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Intel to Cut Pentium III Prices
nemoest writes "Intel is planning on slashing the price on Pentium III's by as much as 15% on Sunday. After which, they also plan to also cut the prices on the Xeon, Pentium II and III, and Celron on August 22nd. It looks like they want to try to run AMD even further into the ground with convenient price slashing just as they gear up to release the Athlon. You can read the complete story here on Cnet's news.com. "
I'm happy with my AMD K6 300. I'll buy another as long as they continue to improve.
Well, with Intels this aggresive campain, there will be no competitor left, just like Microsoft is trying to do. :)
We'll should all buy AMD's by now
It seems that the newer x86 chips are going to draw more power.
Does anyone know how much the average PC adds to a US citizens electric bill 24/7?
>The problem is this. Intel's motivation is not
>to sell more PIIIs because they cost less.
>Instead Intel plans to run AMD into the ground.
How are they going to run AMD into the ground? By selling more P3's because the prices are lower. That is the point of competition. AMD has a better product, so Intel would be stupid not cut their prices to make their processors more attractive to buy.
Too damn true. My 333 o/c to 415 is doing wonderful(in a dual P6DLE LX no less). When I get the hankering, i am going to buy a ppga 333 with slotkey and pop that puppy in there and play a little Q3A with SMP. Other then that a alittle starcraft, I dont have much time for games anymore. Actually lately the game stuff seems counter productive, for I have to many other projects to hack away at (damn I just spent another 3 hours on SC?!?!?! What a waste.) Other then a little of the 3d stuff I am into, nothing much else needs more clock cycles.
Know what I got my Mom? My old PII-233 with 64 MB and she happy and doesn't need anymore, runs Win 95 just fine (before I get flames on that,she is late 50's and has *never* touched a computer, so I did not think Linux was appropriate, or at least I wanted to minimize my "help desk" time).
Well for as long as AMD has been out, Intel has created better products than them. Now AMD looks like their new product is the performance winner, and is a better value. Personally, I think that's great. Also, it would be stupid not to drop your prices when a competitor comes out with a superior product. It's not exactly like Intel is giving away their cheaps either; they are still more expensive than similarly clocked AMD chips. What would be unethical, on the other hand, would be to drop your prices so much that you run at a loss just to get rid of competition, then boost them up again when competition is gone. This is not what Intel has done, so I don't understand what your gripe is.
Nah. Intel always has a market for the chips that don't quite cut it at high clock speeds, but work just fine at lower rates.
Serious, AMD makes just as good, if not better chip at lower prices and puts them in the customers hands sooner than intel.
By doing this, 1) the customer get a cheap fast chip ontime, and 2) forces intel to try to do the same
Without AMD, INTEL would take the market by storm, for the fact that they would be the only serious x86 chip manufacter.
If AMD falls, INTEL will look more like another company we all know.
AMD is fighting for the customer, we need to fight for AMD.
I still eat at my local pizzaria, even though Papa John's and Little Caesar's offer better prices. Why? Because this particular small pizzaria offers a better product, better service, a better atmosphere, better people, more choices, and many times, for me, it is worth the extra price to pay for the added value. You get what you pay for. Small business is *not* dead, nor never will be, so long as enterprising folks continue to offer what the big boys simply can't. (Sure, I shop at Wal-Mart... but I also visit the neighborhood Fruit Market when I need local organic honey and other such things... ; )
That having been said, competition is good for everyone. Yes, AMD and Intel are fighting hard. As a result, both Intel and AMD are making better products. (Remember the K5?... boy have they grown up!) Both Intel and AMD are selling their products at lower prices. The consumer comes out winning.
Besides, AMD is hardly the poor little Mom 'n Pop Burger joint about to be squashed by Big Bad Burger Heaven. AMD will continue to do all right so long as they continue to offer solid products at solid prices (I remember when AMD was virtually unheard of... nowadays you can't go to Best Buy or CompUSA without seeing that half of the PCs sold anymore run AMD chips).
AMD rocks. I want a K-7. (K7s with SMP would rule!!!) But Intel is not the great Satan. In fact, their products power most of my Linux boxen (and to a lesser extent do Motorola, Digital, and AMD as well)... and of course they have helped fund the development of Free Software, aided in enhancing the egcs compiler, and have supported developing GNU / Linux for the IA-64 platform before Microsoft could even dream of such a thing. 'nuf said.
--
I forgot to login. ; )
For me it was the story on the new shipping company that didn't emphasize that it had a link to an actual story and that was so long (with Roblimo's comments) that you had to "click for more" Should be succint! The slashdot parody was a little off too. But it means more posts. The bad ones don't bother me, and he/she has made some good ones (a bit too many overall, but that's ok.)
...And that's why I'm not getting a PIII. More slashdotters should consider that as an important issue I think.
Not Possible. The consumer market is just about the only place where intel has and can make money. Sun, HP, and IBM have much better products with much greater uptimes than intel has. Intel doesn't have the market share in the high end server market to keep itself alive. I've seen articles on the stuff Sun is planning to put out. and it looks a lot better than anything I've seen from the Intel camp.
The slashdot parody should have made it as a quickie, i think.
What we must do is start supporting AMD actively! Slashdot readers should write some code that works sligthly better on AMDs. Perhaps even Linus could stick in a line or two that would make Linux crash on the Intel based hardware...
But seriously speaking, perhaps the community should stand up again and put our money where our mouth is and buy AMD products - if not for the money/performance ratio then at least for the lack of the dreaded processor ID. That's the main reason why Absolutely and Positively AMD will be my next processor.
Happy (and anonymous) Cyrix owner!
So you're saying the best reason to use AMD is that their chips are less convenient for programmers? Gee, that makes sense.
See, thats the thing, developers see speed, see the bar raised, and aim for that bar. You'll probably see that games will increase their geometry since the bus has increased with AGP (And will continue to increase with AGP4x and beyond) and processor FPU is going up. Hopefully they will all have lil complexity sliders like halflife and quake3, but thats teh idea- people shoot for the best thing out there when they start their development cycle, hoping that will be the norm by the end of it.. so everyone starting to write a game right now has a 550 p2 they are developing on, with 256 megs of ram.. by the time they are done, that may be their minimum system requirement.
Uh, competition is what improves products. This is as silly as the pro-american-car fools that told everyone to buy american cars when the Japanese cars were kicking everyone's butt back in the 80s. Guess what? The American car companies didn't go bankrupt; they improved their product.
If AMD can't compete, then they don't deserve sympathy, they deserve to die.
Uh, *every* company is out to "run their competitor into the ground." Oh, I'm sure many companies couch it in friendlier terms, but the goal is to increase sales and increase marketshare (or they are not in business for very long).
And, by the way, this is good. This is why we can get today's fast machines for practically pennies.
I was just going to come on and mention that a funny fact. Athlon is actually a registered trademark of a bathroom products company. I think urinal dividors or something. I have some other interesting facts about Intel. Merced shouldn't be sold large scale to the public for another 5 years. The first chips probably won't be for sale until next year. As for as Intel wanting to kill AMD. They don't want that at all. I heard this from Craig Barretts mouth. (CEO Intel Corp.) Competition is good.
