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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. "
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
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.
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.
um, the only reason that the american car companies survived is because they had some serious cash that they had built up in the 60s, and earliy 70s. without that cash, they would have gone under. now AMD dosent have any cash to ride out a rough year. they just build a new fab in Germany, and they just lost $130 million. if there were another serious competator in the x86 CPU business, I would write this off as just evolution, but there aren't. Do you remember the mid 90s when Intel charged $600 for a pentium CPU. There cheepest CPU's came in at around $250. now you can get a decent intel CPU for just over $80. This is more like Intel kicking AMD while they are down. they are trying to kill off there only competition. Just look at what intel does with the Xeon processor. thee is no real competator for the Xeon (untill the AMD K7 SMP boards are out). They price these things at well above $900. They did the same thing with the PPros when they were out. Do you realy want to start paying $450 for a decent CPU again with the cuting edge CPUs comming in at over $900 (not including server chips). AMD has forced Intel to stay in check for the past 2 years with the K6. you can now get a PII 400 for $160. if the pricing of the mid 90s had continued, this processor would easly cost in excess of $350-$400. if AMD dies, prices will start to creap up again. This is in no way like the auto industry where there were three seperate compinies that compeated with each other, and several new commers came in with better products. This is a former monopilist trying to re-gain ground that it has lost by killing its only competition.
Should we not save the whales because they cant compeate with the fissing boats ?? it dosent always boil down to Darwinian evolution, it boils down to what is better for the population of the world as a whole.