A 1-2-3-4 Plan For AMD To Beat Intel

Analyst Opinion - Intel had a surprisingly strong quarter. AMD went the other direction and is now taking a number of actions that probably should have come right after the ATI merger. The difficulty the company is facing is one of competing with a vastly larger and better funded competitor in a market largely defined by standards that its rival sets. In short, it has always been Intel’s game, its home field. And even in the beginning, AMD only got what Intel gave them.

Intel lost its way a few years ago and AMD moved aggressively against them. But the litigation between the two firms reveals that Intel had the power to block AMD even when AMD had better products and while that will likely result in fines and penalties to Intel, it won’t change Intel’s natural dominance.

In a way that’s what Apple did with the iPod and may still do with the iPhone. Apple created something vastly different, based on a back end service that the other hardware manufacturers could not emulate. Microsoft moved around IBM not by targeting IT, but by focusing on empowering users who drove Windows into enterprises, which eventually crippled the dominating power of IT.

There is an interesting file floating around the web which uses PowerPoint and animations to show the history of the Second World War. You can actually see the point where Germany, which was unbeatable, overextended itself and then got beaten badly. AMD needs to let Intel overextend and pick and fund key strategic efforts in markets where the playing field is more even. Consumer, MIDs/UMPCs, cell phones, and home automation largely don’t care about Intel inside and are looking for something they currently aren’t getting (which is why you see lines for the iPhone but not for any new PC).

Think of the Spartans at Thermopylae (the movie 300 was over the top, but makes the point): They were the best trained (highest quality) solders of their time and while they eventually got their butts kicked, they took on a vastly larger force and held them for a prolonged period. They didn’t do it by going man to man; they did it by focusing on quality over quantity. You might think of this as another way of saying focus, but it is more than that. It is setting a quality mark higher than your competitor is willing to set - and making the market understand that quality.


Rule 4: Fund great marketing

You can do everything else, but if you can’t promote your product, you might as well have retired early.

AMD can’t continue to run at Intel head on. Intel is bigger, better funded, more deeply entrenched and isn’t making the mistakes it once made. To win, AMD needs to not just embrace the concept of the little guy taking on the larger force. They need to become the Spartans capable of providing a higher quality offense that is up to challenging Intel’s dominance.

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  • AMD should build a research and development factory in Israel, like Intel did.
    The Israelis engineers are those who develop the core and the centrino,
    which helped Intel overcome the Athlon architecture.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    Intel has been there and done that allready... I even think that AMD shoul build development factory to India or China...
    ... And it does not take away the thing that Intel can put easily a lot more money to the research than AMD. AMD have to work in the areas where the money is not the desiding factor.
    They need a co-operation with many companies. If Intel do everything, they allso block out meny companies. AMD should focus an co-operating with different companies that can develop together something that is more than the sum of their efforts.
    And even then Intel is huge threath to companies like AMD. The fusion may be ansver for cheap one chip low power computer. The Intel will have the speed monsters for far future. But who knows if IBM can Help AMD to level the playing field and AMD can compete with their High-metal gate 32-22nm prosessors, but it seems very unlikely. Intel can move to the next prosessing tecnology so much faster rate because all of that money.
    Reply
  • eklipz330
    i look forward to the day when my computer is AMD based...
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    hannibalIntel has been there and done that allready... I even think that AMD shoul build development factory to India or China...... And it does not take away the thing that Intel can put easily a lot more money to the research than AMD. AMD have to work in the areas where the money is not the desiding factor.They need a co-operation with many companies. If Intel do everything, they allso block out meny companies. AMD should focus an co-operating with different companies that can develop together something that is more than the sum of their efforts. And even then Intel is huge threath to companies like AMD. The fusion may be ansver for cheap one chip low power computer. The Intel will have the speed monsters for far future. But who knows if IBM can Help AMD to level the playing field and AMD can compete with their High-metal gate 32-22nm prosessors, but it seems very unlikely. Intel can move to the next prosessing tecnology so much faster rate because all of that money.
    Um IBM already helps AMD A LOT with their technologies such as the IMC and their current process, 45nm. Its not about AMD being able to work with other companies since Intel works with them too.

    Yes Intel works with a lot of other companies to bring much better hardware such as PCIe and faster USB solutions and many more. But what AMD needs to do is take these technologies it gets from IBM and incorporate them wisely.

    Heck if AMD wasn't so stubborn and didn't head on a naitive quad at 65nm and waited till 45nm like Intel has done maybe they would be better off. This is especially true since in most markets except the server where quads are better. But in the rest if they had gotten a dual out that was better than C2D they would have been better off. Then they could have used the incoming money from the duals to work on a quad.