Look the word up, then go out and get some, as you apparently have none.
I wont get one until it is free and includes the source ;-)
AMD has a somewhat better product now so Intel has to reduce their prices to compensate!
We are speaking of business. A capitalist economy. He who dies with the most money wins. Heave full sail and hoist the Jolly Roger, and the winner shall dance in the Kingdom of Heaven. Competition at any price: if you can't beat them, buy them; if you can't buy them, hire men named Guido; if that fails consider nuclear technology. Erm, I guess that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you can count on the fundamental principles of capitalism holding here:
-> Might Makes Right
-> Money is might
-> The weak deserve no pity -- in fact, if you come on a dying man you should finish him off and search his pockets for loose change. (erm, metaphorically)
-> All people must believe that no business ever suceeds without marketing a superior product. (*cough* Windows *cough*)
-> Any individuals commenting on this are irrational, communist, anti-capitalist, and threats to the American Way of Life.
This is actually an extremely rational way to run a country, if you happen to be one of the successful people in charge..not only does it keep the peons in line but it lets you feel that your superiority made you divinely ordained to lead. I'm surprised you've avoided noticing how our society works after living in it so long. (I assume you have ? )
Daniel
Tell me where I can by an Athlon now and I will. AFAIK it's vaporware, and to compare its price with the PIII at this point in time is not realistic.
MMX is good for software RAID. It is also good
for video, including dumb X servers. You could
use MMX in a paint program like the Gimp.
3dNow and KNI (and AltiVec) are all good for
scientific computing, printing, font scaling,
3d modelling, and games. If you ever need to
do a matrix multiply, these are for you.
Your OPINION has no basis in law. Dumping, predatory pricing, price fixing, are investigated, and when possible, PROSECUTED.
Have you ever heard of Mr Andreas, and a little company called Archer Daniels Midland? (ADM - Supermarket to the world!) Lisene price fixing? 2 years jail time? Hmmmmm?
do yourself a favor.. read a newspaper
It talks about the real world.
"When Intel decided to drop their prices, you can bet that in their meetings they did consider how this would appear to be predatory pricing... This alone, in my estimation, would keep them from doing just another routine price drop, THUS, they are truley engaging in predatory pricing and should be boycotted. Thank you. "
I can't find words to express my feelings for this load of.. umm comment.
Sorry Mr. Grove, we have to take you in.. see, you thought that lowering your price would make it appear that you were doing something similar to Predatory Pricing*. You still lowered your price, which proves that you actually DID want to take place in Predatory pricing..
But.. But..!
No 'Buts', you have to come with us. And a word of advice, if you hadn't thought that it MIGHT be predatory pricing (or had wrapped your head in Tin-foil befor thinking it) we would have no charges against you
*(similar because it isn't Predatory Pricing unless you sell below cost, which Intel isn't doing)
All this talk about how Intel is predatory and a monopoly,etc,etc. While one facet of the market Intel is much more a monopoly than anyone else except in the real low end. Motherboard chipsets. Look at the majority of the motherboards out there and note how many use Intel chipsets.
Ahh, if we could just improve by putting our old CPUs together instead of always buying new ones... but no, then nobody would want to buy new CPUs... we need them, don't you see ? [insert name of a new game here] needs an Intel 500Mhz or better... ! Woohoo..or not... I see lots of people who only need that much CPU power for games... what a waste...
Did you buy everything separately (via mail order) or from a place that guarantees the life of the overclocked Celerons?
I really want a dual celery system and I have about 500 to spend
-matt
I wouldn't preorder one right now either for the same reason, but Thresh's recent review seems to indicate that the AGP implementation actually works. If these results are confirmed by later reviews, AGP won't be a reason to stay away from AMD.
My opinion is that you need a keyboard with a shift or caps lock key...
If you get such a keyboard, please repost a coherent message with well formed reasoning.
You're welcome.
I use arcnet (You select your own id...). Ethernet cards can be swapped, and if used through a router, Ethernet ID's can be stripped/changed. Many new Ethernet cards can have their ID's changed in software. Linux supports this...
:-)
AFAIK motherboard BIOS numbers are the same on all "identical" BIOS. You can add such an identifier in if you like, though... Really worried? Just get your latest BIOS update, and change any suspicious numbers, and FLASH! (You'll need to be an assembly/machine language programmer to do this and still have a working BIOS...)
ARGH! Please, please, please, people! NATIONAL SEMI bought them out, and are selling Cyrix (the company) now...
Sorry for the rant tone, but hey, every time someone mentions Cyrix, no one knows who owns 'em... And they usually make wild (and wrong) guesses.
Their CPUs admittedly suck for FPU (games)... But are as fast (faster) than their PR rating for straight data throughput and integer ops. ie. They KICK ASS in servers... And their PR rating is against Pentium, and certainly not against the bastardized PII (celeron)!
With the K7, intel no longer has the fastest x86 /. that
chip. AMD has always beaten them on price, now
they beat them on speed and volume. They are loosing
money now because they haven't made a dime from k7
yet they still have the production costs. I wonder
if the day will come when we see articles on
say, "AMD lowers prices. Are they trying to under-cute
their rival Intel and (hopefully) cyrix?"
How about RedHat? They give away an operating system for FREE! How can Microsoft even be expected to compete with a company that is dumping their product on the market?
Yeah, by changing the card. Most cards can be soft-changed to work on another address but some cards don't allow it or only allow part of the address to be changed. Any program that wanted to still could read the real ID from the card.
Your IDE drive. SCSI probably has one too but I don't have a system here to test it on. It's amazing how people are outraged at the invasion on their "right" to privacy from Intel but don't even care that "it" has been there all along.
I agree. Even M$ doesn't try to mislead non-techies this much. And while they're careful never to say it *increases* bandwidth, they *do* imply it. Stuff like "with the PIII chip in this new Dell (which has a 56k modem, hence the bandwidth), you'll have the bandwidth to experience Internet multimedia".
BS may work short-term, but it isn't going to be a "Got Milk?" campaign any time soon. And I find it repulsive to rip non-techies off like that. Someone needs to smack Intel's marketing people around a bit.
Uh, huh. Like you'd care if AMD did this to Intel.
The only reason you like AMD more than Intel is because they were competing in the past, so their prices were better than Intel's.
>What is Predatory Pricing? ....
Wrong. Predatory pricing is *not* pricing your product lower to drive a competitor out of business. It's pricing the product *below production cost* to drive the competitor out of business.
What Intel is doing is perfectly legal. As for ethical...this is the business world. I consider their misleading ads more unethical than dropping prices.
Ya. Evil-minded b*stards. Trying to crush a good, all-American company like Microsoft. :-)
Lay off Intel. They've distanced themselves from M$, and aside from their nasty Internet marketing, I like Intel these days.
