AMD Q2 2013 Market Share up 2.2% Q to Q (Mercury Research)

[Idontcare]

Do you have a solution to Intel's cratering income and rising fab costs or are you just wishfully believing along with the rest that Bay Trail is going to lead them to the promised land? If you know of anything else, or even have a theory I'd love to hear it, because I'm all out of reasonable ideas and nobody else appears to be offering anything except the aforementioned "Bay Trail is Intel's saviour" crap.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1603012-did-intel-miss-the-mobile-boat is a pretty good read btw, for anybody who believes that Bay Trail is going to turn it all around.

This isn't the first time Intel has experienced declining income or rising fab costs.

And their existence today is proof that they know exactly how to successfully manage their company in the presence of those business climate conditions.

The problem with your approach to this discussion is that you are taking the "prove to me that this company can't fail" attitude which is a fine position to take for a new business that has no proven track-record of knowing how to be successful in the face of a deteriorating economic situation.

If we were talking about a new restaurant or a new fabless IC startup then your "assume they will fail until proven otherwise" position would be appropriate.

But the opposite is more relevant when discussing fiscally healthy bellwether companies that have already deftly demonstrated that they know how to scale their business, up or down, as needed to deal with the realities of recessions and shifts in consumer demands.

In this situation the onus is more on you to prove your case, that somehow this bellwether company that has weathered many recessions in the past, has weathered the economics of releasing products that were not favorably competitive, knows how to shrink operating costs via layoffs and fab idling/closing, etc...the onus is on you to prove that this very same company will somehow lose all its business sense and somehow become guaranteed to fail for whatever reasons you see its doom coming.

If Intel were cash strapped, loaded with debt, and barely keeping its head above water then I could see an argument being made on the premise that they have little room to negotiate a few bad years while they transition their company into another market space.

But they have lots of cash, lots of IP, and lots of manufacturing prowess to differentiate their products should they decide to change course and head into an entirely different segment of the semiconductor industry.

 

[Phynaz]

Design wins for Intel?

Facebook

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319198&

 

[erunion]

Facebook

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319198&

Good find. Not too long ago Facebook was the first thing pointed to when someone claimed ARM had a bright future in servers. All because facebook was letting a few ARM vendors show them product, notably Calxeda.

At the beginning of the year Charlie pronouced Calxeda had the design win. Oops

 

[piesquared]

Facebook

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319198&

They're not the only ones in Facebook.

 

[krumme]

We will see many design wins for BT because Intel will pay whatever is needed to get take the last step. Its cheap in the greater picture and ofcource they have to do it.

But the long term value depends how well it will sell and the profit. Go tell Apple or Samsung to use Intel. Its a steep wall.

Personally i am to the old windows and office, but since i got this new office editor for android i am one step further away from ms. And since i upgraded from s3 to s4 i practically havnt used my ultrabook.

The post i write here is on the s4, and i am literally 1 meter away from an open super desktop.

I would never, ever have beliewed that a year ago. I am the type who used Nokia e72 until 1 year ago, and frowned upon this smarphone usage.

 

[erunion]

They're not the only ones in Facebook.

actually, they are.

 

[Idontcare]

We will see many design wins for BT because Intel will pay whatever is needed to get take the last step.

If you read this thread though you wouldn't walk away with that impression. Intel isn't nimble enough, flexible enough, willing to do what it takes to get the business for them to ever make that kind of concession.

They are supposed to be doomed because of their inability to be rationale and logical in the face of an ever-shifting situation, and yet you argue that in fact they seem to know exactly what they need to do to win the business.

The two, they cannot be reconciled. One side of this argument is not factoring in the reality of Intel's willingness to win revenue.

Which is it?

 

[USER8000]

Less units sold this quarter than same quarter last year.

The same as Intel and VIA?? The whole market has declined since last year by around 10% or thereabouts. At least AMD has managed to increase shipped units by around 20% over the last quarter which at least is some positive news for them.

 

[krumme]

If you read this thread though you wouldn't walk away with that impression. Intel isn't nimble enough, flexible enough, willing to do what it takes to get the business for them to ever make that kind of concession.

