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

To: Artslaw who wrote (37374)	9/23/1998 5:38:00 PM
From: Maverick	Respond to of 1572445

AMD Hints Another Computer Maker To Use Its New Chip In Portable PCs Dow Jones Online News, Wednesday, September 23, 1998 at 15:05 NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which has developed a chip that could help drive down the price of portable computers even further, Wednesday said an announcement was "imminent" that it has reached agreement with another computer maker to use its new K6-300 chip. The company declined to provide further details. AMD, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., already has started shipping a microprocessor for laptops that operates at 300 megahertz, the same speed offered by rival Intel Corp.'s fastest chip for the portable market. AMD said customers for the new product include Compaq Computer Corp., the No. 1 personal-computer maker, and other manufacturers that it isn't yet identifying. The new K6-300 will sell for $229, compared with $637 for Intel's (INTC) 300-megahertz Pentium II. Where computers based on those Intel chips sell for more than $3,000, AMD says the K6-based portable computers will sell for $1,999 to $2,499 this fall. Intel has been forced to cut prices rapidly in chips for desktop computers, but its stronger position in laptops has given it more latitude in that market. Intel earlier this month cut prices on its portable chips by 12% to 34%, but it left the price for its fastest Pentium II chips unchanged. Analysts said the competition from AMD and others will help change that. "There is no question that notebook prices are coming down," said Cameron Duncan, analyst at ARS Inc., a market researcher in Irving, Texas. "I think you'll see more impact next year and a reaction from Intel to speed the introduction of new technology." Intel's Pentium II line is generally considered better at handling multimedia functions than an AMD K6 chip operating at the same speed. In the first quarter of 1999, however, AMD plans to up the ante when it introduces a mobile version of an even more powerful chip, the K6-2, which has built-in graphics capabilities. That version will represent a departure for AMD in competing with Intel. To date, AMD has simply developed chips that fit into the same sockets as Intel's chips, allowing AMD to take advantage of Intel-developed technology such as main system boards.