The word is "bias". "Because of your bias". Or "biases", if you're talking about multiples.
You bet investors/banks *will* keep throwing money at them. A) The more they put in, the more stake they have...they can't afford to let them go under now, and lose their previous investment. B) So Intel has $5B. So what? If there's such an incredible profit to be made by winning a war with Intel, AMD will get $6B from investors/banks that have the money and want huge profits once AMD takes over.
AMD is a big business. Trust me, it needs no sympathy.
--- Ed "Big Daddy" Roth ---
Why are so many /. readers humor impared?
> The smallest 'country' in the world to have its own top-level domain name is Norfolk Island, off the coast of Australia
Well, maybe. But the least populated area with its own top-level domain is the Bouvet Island north of Antarctica. Population: 0
Belongs to Norway IIRC.
> RISC chips have for a long time has CPU ID's.
Generally not true. I own an ARM2, ARM610 and StrongARM 110. None of them has something like Intels User ID. (Of course ARM610s and StrongARMs have an ID that tells the chip's revision, stepping etc.)
True: Nearly all modern (=non X86) computers (mostly RISC powered) have an inbuilt ID in one of those chips on (one of) the motherboard(s). This makes much more sense to me, since this ID will not change if you do an CPU upgrade.
Since everybody has at least one NIC in his computers, there's another unique ID (The MAC numbers.)...
BTW: Last time I read the specs Intel does not guarantee that the IDs are all unique.
I don't think Intel's ID is a big deal. Still no reason for me to buy Intel. If I can't afford an Alpha it might be an Athlon.
Did you notice that?
:-)
Alpha
ARM
Athlon
AMD
Acorn
Amiga
Atari
OK, the last three are killed by the wintel mafia and bad marketing.
(And then comes "N": NetBSD
To make some things clear about Merced:
* The 1GHz Athlon will be on the market probably Q2 next year. Don't expect Merced (any clock rate) before 2001.
* For the first few years Merced will be far too expensive for the desktop. Merced's is more in the area of the current Pentium II[I?]-Xeons than Pentium II[I].
* It will not run (emulate) x86 code faster than the current top x86 (wich is Athlon)
* If you want to "upgrade" to Merced and not run x86 you are changing the platform. If you don't mind changing the platform, why not change for something that really boosts? (e.g. Alpha.)
I think he was funny.
:-).
And fun is the reason for me to read all (ok, not all) those stupid comments here at all.
Do you think the US government would be spending so many millions of dollars each year watching companies like MS, Intel, IBM and AT&T in the past, if markets were always self adjusting? Speaking of textbooks, here is a textbook example of a circular argument. The market is not self-adjusting because the government spends resources to watchdog it, and the government spends resources to watchdog the market because it's not self-adjusting. The most common and avoidable logical fallacy! Before posting things like that it is a good idea reading some history and some basic business textbooks. Leaving aside the technical fallacy in your argument, if you really believe all of that it's you that needs to do some homework. Antitrust law has never been intended to "fix" market failures; it has always been intended to help politically connected firms who can't compete in the market.
Speaking of textbooks, here is a textbook example of a circular argument. The market is not self-adjusting because the government spends resources to watchdog it, and the government spends resources to watchdog the market because it's not self-adjusting. The most common and avoidable logical fallacy!
Before posting things like that it is a good idea reading some history and some basic business textbooks.
Leaving aside the technical fallacy in your argument, if you really believe all of that it's you that needs to do some homework. Antitrust law has never been intended to "fix" market failures; it has always been intended to help politically connected firms who can't compete in the market.
It's posts like this that really make me tear my hair out. Just because y'all know how to write code doesn't mean you know diddly about economics.
Predatory pricing occurs where you have one firm with some monopoly power who wants to extend that monopoly. It does so by pricing below production cost, relying on either a previously-built "war chest" to finance the losses, or other sources of revenue.
The fundamental problem with predatory pricing is this: firms do not lose money at the same rate. Say I am Evil Inc. with a market share of 90%. You are Nice Inc. with a market share of 1% (and there are 9 others with 1% shares as well). I decide to price you all out of the market. So I lower my prices. I am now taking a loss, but all the customers now buy my product. You have two choices... match my price cut or drop out. HOWEVER, the key is that I am losing money at 90 times the rate you are (since I presumably have to charge roughly the same price for all the units of my product... I can't discriminate among customers. If I can, then you can too, and that introduces a new knot).
Losing money at 90 times the rate you are is no big deal since I have 90 times the market share you do. But that's not the problem. The problem is that customers see the lower prices, and new customers are priced INTO the market. I must supply these new customers with additional product, or else the price will go back up. Thus I have to expand my production, which is costly. You, on the other hand, need do no such thing... you, after all, were perfectly happy with the prices the way they were. You are not trying to keep prices artificially low. So you can mothball your factories, put workers on half-time, etc., thus SAVING money. Now I am losing money at MORE than 90 times the rate you are, since I have to expand production to keep the prices low and you can scale back. If I have a big "war chest" from other sources of revenue and other markets, I may be able to keep this up longer... but eventually I will run myself into the ground. Hence predatory pricing will break down eventually. Self-correction of the marketplace!
There is a good historical example of this. At a meeting between oil executives around the turn of the century (before US vs. Standard Oil in 1905), Rockefeller basically told his smaller competitors that he was going to price them out of the market, and they might as well give up sooner rather than later. Four of his smaller competitors basically told him the above in a much briefer and ruder way, and Rockefeller didn't listen. Five years later Standard's market share in refined oil was down from 85% to 40%. This of course did not stop the antitrust lawyers from charging in to do what the market had already done -- one can speculate as to their real motives, naturally.
-AG
Because, thart, my poor ignorant fellow, is not capitalism. It seems you advocxate anarchy, but /call/ it capitalism. A market in which there exists only one supplier is not a free, capitalist market, no matter how much you want it to be.
Cyrix crashes with 3D modeling and Povray? That's a known one... Cool it... Then cool it some more! These things can run *very* hot, so invest in a *good* cooler, and you'll stand a good change of things running fine.
I find your optimism refreshing, but not very reassuring. Restaurants seem to be unusually location-sensitive (else why would McDonalds bother to open dozens of restaurants in a city, each a mile or two from the others?), but look how Barnes and Noble has decimated independent booksellers. What's needed is foresight among consumers ("if I stop supporting competitors, life's gonna suck sooner or later"), which is in very short supply.
Sunk cost. If I invested megabucks in AMD but now think they're going to lose, I'd be crazy to invest more megabucks just to improve their chances from "infinitesimal" to "tiny."
This also holds if I think the other investors have reached this conclusion and will pull the plug, even if I otherwise had not. Some winnable battles are lost from bad morale.
I just dont like the AMD's I've tried. They maybe cheaper, but I just dont trust em anymore. If they improve fair enough. For now I'll pay extra and get better performance for my money.
Does AMD *like* to rely on word of mouth, or do they simply have no choice? How would they be doing if they *could* advertise, if exclusive (paying for the privilege of having no competition) contracts were rightly treated as unenforceable?
