reinharden

Invest Cautiously for the Rest of 2008

One suspects that DELL's current problems have a lot more to do with DELL in particular than any other company. AAPL and HPQ and INTC all seem to be doing okay. STX is nearly supply constrained. And MSFT doesn't seem to be disappointing more than one would anticipate just due to Vista.

While not growing as fast as we'd like, the computer side of the tech industry is still clearly growing.

reinharden

Low Flash Memory Prices Pressure Chip Makers

One suspects that with flash prices at all time lows and with overall demand practically non-existent, it might behoove AAPL to continue to buy flash on the spot market at these self-same new-all-time-low-price... every week rather than lock-in longer term, possibly higher prices.

I'm just saying...


And, if AAPL is unsure of their own demand, definitely better to stay on the spot market unless supplies start to look tight.

Perversely, generally speaking, in the current market, the longer AAPL goes without entering into new contracts, the less their supplies will cost.

reinharden

Five Reasons Intel May Weaken Microsoft

Malkiel, Apple learned back in the days of AIM that they don't want to be in the processor design business. And things are even worse now than they were then. A fab costs a fortune and you need to crank tens to hundreds of millions of parts through it annually to amortize the cost.

Far better to find a commodity part that works no worse than that of your competitors. Right now, AMD doesn't even bring that to the table since, at the moment, AMD's performance/dollar and performance/watt as well as top end performance all (at least arguably) fall short of Intel's.

Unless AMD does something relatively soon, they're getting down to the last generation of fabs that they can afford. AMD is slowly moving to 65 nanometers while INTC is moving on to 45 nanometers. That means that in terms of square millimeters that INTC marginal cost of goods sold will be about half of AMD's. And, at the moment, INTC can charge more for their products because they can outperform AMD's products.

So, unless you're a turnaround artist with deep pockets, now isn't the time to buy AMD.

reinharden

Intel vs. Negroponte: Time For AMD’s Take

Weird that AMD thinks INTC is a monopoly considering that AMD still holds something a bit over 20% marketshare. That's at least a duopoly. But I guess that wouldn't have any chance of playing in the press...

reinharden