    So in all reality AMD made a lot of wrong moves and in truth I am going to doubt they will even be able to truly take Intel head on. I am sure they will challenege Intel like they have done before but never push them to the bottom.
    Reply
  • modtech
    As the article stated, Intel is much much bigger than AMD. They have more funds for research, engineers, manufacturing facilities, marketing... you name it. Direct competition in such a situation is futile. BTW jimmy you're slightly wrong about AMD being "stubborn" about native quad cores. You think they wouldn't have preferred the simpler and cheaper route? This is AMD we're talking about you know. The problem was the way the K8's memory controller connects to the system, you can't tape two of those together and make it work. As for annonue's comment hold on a second and think, that's a pretty stupid thing to post. The quad to buy is still the aging Q6600, which is somewhat disappointing as I expected a full cache 45nm quad to replace it at the same price.

    Reply
  • Mathos
    jimmysmittyUm IBM already helps AMD A LOT with their technologies such as the IMC and their current process, 45nm. Its not about AMD being able to work with other companies since Intel works with them too.Yes Intel works with a lot of other companies to bring much better hardware such as PCIe and faster USB solutions and many more. But what AMD needs to do is take these technologies it gets from IBM and incorporate them wisely.Heck if AMD wasn't so stubborn and didn't head on a naitive quad at 65nm and waited till 45nm like Intel has done maybe they would be better off. This is especially true since in most markets except the server where quads are better. But in the rest if they had gotten a dual out that was better than C2D they would have been better off. Then they could have used the incoming money from the duals to work on a quad.So in all reality AMD made a lot of wrong moves and in truth I am going to doubt they will even be able to truly take Intel head on. I am sure they will challenege Intel like they have done before but never push them to the bottom.
    You're not reading what the article was about though Jimmy. You're still banging your head on it has to perform better in benchmarks. Which isn't what the article was really about. 60+% of AMD's issues are Lack of Mass market advertising. How often do you see a TV commercial about any of AMD's products, video cards or otherwise? The answer to that one from my experience is Never. The only place you see AMD ad's is on computer tech sites, and computer enthusiast magazines. And more rarely in mags like Maxim or playboy. The main force that allowed Intel to outsell AMD in the P4 Netburst days wasn't performance, but the fact that when you turned on the TV, you'd see a commercial for the P4, think they were still using the blue man group at the time. And then you'd see a commercial with the dude your getting a Dell guy, where at the end it was say featuring Intel Pentium 4 processors.

    It doesn't have anything to do with Native quad at 65nm. The biggest thing AMD is guilty of there is not catching and fixing the TLB bug before they tried to release the processor. At which point the TLB bug was then blown waaay out of proportion by Intel fanboys, keeping most people from buying phenoms until b3 revision. The place where the TLB bug hurt AMD the most was the server market, where buyers that were waiting to upgrade to Barcelona were forced to instead go with Intel due to the delays. And even now, even though Barcie is better than the Xeon, it's still biting them in the rear due to that delay.

    OEM Manufacturers don't care about which processor runs faster on given benchmarks. They care about which processor they can get for cheaper. And they care about what is going to run stable. For a long time Intel had the advantage here because they could provide an entire platform to oem's that was guaranteed to work together, mainboard, chipset, igp and processor. AMD now has the ability to do this, but how many OEMs are selling systems based off AMD Phenom, 780/790g/x/gx/fx boards, and radeon graphics? And when you look at tray prices and see dead even, on certain area's it says something. Go do some research, by looking at Walmart, or bestbuy.com, then come back and tell me the ratio of pc's for sale that have Intel processor, to AMD processor, even in area's where the AMD would perform better or cost less at stock. So that should tell you, even today that something that isn't suppose to be, is still going on today.
    Reply
  • martin0642
    Build a research factory in Israel? Research factory? Sure, and while we're at it we'll buy a lot next to Stonehenge, cause it's lasted a long time. Then we can grab a spot next to the grand canyon because it's symbolic of how a small force can do great things, and lastly we can get a studio apartment above an apple store because their so snazzy.

    Now all we need is some crystals to channel the "negative energy" and a shamanistic necklace to speak to the wolf gods so AMD can come out on top. I'm glad it's really just that simple, we can all go home now.
    Reply
  • Mr_Man
    Intel: 3 cores? This is madness!
    AMD: MADNESS? THIS - IS - SUNNYVALE!
    Reply
  • NightLight
    It is tied to the status quo and isn’t willing to make major changes that would destroy the current revenue model.

    I don't agree. Intel always pushed forward, even when there was
    less competition. There was never a real lack of progress in new products. The only difference was the pricing. That's the only thing AMD is good for at the moment, to keep intel's prices (relatively) down.
    If anything the industry is moving too fast, and logically, the weakest
    shall fall. In this case, AMD.

    Reply
  • kelfen
    NightLightI don't agree. Intel always pushed forward, even when there was less competition. There was never a real lack of progress in new products. The only difference was the pricing. That's the only thing AMD is good for at the moment, to keep intel's prices (relatively) down.If anything the industry is moving too fast, and logically, the weakestshall fall. In this case, AMD.Yea look at the 4xxx series of thier graphics cards. NIVIDA was at the top for two rounds but... they are now on top
    Reply