Follow his link to http://www.techsightings.com/
(sucks btw)
A whois techsightings.com gives:
Domain Name: TECHSIGHTINGS.COM
Administrative Contact:
Technologies, Andover Advanced (AAT4) andatech@SHORE.NET
508-635-5300 (FAX) 617-861-7262
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Registrar, Domain (DR1432) shore-dns@SHORE.NET
781-477-2000 (FAX) 781-593-6858
Billing Contact:
Technologies, Andover Advanced (AAT4) andatech@SHORE.NET
508-635-5300 (FAX) 617-861-7262
Record last updated on 01-Jul-98.
Record created on 01-Jul-98.
Database last updated on 17-Jul-99 09:14:31 EDT.
Sorry for the anon post.
I have owned a Cyrix, AMD and Intel. To be honest, I go for the best bang for my buck. I am not going to buy an AMD processor just because they are AMD. I am going to buy an AMD processor if it is a good product at a good cost.
I have just purchased a dual Celeron 433 system that I am running at 540 each. I paid just over 500 for two processors, 256MB ram, an ABIT BP6 and a case. That is a good bang for a buck. I went with the Intel Celeron not because it is by Intel, but because it performs well at a low price. I will go K7 if it performs well at a good price.
I owe my allegiance to the almighty dollar! It is mine! I worked hard for it! It is going to a good place!
I've got another rumor with the same validity -- M$ wants out of the software market. They're going to focus on producing mice, and will become a computer peripherial company.
You obviously don't know what you're talking about. The big difference between the US Vs Japan battle and the one between Intel Vs AMD is that in the former case there were at least 6 big companies competing with each other. Even if the US car companies had gone under things wouldn't have been that bad because there were many Japanese (and later European) car companies competing against each other. Better products at better prices would have still come out even if they were not by US companies.
In the processor market things are very different. If you exclude high-end products e.g. Compaq (Alpha) Sun (UltraSparc) etc. that have a very limited market there are only two companies competing in the PC market, Intel and AMD. Intel is far bigger than AMD and has much bigger cash reserves. It can therefore afford to make very small profits (or even losses) for a long period of time until AMD goes bankrupt. The free market system does not work in cases like this one, which is why there are so many laws and government bodies that are monitoring unfair competition and abuse of power by monopolies. Do you think the US government would be spending so many millions of dollars each year watching companies like MS, Intel, IBM and AT&T in the past, if markets were always self adjusting? Before posting things like that it is a good idea reading some history and some basic business textbooks.
I can't quite put my finger on it but there's something about all these Roblimo posts that's just.... disturbing, out of place.
Maybe it's just his different style. This Roblimo just suddenly appeared one day with little in the way of introduction. Who is he exactly? Has he written free software? What projects does he participate in? Maybe the target audience has changed or something.
I'm really not trying to be a jerk.
Well, certainly companies want to make as much as possible in the short run. The only people buying a K7 right now are those that are just too antsy to wait. Hell, there isn't even a motherboard to put one of these things in yet, so why pre-order something you cannot test? I called one place, they were taking pre-orders but once the chips came in they would ship 'em to you. The catch was that they gave a 15-day return policy, but didn't expect motherboards for at least an additional month. Go figure...
After a few more months, once there's enough chips/boards in the marketplace, expect them to come down to more reasonable levels. I'd say $399/449/799 for the three. But then, there'll be big warehouse type places that are willing to take a loss, hoping you buy all the parts for a whole PC, so maybe another hundred bucks off those guesses.
FWIW, it's also the name of a cool Christian music group...
I'll probably buy a new computer in Sep/Oct. I'm strongly considering the K7, but am a bit worried by the fact that it is (will be) so new. What if I buy a K7 system, then it turns out to have some weird bug that affects me?
I guess I'll keep a close eye on the initial couple months of reports before buying. If it looks like there are problems, I'll go with the PIII. I *really* do want to support AMD. INTC needs the competition.
Currently I use a Cyrix 6x86 P166+. Works fine for most things, but it almost always segfaults when running PovRay or other 3D modeling programs. So I've been a bit hesitent to get anything non-Intel again.
It seems that people are assuming that Intel cutting prices unethical, wrong and should be illegal. First of all, these price cuts are hardly predatory, correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that Intel is still making healthy margins on CPUs.
The argument given most often is that Intel is trying to drive AMD out of the market. Well, if AMD can't compete with Intel maybe it should be driven out of the market. I for one do no tremble in fear of Intel monopoly. If Intel drives AMD out of the market and raises prices to unaffordable levels it would hardly be able to keep competition from entering the market. And a new competitor doesn't have to be a startup w/ no money. It can be one of well established companies, lets pick a hypothetical name: Motorola. The only significant barrier to entry into CPU industry is initial capital commitment - which a lot of companies can pull off.
Finally, I would not be terribly upset if CPU prices go up and new models aren't introduced quite as often. Upgrading CPu every year is becoming a norm, if this stops maybe people would actually pay some attention to increasing efficiency of their software rather then pumping up the productivity of their CPU.
Remember: predatory pricing hurts Intel a lot more than it hurts AMD. AMD only has the capacity to make ~1M Athlons per quarter. Intel
makes a lot more processors. If it's 10x more, then Intel loses 10x as much money (assuming all other factors are equal). I think the stock market would be much more willing to keep afloat an AMD losing $150M per quarter than an intel losing $1.5B per quarter.
It gets even better. If Intel starts selling processors at a loss, AMD can just switch its fabs over to producing mainly flash memory or something. It has to keep selling a few Athlons to maintain mindshare, but if the supply is low, it can keep the price up. If it all lines up right, it can be making money at Athlons while Intel is losing money on processors. I'm sure AMD would be happy to maintain that situation!
Of course, things never work out this perfectly, but remember that it is a two way street, and predatory pricing can easily do much more harm to Intel than to AMD.
Next question is: when will Jedi/Gobi/M3/whatever be coming out, so that Cyrix will be competitive in terms of performance as well?
"Antitrust law has never been intended to "fix" market failures; it has always been intended to help politically connected firms who can't compete in the market."
Are you totally out of your mind? That's the weirdest perspective on Standard Oil, big steel, and the abuses of the fledgling Industrial Revolution that I've ever seen. Ever heard of a 'company town'? It sounds like your 'homework' is entirely the result of blindly accepting the information of pseudo-libertarian web sites (read some _books_ man) which are, very likely, told what to say by Microsoft spin control experts- 'astroturf' libertarians.
It's quite another thing to claim that antitrust law _fails_ to fix market failures- I would argue that this claim puts the standard of 'fixing' arbitrarily high and doesn't allow for real world stupidity and awkwardness- but to claim what you do is outright madness, and as worthy of ridicule as the most crazed 'black helicopters' Microsoft ranting.
