I'm sick and tired of people saying...

To the original post...I don't think anybody thinks AMD is gonna go out of business, but (and I am included in this) many feel that AMD is VERY close to being the second tier manufacturer they were pre Athlon days.

To the couple above posts...I've always wondered why AMD won't make(and keep)a chipset on the market after processor introduction. They contradict themselves constantly by saying they want to get into the XYZ market, but are unwilling to do the steps to allow it to happen. The server market looks for TOTAL solutions(ie intel systems on intel chipsets), but AMD is unwilling to provide them with the system to run their processors on. AMD can make the most buttkicking processor ever, but it won't gain market acceptance without the total package. This is a big reason why I see little hope for penetration into the server market for the hammer.

If you all didnt know, AMD makes more then just processors... even IF their processor division was doing bad they could always fall back upon their other divisions. AMD wont go out of business because of lacking CPU sales.

AMD’s cash cow has been flash memory, but those sales are off too. And as the Asians penetrate the flash market, AMD will no longer be able to rely on flash to carry its other aspirations.

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Originally posted by 2March
Well, after reading this thread, I get the idea that the future of AMD doesn't look bright. I don't have an MBA but if I look around me at my work I can do an uneducated guess at what went wrong.

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I don’t know if it is that grim. I think a larger company may snap up AMD at some point, but right now they still have a lot going for them. They are one of the best companies out there in process technology suitable for high-end processors; they have one of the best processor design teams around. (Possibly the best one that doesn’t belong to Intel), and they have a market recognition.

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Originally posted by 2March

Companies don't like to take risks. They are willing to pay a lot more for hasslefree computing. At my work we recently had a whole pile of IBM's 300 PL's that were known to cause trouble. They were just piled up somewhere and replaced by new ones. We were told we could check it out to see what we could make of it, the rest would be thrown away. They are all 500 mhz PIII's or Celerons so you can put them to work at home as UT server or whatever. I have one PL and a GL at home and they are the most stable comps I've ever seen. You can throw whatever you like at them but they won't let you down. Not the best performance but stable as hell! Including warranty and servicecontract they cost around $3000 each. Just imagine a gamingrig for that price :)

All these PC's are Intel processsor with Intel chipset. No fuss, just reliability. And Intel rules this market. Then why did AMD, when they had the (Athlon)wind in the back, didn't put more of their R&D on building a good chipset? Now they can forget about it cause they don't have the money to develope such a thing. The way I see it they cannot get a foothold on this market any other way. And surely lot's of people from this forum are willing to take the time to get rid of the problems they encounter with their AMD but company's do not (nothing new about that, no flame intended).

Also: Our service department knows Intel. They know what they can do with them and how to solve problems. If they switch to AMD they have to start all over again. Not an easy task for AMD to get in there... And I guess you can't make a living these days out of homecomputers :(

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If another company absorbs them, I would expect them to keep their brand distinct, like IBM did with Lotus.

This is pretty much right on target. The only thing to add is the long-term stability of Intel’s platform. (I’m not talking about crashes here…) Intel chipsets tend to stick around for a very long time, and that is a big advantage any time you have to support a large number of systems. Systems with the same components, especially chipsets tend to have similar problems. If you can limit the number of different chipsets you are supporting, you can increase the efficiency with which you provide that support simply because there are fewer things to go wrong and your tech staff already know how to fix them.

Compare how long the i850 chipset has been around, and yet it still has a few years left in it. AMD OTOH seems to want to concentrate on keeping the socket the same, but that is only an issue for enthusiasts, in the corporate world, and likely for large OEM’s as well, it’s far more important to keep the chipset the same.

This thread has gotten soo much more constructive, this is what I like.;)

PS. my comment about an MBA wasn't posed to infer that you need an MBA to respond to threads like this, but rather I was fishing for someone who may lend a hand in educating a little.


PPS. I dont have an MBA either:eek: :eek: ;)

I thought i read somewhere that AMD's flash memmory division was running at a loss to ?

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Originally posted by FaTs
I thought i read somewhere that AMD's flash memmory division was running at a loss to ?

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Ya, flash really crashed. Telecom equipment, cell phones, and routers make up a big part of the market for flash, and all there have been hit hard by the telecom dowturn.

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Originally posted by FaTs
I thought i read somewhere that AMD's flash memmory division was running at a loss to ?

