To: Maxwell who wrote (41400 ) 11/13/1998 12:26:00 AM From: Maxwell Respond to of 1573501
AssHok Kumar Speaks on AMD, K6-3, and etc. Got this over Yahoo thread by rabiddfan --------------------------------------------------------------------- 11/12 21:04 Advanced Micro sees rising sales from new products By Duncan Martell PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov 12 (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices <AMD.N> Chief Executive Jerry Sanders on Thursday forecast rising sales during the next three years as the chipmaker brings out more products to compete against rival Intel Corp <INTC.O>. Speaking at a meeting with financial analysts' at the company's headquarters, Sanders said revenue in 1999 could be $3.7 billion, rising to $4.4 billion in 2000 and $5.8 billion the following year. AMD, which had been hampered in the past year with production problems, has solved them and also raised its forecast of the number of K6 chips it plans to sell in the fourth quarter 4 percent to 4.7 million from 4.5 million. Executives laid out an aggressive plan for new products in the next three years as it seeks to broaden the number of personal computer makers that use its chips, become a bigger player in the laptop market and expand into the small- and medium-sized business market. While it will not be competing head on with Intel -- the world's largest computer chipmaker -- in the market for high-end server computers, if AMD is successful it could gain more market share against Intel on the low end, analysts said. "Their strategy is not that Intel has to lose for them to win," Bill Milton, an analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman said. "These guys have a realistic plan and they've got a better value proposition at the low-end." AMD's success -- and also revenue and profit growth for Intel -- is predicated on PC demand not falling off a cliff next year. Analysts have said the biggest wild card for next year remains the global economy. The company said it expects to have 14 million PCs in the market using AMD K6 chips with 3DNow! technology by the second quarter of next year. 3DNow! is a technology that enhances multimedia performance of PCs and is, according to analyst Milton, superior to Intel's own, called MMX. "I would be quite satisfied if we remain close to Intel's performance," said Atiq Raza, co-chief operating officer and chief technical officer for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD. Raza said that a souped-up Intel Pentium II chip running at 450 megahertz was outperformed by AMD's forthcoming Sharptooth microprocessor running at the same speed. AMD's goal is for 30 million PCs with 3DNow! technology in the market by the end of 1999, Raza said. He added that the 3DNow!-enhanced PCs will be in the consumer PC market a full year ahead of Intel's next-generation multimedia technology, called Katmai. "We have not been sitting on our hands," Raza said. That technology, coupled with the Sharptooth chip due out in the first half of next year, could give AMD a leg up in the market for small- and medium-sized businesses, which often favor no-name PCs with few frills. "This is the next area of opportunity for us" where price and the speed of the microprocessor are paramount to brand loyalty, said Rob Herb, co-chief marketing executive for AMD. The main determinant of AMD's success and longer-term viability, one analyst said, is its forthcoming K7 chip, due out in second half of next year and which will run at 500 Mhz or more. "Right now they have a good team in place and good process controls, which they didn't have before," Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Piper Jaffray Inc. said. "But the K7 will either be a complete disaster or a runaway success and that totally depends on Compaq (Computer) and whether they use the K7." Maxwell