Don't post websites, read some history books. In particular, check out where the labor movement came from. You're free to argue that Labor is simply wrong and evil, but it might give you some perspective on that and on trusts to check out the powers really big economic forces can exert when unchecked. Quite 1984-esque, really. It's basically the ability to supplant and outright replace the government- it's a sort of feudalism, where the company is way more important than the government to its subjects but can't be voted on or altered in any way- insta-peasants! Yes, my liege, of course I wanted every possession of mine to be acquired only through _your_ channels at extortionate prices- it's the American Way!
Antitrust law is merely the awkward attempt to represent American citizens even in situations this desperate. Of _course_ it looks stupid: it's _law_. But it's not about helping any firms except in that said firms would be composed of citizens being denied a fair shot at American business. It's mostly about the peasants created by trusts. Anytime a business concern gets so powerful that its interests are _more_ important to its subjects than the government's interests- you're going to have the government becoming very interested and trying to stop it, because business concerns traditionally don't even operate on the level of government and policy, and trusts are completely able to supplant the government in their areas of control- see 'company town'. Deal with it. That's not going to change, so you might as well adjust to it. You're not ever, ever going to persuade any government to let itself be marginalised by a business concern, are you? If so, are you really that expert in political science to demonstrate that the feudalism you're advocating is genuinely preferable, or are you simply illustrating blind and stupid faith in abstract concepts that fail in real life?
Lower prices? The prices I've seen for the K7 are anything but "low prices." I could get a comparable Pentium III for less, which removes AMD's main selling point.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Posted by Napalm4u:
I believe that from what i've read on the overclocking sites is that Cyrix is dead. They were bought out by some company, JVC?
Anyway don't count on them being around for that much longer- cheap pc's aren't using them anymore and i haven't seen any pc's in any ads touting a cyrix based processor.
I think that the agreement that cyrix made with emachines was that they'd continue to manufacture cpu's till the end of the year. Then who knows.
I may be wrong here about cyrix's plans but they did get bought and their cpus are slow! slower than any intel one!
Posted by Napalm4u:
Intel is flooding the market trying to undercut AMD!!! this is illegal!!!!
The k7 will kill the p-3.
Hurahh!! Hurahh!! no more stupid chimes!!!!
The King is dead! Long live the King!
-grrhh hit enter and may have posted a blank post!
I dont think Intel would go into this much trouble just to kill the K7. The REAL problem is that K7 comes with "Slot 2" motherboards, 200MHz system frequency and co.
Now, as long as it is just a "Slot 1" against "Socket 7" game, it is a win-win situatin for Intel on a long term, but "Slot 2" motherboards could prove to be killers for the whole "Slot 1" buisness. Once these motherboards are established on the market, cards will be heavily mixed again.
In my opinion, it will be realy interesting to see intel-clones from other companies emerging which use the "slot 2" and cheap alpha-based machines, due to availability of cheap alfa-conformn hardware!
(I suppose it wont be possible to just take an alpha-procesor and stick it into K7-motherboard, but I'm quite sure that manufacturing a motherboard for Alpha-processor will all of the sudden become much cheaper.)
You can change your ethernet address (MAC address).
--Matthew
thinking about getting one to run maya. K6
had some compatibility problems (at least we have seen stability problems with K6 consistantly).
I want AMD to do well as much as the next guy, but it's not like this is an aggressive anti-comptetitive measure. It's a price cut. They are supposed to be competitors. How come the negative conotation was used?
In short, there's a reason why Intel went after the low end with Celeron. Without the consumer market, Intel can't maintain its dominance.
I seriously disagree with this one. Intel doesn't make margins off of its lowend chips so this argument is flawed. Their margins come from the P3s and Xeons. That's why I thought that going after the low end with the Celeron price cuts with stupid because these prices got low enough to attract customers away from the P3! So the consumer flushout theory does make sense.
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
--
And Justice for None
I think they will need to cut there prices by a lot more than 15% to challenge AMD's market. AMD have built up quite a loyal following by produsing better chips at much cheaper prices. Normally much more than 15% cheaper.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
It's my understanding that ethernet cards and motherboard bios' have unique identifiers also. (Not positive on the mboard, sure about ethernet). What's to keep some unscrupulous corp from tracking us now?
:)
Obviously the real solution is to not be connected to the net.
-Teman
There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
That's funny. My mom is in her late 50's and I installed Linux+KDE on her machine, and she's had no trouble using it for E-mail and for other things.
:-)
She didn't know anything about computers, so she had nothing to unlearn. It starts up in KDE for her, she logs in, checks her email, goes on the web maybe, and then logs off, and shuts down the comp.
No crashes to worry about. No DLL hell. None of that crap.
To each his own, I suppose. Once Linux is installed, it's not any harder than Windows IMO.
Exactly right.
I don't know about y'all, but my privacy is worth more than $27... wholesale.
Actually, since I don't play Quake much anymore and all of my games are sitting unused on a shelf, a 1ghz is just going to be a status-jump for me, since everyone else I know will get one, too.
Because of this, I think the market will be relatively stale, but will surge come the release of Merced and McKinley.
---
seumas.com
While to some degree I agree with your comments, I think that your assessment may be a little flawed. Here's why:
You seem to assume that a company making a product will always have, or be able to acquire, enough resources to outlast a competitor who is selling the product below cost (the "predatory pricing"). However, this is not the case. Short-term, this will probably be true. However, investors/banks/whoever are not going to keep throwing money at a company indefinitely. If the company who is selling low has more cash, eventually they will force the other out of business. At which point, the prices will rise due to the new lack of competition. In the end consumers will suffer (though they will benefit from low prices in the short-term). And the whole scenario may very well discourage others from trying to compete with the dominant player. This is why the laws against predatory pricing are there. It is up to the government to make sure it is indeed a case of predatory pricing, not just competition. It's unfortunate that such government regulation is necessary, but is one of those (few) times where government intervention in the economy is warranted.
Dumping is, as you said, the exact same idea, and needs to be protected against for the same reasons.
That said, I do not think that Intel is engaged in "predatory pricing" (i.e. selling below cost). If they can make a profit by selling at prices that AMD can't match, well that's just Intel having good efficiency, and good competition. Similarly, if AMD can sell lower than Intel and still profit, great. AMD has been responsible for the amazing drop in CPU prices by creating competition for Intel. Unfortunately, AMD hasn't been able to profit yet. I hope they do, so that we can continue to enjoy the benefits of competition.
Intel wants out of the consumer chip business. They want to focus on server machines and turn to Xeon and then Merced and leave the consumer out of their hands.
If Intel were to abandon the consumer market, that gives AMD a virtual monopoly on consumer processors. At the same time, AMD is selling a new high-end x86 processor on a server-derived motherboard architecture, while Intel sells a 4-year-old chip design (P6) on souped-up consumer motherboards.
And, there's more non-x86 competition at the server level, with Sun, IBM, SGI, Compaq, etc. So either non-x86 Merced has to be better at x86 than Athlon; or it has to be better at high-end work than entrenched RISC designs.
In short, there's a reason why Intel went after the low end with Celeron. Without the consumer market, Intel can't maintain its dominance.