They are supposed to be doomed because of their inability to be rationale and logical in the face of an ever-shifting situation, and yet you argue that in fact they seem to know exactly what they need to do to win the business.

The two, they cannot be reconciled. One side of this argument is not factoring in the reality of Intel's willingness to win revenue.

Which is it?

IDC i think you have to be more specific about it, for me to fully understand. What is the purpose of your "question"? - why do you write it as a question when its not a question?

I am the only one in this thread, via the Ian interview, who have shown how Intel tries to build business, and have done so for years, in other areas than the usual presented picture on this forum and site, where Intel is presented as "we are a manufacturing company, and we need to go into smartphones" as a fact that can not be discussed, even though obviously its constantly challenged inside Intel and they have proven solution on the market and have for years.

Besides I am the only one presenting the argument that Intel have reduced Capex, and presented it in a positive way. I dont think its enough to win the phone market and earn profit - not revenu - , so their usual business here will fail. They are adapting, but its not sufficient.

Putting this into a simple either they fail or not all ower, is typically forum argumentation and i will not get into that kind of argumentation. And reality facing Intel, and the many working to develop it, is far more complicated and difficult than that.

 

[krumme]

AMD develloped BD, and put it on the market. Why did they put it into the market place, when it was a worse product, seen from an economic perspective, than they had before?

Changing course in a huge cooperation is far more difficult than eg. reducing capex, or over a longer time, eg. change your highly skilled workforce.

The mindset needs to change to. When numbers hit top management that the strategy they have chosen and decided is wrong, they tend to explain it by exterior factors. They tend not to lisnt to bad news, and often show behavior that makes employees avoid telling bad news to them.

We all hear and see what fits our prior understanding because it reduces complexity.

Dirk must have seen plenty of red lamps during the BD development, and even after the fact was so obvious it could not be avoided, when the performance from actual silicon hit, they still decided to bring it to market. Pride, vain, and stubbornness play a big role and here for the bad side. They are human like the rest of us.

If it turns out, that Intel will have huge difficulties selling Atom for smartphones with a profit, how long time will it take for Intel to leave the market? My guess is, longer than rational is needed to test the market.

 

[mrmt]

I am the only one in this thread, via the Ian interview, who have shown how Intel tries to build business, and have done so for years, in other areas than the usual presented picture on this forum and site, where Intel is presented as "we are a manufacturing company, and we need to go into smartphones" as a fact that can not be discussed, even though obviously its constantly challenged inside Intel and they have proven solution on the market and have for years.

It doesn't make sense to expect Intel to Atom to lose money. Size is in line or smaller with other's companies SoCs, and it's silly to expect a fully deprecated process at Intel to be much more expensive than TSMC's. bleeding edge process might, but then you get a smaller SoC to offset this. Power consumption is in line with ARM competitors, and performance is is around the same metrics. Why won't Atom succeed?

Intel is not Apple or Samsung, they can't think and build fancy devices alone, but they need to be in the other people's supply chain, meaning that in the end what Ian and you are proposing still need a high volume manufacturing volume to back it up and will be low volume. High volume manufacturing is Intel business model.

 

[mrmt]

AMD develloped BD, and put it on the market. Why did they put it into the market place, when it was a worse product, seen from an economic perspective, than they had before?

Because of the R&D pipeline. It was not about Bulldozer only, it was about all the work done on Bulldozer, Piledriver, Kaveri and probably Excavator. Sometime circa 2008/2009 AMD stopped the development of the Kxx line and went full steam ahead with Bulldozer only. Once it flopped, AMD would have to flush the entire pipeline, move to a die shrink of their 45nm line up and god knows when they would be able to field something new.

 

[frozentundra123456]

It doesn't make sense to expect Intel to Atom to lose money. Size is in line or smaller with other's companies SoCs, and it's silly to expect a fully deprecated process at Intel to be much more expensive than TSMC's. bleeding edge process might, but then you get a smaller SoC to offset this. Power consumption is in line with ARM competitors, and performance is is around the same metrics. Why won't Atom succeed?

Intel is not Apple or Samsung, they can't think and build fancy devices alone, but they need to be in the other people's supply chain, meaning that in the end what Ian and you are proposing still need a high volume manufacturing volume to back it up and will be low volume. High volume manufacturing is Intel business model.

