Introduction
I collected several tidbits of AMD's and Intel's plans until the end of this year. Some of the stuff you might have found elsewhere already. I only intended to compile all this information together to give a good overview about what is happening in the x86-processor market within the next 8 months, as far as it is fathomable right now.
Intel's Woes
Before I will get into the details of Intel's latest plans, I would like to pinpoint another important issue. On Monday, April 17, 2000, Intel will most likely announce that they will not be able to supply the market with enough processors at least until June/July 2000. Talking to vendors in the PC market reveals a formerly unusual picture. Regardless if you are speaking to motherboard makers, system integrators or OEMs, they all complain about Intel's inability to supply processors. This may sound pathetic to the normal user, but it is a rather serious situation to the above-mentioned vendors. Each of those companies has made forecasts of how much product they are going to produce and ship and of course they are trying to meet them. Those forecasts seem to get destroyed by Intel's failure in supplying enough CPUs. A motherboard maker cannot sell motherboards, if the customer cannot get a CPU for it. The same is obviously valid for system integrators and OEMs as well.