Microsoft and IE vs. Netscape Navigator.
Software provides an even better example of predatory pricing. After all, how much does it cost to duplicate software?
OTOH, setting up a new fab plant isn't cheap, so if Intel did manage to drive AMD out of business... the predicted rise of various new chip companies to challenge Intel on the x86 compatible market might not happen very fast...
We used to run our entire house (lighting and computer) off of a 12volt deep cycle battery and power inverter. The inverter was a nice StatPower model, 800W, and had a watt meter on the front. The meter was just LED segments, so not too accurate. However, by looking at the meter and judging how long the battery lasted, it was possible to compare devices.
My computer used somewhere between a 100W bulb and 120W. (K6 266, 64MB, IDE drive, 17in monitor)
Our 20in TV/VCR used about 60W, i think.
A 120amp/hour battery lasted around 5 hours with the computer.
+LoppEar
No I didn't miss the point totally. I addressed it head on. Did you even read my post? I said...
The point is that it is not usually possible to waltz into a market with a bunch of money, drive out the competition, and then recoup those losses in monopoly rents. If they don't have a product as good as the smaller businesses, those businesses will be able to survive.
I am not missing the point. I fully understand the point and I think that point is nonsense. There is nothing fundamentally different between
"predatory" price cuts and other price cuts. A business with a superior product has a good chance of surviving in the market no matter how much money the competition has to burn. The only way to drive someone out of business and make a profit at it is to make a better product, or find a way to produce it at lower cost. Capital markets provide mechanisms whereby smaller companies can get the operating capital they need to stay in business until the larger company gives up and goes away.
"Dumping" is the exact same idea as predatory pricing, and it has precisely the same economic flaws. The free market has a number of mechanisms that ensure that this type of behavior can be combatted. And in the process of combatting this imaginary evil, laws against "dumping" force consumers to pay more than they otherwise would.
I think it's great that Intel is cutting its prices, and I hope AMD does the same. A "price war" would be a boon to consumers, who would save money whoever they buy from. We should be encouraging price cuts, not whining about them.
Intel knows AMD will run out of money first (like MS and Netscape).
Maybe that was Microsoft's plan, but it obviously never happened. Netscape is still developing its browser and giving it away, and they have used that to leverage their entry into the server market. What's so terrible about Microsoft and Netscape giving their browsers away is beyond me. Netscape recently got sold off to AOL/Sun for an ungodly amount of money. Doesn't look like Netscape ever ran out of money to me.
The same is true of AMD and Intel. The chances of Intel driving AMD out of business in the next few years is pretty much zero. Even if the K7 is a flop and they lose a lot of money on it, they still have a large enough market share to make a K8 and a K9. Intel would be pretty stupid to try a "predatory" pricing strategy for the 5-or-so years it would probably take to drive out AMD, since they'd lose a bunch of money in the process. And once they get their little monopoly and raise their prices, someone else will do the same thing AMD did and create another competing chip. There's just too much profit potential for anyone who can get a piece of Intel's market share for Intel to be able to keep a monopoly for long.
Short-term, this will probably be true. However, investors/banks/whoever are not going to keep throwing money at a company indefinitely. If the company who is selling low has more cash, eventually they will force the other out of business.
But at some point, it starts to hurt Intel so much that even if they do drive AMD out of business, they won't be able to recoup their losses. If Intel attempts to charge monopoly rents, someone else will quickly see an opportunity and enter the market. There are a lot of chip makers who would love to get a piece of Intel's market. So At some point, it just does so much damage to Intel that they are better off just letting AMD have a piece of the market, and working to undercut them by developing better products.
Brian Larsen also made a couple of good points. In particular, if AMD is the underdog, they will be selling fewer total chips, and so they will experience fewer losses from the underselling. And they can temporarily shift their efforts to a different market until Intel raises it prices again.
The point is that the market is never as simple or static as the "predatory pricing" argument assumes it to be. Markets change, companies change. And it is next to impossible for a company to gain and keep a monopoly simply by bullying its competition out of the market.
I can't cite specific examples, but I think the empirical evidence bears this out. Most of the "dumping" complaints are basically just companies whining about getting trounced by a better competitor.
Wow, a non-anonymous, non-insulting, and interesting response. :)
Short-term, this will probably be true. However, investors/banks/whoever are not going to keep throwing money at a company indefinitely. If the company who is selling low has more cash, eventually they will force the other out of business.
But at some point, it starts to hurt Intel so much that even if they do drive AMD out of business, they won't be able to recoup their losses. If Intel attempts to charge monopoly rents, someone else will quickly see an opportunity and enter the market. There are a lot of chip makers who would love to get a piece of Intel's market. So At some point, it just does so much damage to Intel that they are better off just letting AMD have a piece of the market, and working to undercut them by developing better products.
Brian Larsen also made a couple of good points. In particular, if AMD is the underdog, they will be selling fewer total chips, and so they will experience fewer losses from the underselling. And they can temporarily shift their efforts to a different market until Intel raises it prices again.
The point is that the market is never as simple or static as the "predatory pricing" argument assumes it to be. Markets change, companies change. And it is next to impossible for a company to gain and keep a monopoly simply by bullying its competition out of the market.
I can't cite specific examples, but I think the empirical evidence bears this out. Most of the "dumping" complaints are basically just companies whining about getting trounced by a better competitor.
These low prices may not even bring Burger Heaven a profit, but they serve the purpose of squashing the weak competition.
It's called competition. Companies compete to have the best product at the lowest price. Whoever does the best job gets a larger market share. That's just the way the free market works.
I don't know anywhere in the constitution where is it says that "mom and pop" stores have an absolute right to keep their market share. If Burger Heaven can produce a better product at a lower price, why should the government stop them?
Now it may be that Burger Heaven is actually trying to drive the mom-and-pop place out of business, but there are lots of ways to combat that. They can borrow money, sell shares in the business to friends, sell their store to McBurgers, Merge with McBurgers, shift to a different market, etc. Remember also that most of the customers in the area probably prefer their superior survice and hometown feel, and will stick with them even if the prices are a little higher.
The point is that it is not usually possible to waltz into a market with a bunch of money, drive out the competition, and then recoup those losses in monopoly rents. If they don't have a product as good as the smaller businesses, those businesses will be able to survive.
It is particularly ludicrous to argue that Intel is going to drive AMD out of business by cutting their chip prices if AMD has a superior product. AMD now has substantial industry credibility, and if it needed more capital, it could sell bonds or float more stock without more trouble. Lot's of investors will be happy to put up the money, in the hope that AMD will be the next Intel.
I get tired of seeing every move by Intel or Microsoft interpreted as further proof that they are evil, while AMD, Apple, Netscape, Motorolla can do the exact same things and no one cares. All companies cut their prices when competitors come out with a better product. That's life. Get over it.
What I've heard from a reliable little birdie:
Intel wants out of the consumer chip business. They want to focus on server machines and turn to Xeon and then Merced and leave the consumer out of their hands.
