Intel bogged down, says Inquirer

[brainysmurf]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30710

Hmmm, not sure I believe all of this. It is the Inquirer, after all -- but hey, it's a good flamebait topic if nothing else.

Quote:

Intel bogged down by multiple missteps

INTEL IS IN DEEP trouble, and it doesn't seem to be capable of grasping what needs to be done to fix the problem.
That problem is AMD, and the vast chunks of market share it is gouging out of some of Intel's formerly most profitable areas. Intel keeps striking back, or attempting to, but in a shockingly ineffectual and reactionary manner, but nothing seems to work because it is aiming at the wrong target. Management doesn't, or more likely refuses to understand what needs to be done.

Intel is now in the midst of a round of hush-hush price cuts. The most recent was a spur of the moment 10% kickback to distributors that made their numbers this quarter, US only.

The problem was it was late, many didn't get it in time to act, and it targeted the wrong components. Since it was a US initiative only, it had the bonus effect of irritating European, Asian and other customers.

Intel is also aiming at the low end of the market, and word has it that it is targeting AMD with a low end price war, taking Celerons from a $50 part to a $40 part, and soon to be a $35 part. This was always effective against AMD in the past, so why not now? However, AMD isn't in that space anymore but it is eating the Intel high end, not the low. The net effect of this plan is Intel is cutting margins on its volume lines seemingly without any effect on its target.

Now, why would Intel cut prices and force distributors to move product out the door as fast as they can? The answer is market share. This is a classic example of a company eating its own future. It is moving chips out the door through every means possible and basically flooding the market so it doesn't have to announce huge marketshare drops at the next quarterly conference call.

 

[luminaris]

Well, first of all, thanks for another great thread! :lol:

Intel is not in trouble by any standards. Anytime you have a technology that is not on par with it's closest rival, and still make billions more in dollars, you're not in trouble.

Intel is slashing prices to move old stock and that is the only reason they're doing it. Well, besides maybe trying to get everyone to switch to dual core as well but anyway.

The Inquirer can say what they want. All the inquirer is IMO, are a bunch of first graders going, Neener, Neener, Neener, and pointing fingers like it's a game. They are the devil in disguise and tricking people to believe them with their unbelievable hype. Yeah, they do point out good things once in a while but, that's about it.

 

[Scarchunk]

It cracks me up at all these articles claiming Intel's in trouble or needs to get "back in the ring". Most of the market share that Intel has lost is to home builders that are building gaming and benchmarking comps. I build both Intel and AMD machines and the common guy on the sreet still knows and wants Pentium. Most volume buyers(universities, government, corporations) stick with Intel by a HUGE margin. The newest numbers show AMD has gained alot of market share, but that translates to about 21% of the total market. Intel has a 76% market share. That's more than most any company could ever hope for in nearly any market. Find another company with a 3/4 share of the market and ask yourself, "Are they in trouble?"

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

Interesting discussion.

Is Intel in trouble? No.

Is Intel feeling the heat of increased competition? Yes.

It is true that Intel has a huge chunk of the market. The reason why is because:

A) Dell exclusivly sells Intel
B) HP, IBM(Lenovo), and Gateway are just now begining to hype AMD as an alternative.
C) Intel's marketing. Intel has people convinced that anything less than Pentium quality is not acceptable. (This is good business sense on Intel's part)


I hope that Dell and the other companies will start offering AMD processors as an option, not as an alternative. Once the major retailers starting going with AMD then Intel will be worried.

If AMD goes out of business then Intel will have a dreaded monopoly. Monopolies are bad, anyone buy an operating system lately?

 

[luminaris]

Monopolies are bad, anyone buy an operating system lately?

Oh yes, I recently purchased Microsoft Windows XP Professional and I love it! I especially love going to LAN parties and having pop up contests! The object is to see how many pop ups come up in a given time. The tools you need to accomplish this is:

1. Microsoft Windows - Any version
2. Spyware
3. Viruses
4. Keyloggers
5. Dialers - rogue dialers work best
6. Limewire
7. Kazaa
8. No security software or Microsoft updates at all - this especially works best

Once you have all of this, your guaranteed to win! I find that surfing as much porn as possible, gives the best results too.

So next time you visit a LAN party, the hell with games, scores and benchmarking, go pop upping! It's a load of fun! :lol:

Oh, and be sure to thank Microsoft for being a great monopoly too! You'll be glad you did and you'll feel better knowing Bill Gates can do what he does best, laugh at all of us

 

[9-inch]

Charlie Demerjian has a point there.

Intel has a lot to do to catch up AMD and since K8L is right to the corner, Intel is feeling a lot of pain in their @ss.

 

[MasterLee]

If it wasn't for Bill and the Boys you wouldn't even be writing this.

 

[MasterLee]

By the way, is the OS you wrote better by chance ?
I haven't seen it, I'll have to look for it.

