Introduction
The PC market is in recession. Is it really a recession or don't we rather want to speak of a reduced growth? It doesn't matter whichever of the two you fancy more, since fact of the matter is that the consumers as well as the businesses out there find it harder and harder to come up with a reason for another PC purchase.
Performance or price cannot really be the reason, since the last 12 months happened to see the biggest performance battle in the processor business ever, resulting in a tremendous increase of system performance in a very short period of time. As a result of this battle the processor prices plummeted faster than ever.
The PC businesses wonder. If it ain't the price nor the performance, what could it be? The only reason left is missing attractiveness. I can see it happening to myself as well. I rather spend a lot of money for a new top-notch and super-light mountain bike, dive gear or quality clothing than on another computer system. The performance of my PC is just fine for the work I do and the games I happen to play once in a blue moon. My PC is over a year old! Shocking!
To the PC-business it doesn't matter whatever the reason is. The show must go on and PCs need to sell. The oldest trick in the book is to offer a nicely polished product for a price that is simply irresistible. This brings us to the low-cost systems and hence to the low-cost processors.
