong. But you may be premature. Why not wait till earnings are in before gloating? As for AMD, I think the AMD players of Maxwell's game will be a lot closer to actual Q3 earnings than the consensus. If so, AMD will take off. And if AMD starts making money, how will you end all your AMD posts. Won't be able to say, "but AMD is losing money" in repsonse to AMD posters. ;-) As for Intel, while revenues will be higher for Q3, (a no-brainer it seems), it remains to be seen if earnings will meet consensus. As I mentioned a number of times, I think the key to Intel is Xeon's ability to offset PPro in Q3. If this is where the most of the increased revenues are coming from, it should offset declining CPU ASP's. If the increase in revenues is primarily from increased PC shipments, I wonder if they can make the analyst forecast earnings growth. Increasing earnings from $0.66 to $0.80 Qtr/Qtr will require a lot more than 8% revenue growth, especially when you consider the increased expenses. Why not wait till the results are in before deciding estimates are erroneous? Then perhaps you can gloat. ;-) Gene

To: Paul Engel who wrote (37144)	9/18/1998 6:32:00 PM
From: Maverick	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1570914

Compaq, CTX International Inc. use K6 chips for notebooks Double Duty: Visibility Boost, Price Cuts -- AMD takes on Intel at high, low ends Kristen Kenedy Special from Computer Retail Week -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is waging a two-pronged attack against Intel Corp. in the desktop CPU market, attempting to increase its visibility with high-end business customers while cutting prices on low-end chips. Two days after Intel launched the Celeron processor with cache late last month, AMD unveiled a 350MHz K6-2 chip for high-end desktop systems and dropped prices of its older K6-2 CPUs below those of the new Celeron. AMD, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is working with retailers that serve small and midsize businesses to develop corporate sales programs, which may include a special PC SKU based on the K6-2 processor, said David Sheffler, vice president of North American sales at AMD. The company has started a program offering early delivery options for its 15,000 authorized resellers, allowing them to receive new CPUs at the same time as top-tier PC manufacturers. The chip company also has launched Government Connection, a program to recruit resellers to take the vendor's processor solutions to federal, state and local governments (CRN, Sept. 7). Meanwhile, AMD is taking its message directly to large corporations. AMD representatives are lobbying IT managers to buy systems with K6-2 CPUs for offices, said Dana Krelle, vice president of marketing at the computation products group at AMD. The company is pushing the 350MHz K6-2 toward business users. The consumer PC market, on the other hand, is experiencing high growth at the low end, which has been AMD's stronghold. Keeping its eye on the consumer space, the vendor reduced the price of 300MHz and 333MHz K6-2 CPUs to beat Intel's Celeron with cache, Krelle said. The K6-2 previously was priced 25 percent below a comparable Pentium II CPU but higher than the Celeron. AMD did not consider the 266MHz and 300MHz Celeron without cache serious competition because it did not perform up to standards, Krelle said. Instead, AMD tried to position the K6-2 against the Pentium II. "Because the [Celeron with cache] is a decent product, we wanted to make sure we offered a competitive advantage," he said. AMD will position K6-2 against the Celeron where clock speeds overlap. Faster K6-2 processors, such as the 350MHz and the upcoming 400MHz versions, will be priced to compete with the Pentium II, Krelle said. AMD expects more notebook vendors to support its CPUs this year, Krelle said. Only Compaq Computer Corp. and CTX International Inc. currently use K6 chips for notebooks. AMD is on schedule to provide a 400MHz K6-2 next quarter and the K6-3 either next quarter or in the first quarter of 1999, he said. Computer Retail Week is a publication of CMP Media Inc. --- CHIP MARKET SNAPSHOT Intel has long dominated the microprocessor market, but rivals AMD and Cyrix (now owned by National Semiconductor) continue to fight the good fight. Here is a sampling of products: AMD K6-2 WITH 3DNOW CLOCK SPEED: 350MHz; SYSTEM BUS SPEED: 100MHz; PRICE: $317 AMD is touting the chip as a competitive performance device. Resellers are receiving it at the same time as top-tier PC manufacturers. INTEL PENTIUM II CLOCK SPEED: 450MHz; SYSTEM BUS SPEED: 100MHz; PRICE: $669 Intel says the processor is fine for entry-level servers and workstations, as well as performance and consumer PCs. INTEL CELERON CLOCK SPEED: 333MHz; SYSTEM BUS SPEED: 66MHz; PRICE: $192 The addition of 128 Kbytes of Level 2 cache gives Intel's budget processor some needed 'oomph.' CYRIX MII CLOCK SPEED: 333MHz-compatible; SYSTEM BUS SPEED: 83MHz; PRICE: $188 The chip is aimed at the growing budget-PC market. Cyrix's parent is ramping up a fab in Maine with plans to phase out a foundry deal with IBM.