 

[ivoryjohn]

By the way, is the OS you wrote better by chance ?
I haven't seen it, I'll have to look for it.

Thats an old, childish and absolutely unintelligent comment to make. Windows only solved one problem for the masses, they gave us a more consistent and standard OS for developers to target. In a day and age where standard designs allow everyone to profit, MS then dazzled us all with the standard interface while quietly locking us into a proprietary standard (which isn't really a standard after all, is it?).

And the API they designed is horrible, it's counter intuitive and counter productive. But not leaving well enough alone, they designed VBX to make it easier to use Windows controls, then they changed that to OCX, then they changed it to ActiveX, now they want to change it all to dot-net.

It's a bloated crappy interface that most of us are stuck with because it's hard to launch an alternative when all the software is locked into the proprietary standard.

In closing, I want to point out the the first poster posted his comments because of HTML & Java. The web client interface is NOT uniquely tied to Windows (something Mr. Gates has tried to control without success).

 

[JonathanDeane]

My personal feeling on the whole price cut thing is that it comes from many reasons, one being pressure from AMD eating into its market share. The other reasons are that perhaps the move to 65nm was easyer then they had expected and the yeilds are better then they had hoped (more chips at the same cost means cheaper prices?) Also Intel is dropping its prices on chipsets wich will line up into some real nice values at the lower end. On a personal note I think this is a good thing as not everyone wants to spend 300-1,000$ on just the chip and OCers like the mid range chips

 

[Scarchunk]

Intel is slahing prices because that is the nature of the beast. When you are #1 in your industry with a huge market share lead you: create barriers for entries into the market, set up alliances with current industry leaders(Intel & Dell, Intel & Microsoft), and when someone does enter your market, you compete on price. Everyone strives to be #1 in order to be able to set prices. For years when AMD had 8-9% market, Intel pretty much set prices. When a competitor gains a little market ground, you drop the bottom out of your prices. They are liquidating their lower end stuff because (as most tech companies) that is where their highest profit margins are. I guarantee that every discounted Celeron Intel sells is still adding nicely to their bottom line. This is the first time in AMD's history that they have broken 20% market share. Its not like Intel is scrambling around because AMD gained 3-4%. I don't remember the exact figures, but I think Intel had to revise their projected earnings down from like $9.1 billion to around $8.9! $8.9 billion is larger than some small countries annual GDP. I hope they can afford to keep the lights on this month. I'm all about a price war. Works out great for system builders.

 

[mesarectifier]

If it wasn't for Bill and the Boys you wouldn't even be writing this.

I'm having a great time typing this on Opera and OS-X!

Although that's off-subject, sorry

 

[unstable]

It is true that Intel has a huge chunk of the market. The reason why is because:

A) Dell exclusivly sells Intel

Not exactly 100% true/false but last I read Dell bought up AlienJunk computers and they sell AMD's. I wish that Dell would offer....ummm, for those of us who have to deal with them for business (servers/workstations etc)....at least it's a start.

It's a BS article though really...like saying Microsoft is in trouble.

 

[luminaris]

Well, a little touchy today aren't we? Geez, it was only meant as a joke but since you opened up a can of worms ....

Well, I may not write software however, I don't running around screwing people out of billions of dollars and putting out a so-so OS.

And by the way, there are far better operating systems out there one of which I use quite a bit now, it's called Linux. You should try it sometime. It's far better than windows and it's usually not a spyware/virus attacked OS.

And yes, there is OS-X that of which, is making quite a stir these days against windows I'd say. Even my die hard Microsoft certified colleagues are making the switch to Linux and MAC. Hard to believe ...

 

[MU_Engineer]

Monopolies are bad, anyone buy an operating system lately?

No :lol:

 

[mesarectifier]

And yes, there is OS-X that of which, is making quite a stir these days against windows I'd say. Even my die hard Microsoft certified colleagues are making the switch to Linux and MAC. Hard to believe ...

I don't think it's that hard to believe, OS-X has worked out great for me; I can still run MS Office (which IS a good peice of software) and do 95% of the things I did on Windows XP - only difference is that it doesn't crash, ever, there are no viruses/spyware (SORRY - apart from that ONE that happened a few months ago and was most publicised for being crap!).

Hell, you can even play Q3A! Great stuff!

 

[brainysmurf]

Quote: In closing, I want to point out the the first poster posted his comments because of HTML & Java.

Yep, the first poster (me!) was actually working on a Linux machine, not windows, for the first post.

 

[luminaris]

yeah, that's awesome man. My neighbor who has just about every microsoft certification known to man, brought his 20 inch imac over to my house and we played WOW on it. I was absolutely amazed by it. It has the Intel core duo in it and what a machine. I could'nt stop playing with it.

