sharikou 180

Trouble Brewing Ahead For AMD’s Barcelona Processor

If it were as simple as that then AMD has nothing to worry about. But remember that both Intel and AMD have built a lot capacity - between them the market is over-supplied. And for every deal AMD is willing to cut a discount, so is Intel. The final equation OEMs look at are price/performance/watt... So it's not enough for AMD to sell a few Barcelonas to some 3rd tier OEM in an emerging market. This is a server product that will be tested and evaluated by not only the OEMs but their customers. AMD needs to sell millions of these and they cannot do that if the product is not competitive.

Apple's iPhone and the Future of Intel

Intel's initiative is distinctly different from the Apple iPhone. Apple's product is still a smartphone. Where Apple has thrown down the gauntlet is it's one of the first smart phones with full internet capabilities - i.e. a full browser.

Intel is not going after smartphones (they sold that business to Marvell). What they are trying to do is create two new categories:

Ultra mobile PC's - 1st gen products are already out there and second gen will appear in Q3. This is a very small handheld computer that can run Windows, is wireless and basically shrinks your laptop into something that will fit in a jacket pocket. When the product is mature, the hope is these will be somewhere around 600$.

Mobile Internet Devices - these are specific devices split into three distinct usage models. Entertainment, location based services and communication. The reference designs are based currently on Linux and the intent is to bring these down into significantly low price points - sub 500$ and possibly even down to 200-300 bucks.

Ok - the point of all this is:

1) Intel does not intend to compete with Apple. These platforms that Intel is developing can be semi-customized for different manufacturers so they can build different and distinct products:
www.forbes.com/2007/05...

2) There are two reasons why the iPhone or any other smartphone device is not a competitor to notebooks or UMPCs which is where Intel started with their SOC (system on chip) platforms. Screen size and keyboard. Regardless of the hardware capabilities to carry Windows or Linux or OSX or just a smartphone OS, it is the usage models the device allows that drive the categorization. You will not be able to conduct a full day's work reading docs, creating powerpoints, editing images, etc on the iPhone or any other smartphone for that matter. If someone is on a 5 day business trip, they still need a compute device where they don't have to squint to read the doc or be tapping a stylus to try and create a powerpoint. That's where the UMPC fits in.

We'll have the iPhone in a few months. At which point I'd be interested to see whether you have thrown away any notebooks you may have lying around.

Sharikou 180
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Even Without Competition From AMD, Intel Cuts Quad-Core Prices

Expect this to be the first of cuts. I expect Intel to accelerate their quad core attack in 1H07 for the following reasons:

1. The faster Intel can move the market to quad core before AMD can release their product, the more advantage they have in the market.

2. More importantly, if they can move a chunk of the market to quad core, this once again puts pressure on AMD's capacity as it takes more sillicon to make quad cores as opposed to dual cores. Any supply shortfall means AMD has to walk away from their customer's which is a bad situation to be in.

3. Intel themselves are probably sitting on too much capacity. Because their quad core is really two Core 2 stuck together, this allows them to use their capacity while selling higher priced products.

Hence, their desire to drop prices. I suspect, we will see quad cores from Intel at 999USD by Q1 07.

Sharikou180
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