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I maybe wrong, but I think the divisions numbers are only published for the FY. This will give you a idea of how it's going for....

For the first six months of 2002, sales declined by 31 percent from the
first six months of 2001. AMD reported sales of $1,502,372,000 and a net
loss of $194,101,000, or $0.57 per share. For the first six months of 2001,
AMD reported sales of $2,174,011,000 and net income of $142,189,000, or
$0.43 per diluted share.

PC processor sales of $380 million for the quarter fell by 35 percent
compared to $588 million in the second quarter of 2001. Processor sales
declined by 44 percent from the $684 million reported in the first quarter
of 2002. Desktop unit sales were down while mobile processor unit sales
were flat.

Second quarter sales of AMD memory products were down 45 percent compared
to the second quarter of 2001, and were up nine percent from the first
quarter of 2002. Memory sales were $175 million in the second quarter
compared with $316 million in second quarter of 2001 and $160 million in
the first quarter of 2002. AMD flash memory unit shipments increased in the
second quarter of 2002 and bit shipments were a record.

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Originally posted by Swiftman
If you all didnt know, AMD makes more then just processors... even IF their processor division was doing bad they could always fall back upon their other divisions. AMD wont go out of business because of lacking CPU sales.

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Originally posted by Thermo
AMD’s cash cow has been flash memory, but those sales are off too. And as the Asians penetrate the flash market, AMD will no longer be able to rely on flash to carry its other aspirations.

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i've heard this before but then someone pointed out that (1) the amount of flash percentage wise to total sales isn't that much and (2) they aren't making much off of it.



EDIT: just read marv's post which confirms that.

check this out for some numbers:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/26256.html

the point is, amd is going through a rough patch at this point. but this does not mean it will go under.

as for the earlier question of who will go under first between ati and nvidia..... nvidia easily!!! (you can work out why ;) )

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Originally posted by Moridin


Ya, flash really crashed. Telecom equipment, cell phones, and routers make up a big part of the market for flash, and all there have been hit hard by the telecom dowturn.

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Thats what i thought.

steppy76 you'll find a fairly high number of low-mid range servers use server works chipsets with Intel chips.Although I cant say i know much about high end servers and what chipsets they use in there mobo's.

But from what i've seen of low end Intel server boards they seem very limited in the amount of ram they support.

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Originally posted by Moridin


... and have seen enough to see things from a little different perspective, that’s all. I am certainly not infallible, and I don’t pretend to be....

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It's a pitty that THAT perspective is always "AMD won't last much longer" or "AMD doesn't have enough to compete with INTEL".

Moridin, on average, when comparisons (of any sort) arise between AMD and INTEL, your perspective comes through pretty clear to me. But, you're entitled to having those opinions, of course.

In the long term, you said a few posts back, AMD is risking its existence or its position as prominent figure in the CPU industry. Well, let me add this: we'll watch the downfall of INTEL within this decade. Technology behind the CPU production process is reaching a limit, there're are quite a few different technology vectors that other companies are already investigating that will surpass the processes INTEL (and AMD) use today. Several scientists from NASA, CERN and elsewhere (eg: Charles Sheffield, Stephen Baxter, Robert Freitas JR, Robert L. Forward, Michio Kaku, John G. Cramer, etc, etc), have pointed out in essays that both the memory capacity and clock frequency of todays chipsets and CPU are a hundred thousand times less powerful than the chips the new technologies will be producing by 2010-2015.

INTEL has been around for a while. It has a tremendous merit in many of the accomplishments of computer industry, but it has become FOSSILIZED. The race/war against AMD reflects that, true innovation has stopped, regardless of the die-size shrinking process and the growing clock frequency of CPUs. There are other vectors to be followed, vectors that will be taking over the whole industry in the next 5 to 10 years, and INTEL seems to have most of its resources commited to current technology, its infrastructures and logistics.

INTEL reminds me one of those HUGE super-tankers. It takes too much space/distance to stop them or to change their course.

Chronus

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Well, let me add this: we'll watch the downfall of INTEL within this decade.

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This is a huge statement. Do you have any evidence to back it up? Which technologies exactly will null Intels existance?

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Originally posted by elimc


This is a huge statement. Do you have any evidence to back it up? Which technologies exactly will null Intels existance?