These price cuts could just mean that they want to get rid of chips they already have, and other obligations.
May be true, maybe not. Makes for an interesting story never the less. (^_^)
Right on. I still have constant problems with all my VIA chipset machines. It's not just on Windows either, for example Netscape on Linux seems to segfault much more frequently on the VIA mobo + K6 systems.
I just can't afford this unreliability; I've already decided to go back to using Intel CPUs and chipsets. I'll be staying well away from K7-based systems until the chipsets and motherboards have grown long white beards.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Frankly, I think this doesn't bode well for the average consumer.
If AMD's competition prompted these cuts (and not many people would deny that) what will happen in a world where AMD exerts little or no influence on the chip market. Intel certainly wouldn't be as prone to cut prices as it is today.
What's more, AMD's presence speeds up innovation and reductions in chip size. Without AMD exerting a strong presence there exists a very real threat of Intel slowing down its production schedule and keeping prices relatively high.
in the immortal words of Stan Lee " 'nuf said."
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I really hated the way the PIII was marketed to "Inhance the internet experience". This is obviously bullshit, since the cpu can't increase the bandwidth. It seems like intel is making their chips ever larger and piling on proprietary multimedia extentions for windows gaming. Sorta like the windows 98 of chips. AMD seems to be better suited for people that really know computers but also have a tight, limited budget.
Chip speeds nowadays are plenty fast for normal stuff. For a geek, speed matters for (besides games) compiling large programs and libraries, and (this is the big one for me) running large complicated simulations. BTW, I don't know much about chips, this is just my impression. If I am wrong about something here, I implore you to correct me.
And now for a nitpick:
The K7 is called "Athlon", not "Avalon".
Avalon is the name of a large linux cluster of alpha systems at a research facility whose name escapes me.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Intel cuts prices all the time. It used to be a quarterly event, and a year or two ago, they started doing it more frequently; the PC makers wanted smaller but more frequent cuts to help avoid huge overnight price changes.
Now this isn't to say that Intel is being more agressive just because AMD is looking like serious competition; I only want to give some perspective.
Disclaimer: I own stock in INTC, and not AMD.
Does a 200W power supply really consume 200W? I thought that that just meant that it was capable of providing upto 200W of power, but usually consumed less, based on demand by the motherboard, drives, and such. If so, then using APM features to reduce power consumption on desktops makes a lot of sense.
I've always thought it would be nice to have my own power meter--one that I could plug into an outlet, and then plug a power strip into it. Then I would really know how much power I used for my computer (or how much power the VCR uses when it is "off" but updating the clock and listening for remote control power on).
No, I have to disagree with you on this. There are certain actions/circumstances in a free market that can prevent that market from working properly. These include monopolies, monopsonies (supply-side monopolies, such as unions), ologopolies (is ologopsonies even a word?), and dumping. Dumping involves a company running at a short-term loss (otherwise an irrational behavior, something else that hurts a free market) in the hopes that they can eventually become a monopoly. If this succeeds, the market suffers.
The dynamics of this market aren't as rosy as you paint them to be. AMD can no longer just pump out a few Intel clones. It takes massive resources. That's why they're building a fab in Dresden. Also, Intel has a lot of money--in the billions. AMD has 0. They have less than 0. They can operate at a loss until their investors/creditors stop giving them money. Intel can do this until the above are met and they run out of cash.
Perfect markets change, not all markets. x86 chip production is nowhere near a perfect market, especially if one sells below cost. This is not to say that Intel is doing that (I doubt they are). Just giving my argument in general.
Personally, I've been an AMD fan for a while now.
(Yeah.. so I'm not much of a gamer.. so shoot me.)
Seriously though... with the release of the new Athalon
and the changes it represents in the face of Intel's
continuation of a mediocre genre of chips... I predict
a long standing run of higher end AMD's as becoming the
power house chips of the near future. No... I
don't think they'll replace Intel... but with the
architecture changes and the Alpha bus technology
their future looks brighter than Intel's, if they
can keep their grip on things.
Unless something happens in the next few years to
change the current trend... I won't be buying anything
but AMD chips for a long while. They're good, they're cheap and now they're faster than intel.
btw... the Athalon is in competition with the lower end Xeon chips... Last time I checked those were selling for Waaaaay more than the Athalon ever hoped... no?
Linux-MUCK: Looking for a few good Gurus.
(coders/builders also encouraged to apply)
208.139.163.14 port 6666 (Telnet, people..... telnet. *sheesh*)
Friends don't let friends buy Compaq's. (Dell/Gateway... same same) You want a good computer? Build it yourself.
You've got it exactly. If the US car companies didn't want to innovate and compete, then they should go under. That is exactly what they should have coming to them. The free market system is self adjusting. It ALWAYS works... until the government steps in and makes a law of some kind. Then it is no longer a complete free market, and becomes a somewhat restricted market. That is when little start ups can no longer compete with larger corporations. Little startups can not pay the overhead that corporations can handle... That's just what seems good to me. I'm sure there are other factors, such as human pride, nationalism, and the like, but this is all from a strictly Vulcan viewpoint. "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you"
Corndog
I am not buying K7 until I know for sure that there is a STABLE motherboard and chipset, when I know for sure that 3D games don't freze because of their hardware problems (When the first Super 7 motherboatd came out they came with AGP but not AGP card would work on them right) I also want to wait because the first K7 systems will be using PC100/133 RAM, not the 200mhz RAM as promissed.
well don't forget, we should buy AMDs now beacuse there *faster* :)
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The quote in question...
The 500-MHz version of Athlon currently sells for $324 while the 550-MHz and 600-MHz versions sell for, respectively, $479 and $699. Tight supply of Athlons, however, is creating something of a high ceiling price for the chip. Retailers are offering the 600-MHz version for $950, where available, while the 550-MHz and 500-MHz versions are being advertised for $720 and $488.
i don't know who started it first but it does seem appearent to me that the damage "vaporware" does can work for hardware too ...
... you mean i have to work hard and make good products? ... forget that! ... hey i know! ... let's just make ultra expensize stuff and drop the price just as our competitor is beginning to pull out of their plummit!"
"competitors?, what?
what i wouldn't give fore a real buisness man (insert woman were ever you feel discriminated) to do real buisness with real ethics and values
if knowledge is power, the internet is god - me again
I noticed some people making coments about how Intel makes MB chipsets that work the first time. And they gave ALi and SiS as people who don't. Notice someone who is missing? VIA. They make the best Super7 chipsets, IMHO. However, who will make the MB chipsets for the K7? I hope that VIA and AMD will continue there cordial relations, even though they are now competitors, considering that Cyrix's CPU R&D and production are now part of VIA. That's right, Cyrix processors might actualy have some bugless releases now. Wow, what a concept. But, thankfully, I have read on a number of occasions that VIA and AMD have allready made araingements for VIA to make MB chipsets for the K7.
I believe Intel is engaging in Predatory Pricing.
