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

To: John Chen who wrote (67767)	11/3/1998 7:51:00 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

John, re: "As far as DELL is concerned, it's a win/win/win in the CPU situation regardless of AMD's fate. Probably the more success AMD has, the better off for DELL since it's the ONLY LOYAList left in town." I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If the assumption is that AMD will take market share from Intel, and Dell remains an Intel "loyalist", then the result should be that Dell loses market share. No? I have been selling products into the mass merchant retail marketplace for my entire career, but I'm still surprised by the dynamics. None the less, my take on the retail PC business: 1. I said this long ago and will repeat it (sorry Fred), as the industry matures, the "finished goods" manufacturers, the boxmakers, will command more brand equity than the component makers (Intel). Folks that want to buy a computer will buy it from their choice of IBM, Dell, HWP, whoever, because of the positioning and marketing of the brand. I think this has already started, thus AMD's success in the low end retail market. 2. AMD success has been helped by Intel's dominance of the technology and it's prior marketing strength. When Intel Inside was in full stride, a marketer like Compaq would hate it when a consumer bought a PC because it was an "Intel PC" instead of because it was a "Compaq PC". The PC makers need brand loyalty to build their business, the obvious choice was to sell other component brands to wean the consumer from Intel, and the obvious way to accomplish that is with price. 3. As component branding continues to become less important to the consumer, the choices of vendors for the PC makers will revert to a price/performance matrix. Others on this thread understand this far better than I do, but I suspect Intel is better positioned to compete in this arena. Bottom line, I think Intel is better positioned for increasing market share in the consumer market than they were a year ago. Their product strategy is better, and their relationship with their customers is probably better. Pendulums swing both ways, and I sense that this may be the high point for AMD. Always, my humble opinion. John