The problem I see for Intel in smartphones is not so much technical as that of the fact that arm is already firmly entrenched and seen as hip and cool, and people love their apps. I much prefer windows over arm, and in a tablet, would definitely go that way next time. However, for a smartphone, I would only want it for use as a phone and mobile internet access. For this limited use I could live with arm. I actually think many users of smartphones would view a windows phone as stodgy and old fashioned. I should add that iOS is also firmly entrenched in the phone market.

 

[mrmt]

The problem I see for Intel in smartphones is not so much technical as that of the fact that arm is already firmly entrenched and seen as hip and cool, and people love their apps.

There are two big mobile platforms today. One is iOS, this one Intel cannot touch, but Android Intel can, and they are doing a good job on it. Did you try an Android phone or tablet? You can use the same apps without trouble at all.

 

[Idontcare]

IDC i think you have to be more specific about it, for me to fully understand. What is the purpose of your "question"? - why do you write it as a question when its not a question?

I am the only one in this thread, via the Ian interview, who have shown how Intel tries to build business, and have done so for years, in other areas than the usual presented picture on this forum and site, where Intel is presented as "we are a manufacturing company, and we need to go into smartphones" as a fact that can not be discussed, even though obviously its constantly challenged inside Intel and they have proven solution on the market and have for years.

Besides I am the only one presenting the argument that Intel have reduced Capex, and presented it in a positive way. I dont think its enough to win the phone market and earn profit - not revenu - , so their usual business here will fail. They are adapting, but its not sufficient.

Putting this into a simple either they fail or not all ower, is typically forum argumentation and i will not get into that kind of argumentation. And reality facing Intel, and the many working to develop it, is far more complicated and difficult than that.

Sorry for the confusing post krumme!

I wasn't directing my question to you, more just speaking to the thread in general while building off of your post.

Would have been completely acceptable of you to have responded with "go home IDC, you're drunk!"

 

[blackened23]

The problem I see for Intel in smartphones is not so much technical as that of the fact that arm is already firmly entrenched and seen as hip and cool, and people love their apps. I much prefer windows over arm, and in a tablet, would definitely go that way next time. However, for a smartphone, I would only want it for use as a phone and mobile internet access. For this limited use I could live with arm. I actually think many users of smartphones would view a windows phone as stodgy and old fashioned. I should add that iOS is also firmly entrenched in the phone market.

Intel chips can run android - As well, Apple could design iOS to work on intel chips, although Apple seems to be content with designing their own SOCs.

Intel's problems in mobile had everything to do with not having a competitive SoC, which Bay Trail seems to rectify. I think it'll do relatively well if the performance and efficiency claims are met.

 

[Tsavo]

Pretty good stuff, all told. Not spectacular by any measure, but they have double-digit market share. That by itself is pretty mind-blowing.

Seems R2 is making a decent go of it, despite the shit sandwich he inherited. I wonder when they can shed the craptacular GloFo Pay-No-Matter-What contracts.

F****** Ruiz. He knew he was going to GloFo after AMD, and he saddled AMD with shockingly bad agreements in order to cushion and cloak his complete inability to run a company. He's been out of AMD for 5 years, and yet his decisions still ***k the company. Unreal.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

In any case. We've gotten pretty far off topic so I'll cease to continue this discussion in this thread.

That's too bad, as yours were among the more read-worthy of the posts in this debate.

Do you have a solution to Intel's cratering income...

			Q2 2013		Q1 2013		Q2 v. Q1
Revenue			$12.8 billion	$12.6 billion	up 2%
Gross Margin		58.3%		56.2%		up 2.1 pts.
Operating Income	$2.7 billion	$2.5 billion	up 8%
Net Income		$2.00 billion	$2.05 billion	down 2%
Earnings Per Share	39 cents	40 cents	down 3%

Your crater is at best a pothole, and the constant hyperbole does not lend your posts any sort of credibility.

 

[Idontcare]

Dirk must have seen plenty of red lamps during the BD development, and even after the fact was so obvious it could not be avoided, when the performance from actual silicon hit, they still decided to bring it to market. Pride, vain, and stubbornness play a big role and here for the bad side. They are human like the rest of us.