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I think a more accurate statement will be we will probably see the fall of Intel within our lifetimes. ;) No company, no matter how big will eventually fall. :D

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Originally posted by Chronus


It's a pitty that THAT perspective is always "AMD won't last much longer" or "AMD doesn't have enough to compete with INTEL".

Moridin, on average, when comparisons (of any sort) arise between AMD and INTEL, your perspective comes through pretty clear to me. But, you're entitled to having those opinions, of course.

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I call it as I see it. When AMD is unfairly criticized, or Intel is unduly lauded, I comment there as well. That doesn’t happen a lot though, and when it does there are plenty of people around to jump on it making input from me unnecessary.

There are lot’s of reasons for that, but primarily it’s because AMD markets itself directly to the enthusiast community, while Intel works much more on cooperate channels. Regardless of the reason, even vague positive rumor gets huge play, while definitive advancements from Intel are consistently downplayed.

In short, I try to promote a fair, balanced, and above all honest view of AMD and Intel, and their technology. If that means saying AMD is not all its fans think it is, and Intel isn’t as incompetent as some people would have you think then so be it. It’s unfortunate that in the current Internet environment that means supporting Intel a lot more then AMD, but that’s the way things are. If the roles were revered you would find me defending AMD more often then I do Intel, but that isn’t the case.

Perhaps it an opportune time to refresh your memory on what I have been saying over the last couple years.

http://www.sharkyforums.com/showthre...125&perpage=15

Here is an interesting one, I actually spend time refuting rumors of an immanent takeover of AMD. I still feel this way short term, it’s the longer term, 10+ years out I was talking about in this thread.

http://www.sharkyforums.com/showthre...168&perpage=15

prior to NW or Palomino release, I did some rough calculations, and they came up with the 2200 MHz NW and the AXP 2000+ in almost a dead heat. This surprised me because up to that time I thought the 2000+ would still hold the lead.

http://www.sharkyforums.com/showthre...threadid=61517

I could go on, but for the most part, when I look back at the posts I have made over the last few years, I have been critical of AMD at times, but even then it seems that if anything I was being to optimistic. If I had wanted to rag on AMD then you would here me talking a lot more about how Hammer is now 2 years late despite having been castrated of many of it’s most interesting features, or how their Athlon server chip Mustang kept getting later and later until it was finally canceled.

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Originally posted by Chronus


In the long term, you said a few posts back, AMD is risking its existence or its position as prominent figure in the CPU industry.

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Perhaps another reading is in order. I questions AMD’s long-term future as an independent entity, nothing else.

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Originally posted by Chronus

Well, let me add this: we'll watch the downfall of INTEL within this decade. Technology behind the CPU production process is reaching a limit, there're are quite a few different technology vectors that other companies are already investigating that will surpass the processes INTEL (and AMD) use today. Several scientists from NASA, CERN and elsewhere (eg: Charles Sheffield, Stephen Baxter, Robert Freitas JR, Robert L. Forward, Michio Kaku, John G. Cramer, etc, etc), have pointed out in essays that both the memory capacity and clock frequency of todays chipsets and CPU are a hundred thousand times less powerful than the chips the new technologies will be producing by 2010-2015.

INTEL has been around for a while. It has a tremendous merit in many of the accomplishments of computer industry, but it has become FOSSILIZED. The race/war against AMD reflects that, true innovation has stopped, regardless of the die-size shrinking process and the growing clock frequency of CPUs. There are other vectors to be followed, vectors that will be taking over the whole industry in the next 5 to 10 years, and INTEL seems to have most of its resources commited to current technology, its infrastructures and logistics.

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I see no real evidence that any technology is going to replace CMOS any time soon. The reason this technology has been so successful is that it is relatively easy to design, and more importantly mass produce incredibly complex CMOS devices. Alternative may or may not arrive, but currently the most promising have trouble even getting a single transistor to work. As of yet nobody has any idea how to connect these new transistors into a complex device, let alone mass-produce these devices.

The later two problems dwarf the first one, when people start making noise about how they have solved these problems then it’s time to start getting excited, not before. SO far though, the work in this direction more closely resembles science fiction then actual research.

Even if these technologies do immerge, who benefits from them is still an open question, but due to the massive amount of money they spend on R&D you can bet Intel will be participating.

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Originally posted by Chronus

INTEL reminds me one of those HUGE super-tankers. It takes too much space/distance to stop them or to change their course.

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Must… avoid… leaky rowboat comparison… :p