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Intel To Slash Prices Up To 60%
Chuan-kai Lin writes "According to Bloomberg, Intel will slash product prices by up to 60% in order to regain market share captured by AMD." From the article: "Intel said it will reduce prices of faster dual-core chips by about 15 percent, according to Alex Lin, a product marketing manager at Micro-Star, Taiwan's third-largest maker of motherboards, which connect electronic parts in computers ... Shares of Intel have fallen 33 percent since Otellini succeeded Craig Barrett in May last year. Advanced Micro's stock has gained 77 percent during the same period. Intel fell 31 cents to $17.08 at 12:06 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Advanced Micro dropped $1.55, or 5.5 percent, to $26.45 on concerns that Intel will lower prices."
It will either mean cheaper Macs, or Macs with more features for the same price.
Remember that Apple is not a company that tries (too hard) to compete for the bottom end of the market. Even the Mac mini isn't designed to compete with a bargain-basement Dell. Apple might very well cut their prices with cheaper chips, or they might sweeten the deal with larger hard drives, making the low-end mini use a Core Duo rather than a Core Solo, etc.
However, as a Mac owner and someone who's looking to replace an iBook with a MacBook (Pro) in the near future, this is good news indeed.
Notice that the price drops are the same day as when Core 2 Duo is released (July 23rd), that means
the price drops are on the older P4s. That's great if you don't mind getting a P4, but Intel is doing what any other company would do. Drop prices on older products to clear out space for newer ones. Makes sense.