What is Predatory Pricing? Well, say there's a small burger joint, family owned, who prides themselves on good burgers and good, friendly service. One day, the big bad Burger Heaven franchise moves in on the same block. In order to steal their business and drive them bankrupt, Burger Heaven drops their prices lower than our small family burger joint. These low prices may not even bring Burger Heaven a profit, but they serve the purpose of squashing the weak competition. This is illegal and unethical. It is, however, hard to prove.
When Intel decided to drop their prices, you can bet that in their meetings they did consider how this would appear to be predatory pricing... This alone, in my estimation, would keep them from doing just another routine price drop, THUS, they are truley engaging in predatory pricing and should be boycotted. Thank you.
Calling out bogus battery capacity claims.
This example (the family burger joint vs. the evil Imperial Burger Corp.) illustrates that customers can have differential values, not that either company is particularly moral / immoral.
The idea that low prices may not bring the larger company a profit though they may crush competition has a corollary: if the prices are so low that the maker does not profit, but the burgers are good enough to be a good value at that price, then customers are receiving a net benefit. (Convince me as I get a day's worth of calories for half of the minimum wage that I'm getting a bad deal, just try.) Otherwise, they would continue to eat the Family Burgers down the block.
Only if the big company could secure a legal monopoly on the burger market ("Official Burgers of America, or Insert Country Name Here -- no competitors allowed!") would there be a problem for society. For the little burger place there could surely be a problem, if a larger company with greater economies of scale, capital base etc. can buy a good location, pay less per patty, etc. However, big and little companies each have advantages that the other can not possess, and no government can fully appreciate or account for these advantages; trying to is folly on a grand scale.
Do you go to a given restaurant *sheerly* because of the price? Even if price is indeed the biggest factor in your decision, you probably would be less likely to go to a slightly-cheaper alternative if you were regularly mistreated there, or if the food made you sick a few times, or if you thought the management was beating up the employees, etc. Small restaurants often have an atmosphere that is irreproducable in McBurger World, and are generally more responsive (not to mention more interesting). And since markets are dynamic, today's small burger joint may discover the killer hamburger and be a giant chain 10 years from now.
If *all* small burger places (or chip manufacturers, I haven't forgotten what this is about) go out of business, leaving MondoChip Inc. alone in the marketplace, then MondoChip had better make some killer designs rather than rest on its laurels for years, because the profits to be made by stealing even a small portion of market share are potentially huge. Maybe it would even be good for Intel to have a few years of sole possession of the desktop chip market. Think of the currents that could be stirred up in those years!
I don't want AMD to go out of business -- and I don't think they will anytime soon. (Cross fingers, buy stock.) But let's say they do: Intel cannot sit still and say "Eh, let's just sell them these leftover Pentium II 300s -- no competition, so why not?" Again, let's say they do: what then? COnsdering how many computers are in daily use, and how many are sold, I wouldn't be surprized if a bunch of Intel engineers etc. left to form a renegade chip maker on their own.
OK, too much rambling, but it would be good to at least consider that what the government tells you about "monopoly" may not be the most accurate rendition.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Don't forget, price is only one reason to buy AMD. Performance is another. But the lack of an on-chip ID is the best reason IMHO.
I suppose they would, but there's a serious difference between Alphae and x86-compatibles like the K7.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
Assuming AMD is able to produce K7s in bulk, though, I don't see Intel's drops making that big a bite into AMD's sales, (at least not at the high end). I mean, there's still 90$ difference for the 500Mhz models and $170 for the 550Mhz.
'course, they didn't say enough about the respective prices on the lower-end chips to make a reasoned guess about how things will turn out there; I thought that's where AMD had hurt Intel's profits the most.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
No. Intel would lower the price on chips so that to be competitive any chip manufacturer (including intel) would need to take a loss. Intel knows AMD will run out of money first (like MS and Netscape). When AMD does run out of money Intel will raise their pice again.
It's always nice to see price cuts; however, I'm a little conserned about the motivation. Competition is a good thing and it's nice to see that despite terible losses last quarter AMD is giving Intel a run for it's money. Intel knows that despite AMD's exageration the Avalon is still far better than the PIII. They also know that people will lose brand loyalty when faced with more perfomance for less cash.
The problem is this. Intel's motivation is not to sell more PIIIs because they cost less. Instead Intel plans to run AMD into the ground. Sound familliar? It should. This was exactly Microsoft's motivation for giving away IE -- run Netscape into the ground. Intel knows they have more capital and will win a war of atrition. When AMD goes under you can sure bet that Merced prices will start going way up.
AMD is Intel's last major competitor in the PC market. We might even see a reversal of sorts. If Intel continues this trend and AMD starts to put out CPUs that are a full generation (not a half gen.) ahead of Intel's. We might see that Intel remains the standard for OEM orders and AMD becomes the company that crazy people (like me) who live on the fringes of the net use for high power desktops/workstations. wouldn't Intel love it if it could push AMD into the maket of say Alpha?
Creating the actual chips does not cost Intel a lot of money. It is the R&D budget that they are trying to pay off with the chips revenue. If Intel has sold enough processors to pay off its R&D budget, then any processor sold after that is making a profit for Intel. Unless Intel lowers its price of say, P2 chips to $20, they aren't making losses.
I remember a couple years ago when the media and internet news where saying how good Intel was doing and that didn't see anyway it could change. They even laughed at AMD when it had some construction problems. Where is gone Wintel.
A year ago AMD was an alternative. It's now mainstream. A year ago Linux became the alternative to Windows...
The same thing will happen to Micro$oft, but the news will not see that until the last minute, when finally Micro$oft lower the price of NT to stay in the race with Linux.
True, but any more of these drastic price cuts and AMD will be forced even further into the 'hole' ... in other words, the investors won't be too happy. With IDT and National Semiconductor out of business, there will be no competition for Intel - can you say - "NO MORE PRICE CUTS!".
The AMD K6 processor never had a significant ad campaign, yet it has garnered close to 10% market share. Why, you ask? AMD likes to rely on the most primitive form of advertising - word of mouth. If the K7 truly is capable of what the latest benchmarks show, there will be plenty of people who know of its existence. Ok, its debatable whether or not the average PC user will adopt the K7. But show me one network engineer who would choose a 8 way PIII Xeon server (600 Mhz a pop) over a 8 way Athlon (1 Ghz a pop) [not to mention the price difference]. In other words, AMD has plenty of potential in the server market.
They've cut Intel's legs out from under them for the forseeable future (About 2 years, to merced) and as long as their production can keep up with the demand and they don't look to IBM for marketing advice, they should be able to eat Intel's breakfast (or at least a sizable chunk of Intel's market share) in the near term.
But you can't stand still and rest on your laurels in this industry as Intel is finding out. AMD needs to move on and move on fast. If they can reach 64 bits before Intel, they should be able to wrest control of THE 64 bit instruction set from Intel (Better yet, make it alpha compatable) and leave Intel in the VERY uncomfortable position of market follower instead of market leader.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?