He was showing me everything I could do with it and it totally changed the way I think of MAC now. Here at my work, we just took delivery of a MAC mini. It's been setup for a bit now but, I still haven't had the chance to really play with it yet.

 

[luminaris]

Quote: In closing, I want to point out the the first poster posted his comments because of HTML & Java.

Yep, the first poster (me!) was actually working on a Linux machine, not windows, for the first post.

I rest my case! There are more Linux and MAC users out there we think. Way to go man! :lol:

 

[mesarectifier]

I think I'm gona start a topic on this - What's your OS and why? - it's really interesting to hear from other people who use 'alternative' OSs and perhaps other people who are currently making the switch. I've got a server running W2K so perhaps I'll go for the trinity and have 1 Mac, 1 Linux and 1 Windows!

I know it's probably already been done, but it's a good topic fo' sho'!

 

[MU_Engineer]

It already has been done. I asked a question like this in General and got half good data and half "what's this noob doing?!" From what I saw, most people run Windows because it runs games and use either IE because it is compatible with more web pages than Firefox, or they use Firefox as it is more secure and user-friendly than IE. Some used Macs, and a few used Linux, with most of those dual-booting.

 

[mesarectifier]

Oh well, too late! I think it's mainly the hardware guys who give the oh-so-helpful 'what's this n00b doing?' posts.

I've taken an ever so slightly different angle (I think), i.e. what would you change about your OS?/why do you use the OS you use? Although it's already been done, maybe the software section will have a different take?

Perhaps I'll uncover that rarest of things - A MICROSOFT FANBOY!

 

[brainysmurf]

OK, back on topic ...
I have reluctantly become convinced that Intel may have a winner in its new Conroe chips, for the desktop ... I'm not buying a 20-percent performance lead over AMD, at least not until I actually see a working chip myself, but I'm willing to admit that, based on what I've seen thus far, Intel has likely more than caught up with AMD's best.

BUT ...
Opteron should still maintain a lead in the server space, and that's where the big margins are. For the bigger four-way and eight-way systems, Intel's new stuff should make a better showing than what they've done for the past two years or so, but Opterons will still be the better choice. Intel, stuck with the older FSB (regardless of how fast they've got it pumped) remains a poor comparison to Opteron ... especially if AMD manages to move to its 65nm processin a timely fashion and flawlessly implements its new four-core Opterons.

 

[DragonDoc]

I don't see Intel going out of business. But you have to admit AMD is really putting the pressure on Intel. Maybe for the first time AMD has the upper hand (at least at this point in time). AMD did have over 20% of market share back when they launched the first Athlon (Slot A). That was when Intel should have taken AMD Serious.

As a local store owner, I sell about 98% AMD right now. Before the FANBOYs come at me - Yes we offer both Intel and AMD solutions. We had to reduce prices on the Intel CPUs becuase people are not looking for Intel CPUs (at least right now). We are selling Intel P4's below our cost right now just to move them out the door. The AMD chips sell themselves right now.

OK My Point is: If Intel has cut prices we will not see a big change right now because most stores (that I know of) are overstocked with Intel CPUs. We will not purchase more until we can get rid of the inventory we have right now.

Having all this talk about Intel vs. AMD is only good for us - the comsumers.

 

[MU_Engineer]

Okay, I'll bite.

1. The thing that I would change is that I would like at least acknowledgment that my OS even exists. You sometimes can't even get a question that is not OS-related answered if it comes out that you do not run Windows 98/2000/XP or Mac OS 9 or X. I ran into that with the IT services at my university as they would not even tell me the VPN server address as the official Mac and XP clients had the config file with that baked in: "You shouldn't need it. Download the official version of Cisco VPN. Oh, you're running Linux? It is an UNSUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEM. Please run an approved OS!!! Good-bye!!!"

2. I originally got into Linux as Windows XP SP2 broke driver compatibility and caused frequent BSODs. A professor of mine who is a big Linux fan suggested that I run the OS. I did and It Just Worked (tm). Previously, I only had run Knoppix as a rescue CD to fix machines that were so infected that they would not boot, but I never installed the OS.

I kept on using it as I liked the whole setup a lot better than Microsoft's. It ran faster, I could actually tweak with things and to me, KDE and Gnome were (are) miles ahead of crusty old Windows Explorer as a shell. And the CLI actually works, unlike in Windows. I used to use DOS way back in the days of the 286, and it was nice to see the CLI become useful again. I also have some classes that the UNIX versions of the programs that we use (Octave, GNU R, gEDA) are a lot better than the Win32 ones, of there are Windows ones at all. Programming in C is better to do IMO on UNIX than Windows as the tools are better.

Oh, and saving $300 on a hand-made computer by not buying a real version of XP Professional- not that OEM junk- is a big plus too. Plus I like to tinker and use up-to-date software. XP is 5 years old and it certainly shows.