I liken the mentality at AMD surrounding bulldozer as being comparable, psychologically, to the trigger that happens in the brain which compels a gambler to decide "I'm all in" as they push their pot of chips to the center of the poker table.

At some point in time in the development of bulldozer, Dirk said to himself "this may be the ruin of AMD, but it is also our one hail mary attempt, so if we die from this decision then at least we die trying", and he sent a memo to his sales team that said "we are going to push bulldozer at the expense of all else, scorched earth, forget you ever heard of Istanbul, from here out you only talk bulldozer to your customers!"

Power consumption is in line with ARM competitors, and performance is is around the same metrics. Why won't Atom succeed?

The only reason atom wouldn't succeed is if Intel prices it poorly wrt the competition...or makes it silly painful and cumbersome to navigate the myriad of restrictions and limitations Intel might place on form factor, screen size, ram capacity, etc in their own efforts to minimize cannibalism of their core processor sales.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Intel chips can run android - As well, Apple could design iOS to work on intel chips, although Apple seems to be content with designing their own SOCs.

Intel's problems in mobile had everything to do with not having a competitive SoC, which Bay Trail seems to rectify. I think it'll do relatively well if the performance and efficiency claims are met.

True, but why would a manufacturer already selling arm, using android or iOS go to the trouble of switching to Intel? The chip would have to be superior technically by a large margin. Believe me, I would love to see x86 make headway in phones, but except for maybe high end business phones, I think it will be a difficult road.

 

[SiliconWars]

There's always cannibalizing AMD.

So why don't they? Simply put, what AMD has left is not worth Intel going after.

Instead of this supposed knockout to AMD, They are following them by using very low end chips in their entry level laptops. The difference with Intel is they will try to ask for the same price as their Pentiums and Celerons sold at, which will only work if Bay-Trail M is compellingly better than Kabini, which doesn't seem likely.

Does that appear to be a knockout strategy to you? No, a knockout strategy would be quad core celerons or pentiums at the same price. But Intel can't do that because then their i3 line would collapse, causing far more damage.

This notion that Intel can just take out AMD at any time is a joke. AMD is sitting on hundreds of millions of inventory. If Intel offered compelling prices on Atom, AMD would drop prices on Kabini. It would be a long drawn out battle which would simply finish off them both. Intel can no longer afford to be fighting AMD for scraps - even a couple of $billion in revenue damage (which AMD would surely be able to cause *at least*), would be enough to cause problems down the line for Intel vs their real competition.

No, intel is in full money-saving mode. That's why Broadwell was pushed back, that's why Atoms are going into entry level notebooks. Intel cannot "cannibalize" AMD because they can no longer compete on price. It doesn't matter how good your wares are if nobody wants them due to being too expensive.

Intel has promised $150-200 Bay Trail Android tablets. We'll see if those materialize and how competitive they are with the ARM tablets. They still seem to be pushing Windows, which is a huge mistake, but they will learn.

The problem is they are promising prices based on their belief that the OEM's will cut corners elsewhere and pay more for Atom. As we saw from the recent Digitimes article, that won't be the case, and they expect Intel to drop prices.

Intel's projected margins just don't line up with their pricing claims.

 

[Tsavo]

Intel cannot "cannibalize" AMD because they can no longer compete on price.

Intel does not compete on price alone; they compete on margins. They don't firesale their wares because they don't have to.

Intel didn't give two shits about the next gen console CPU wins because the 2-3% (down to 1% over the lifespan of the product) profit isn't worth the effort.

Hell, Intel spend more in a year on toilet paper and tampons than AMD spends in total.

 

[SiliconWars]

This isn't the first time Intel has experienced declining income or rising fab costs.

And their existence today is proof that they know exactly how to successfully manage their company in the presence of those business climate conditions.

The problem with your approach to this discussion is that you are taking the "prove to me that this company can't fail" attitude which is a fine position to take for a new business that has no proven track-record of knowing how to be successful in the face of a deteriorating economic situation.

If we were talking about a new restaurant or a new fabless IC startup then your "assume they will fail until proven otherwise" position would be appropriate.

But the opposite is more relevant when discussing fiscally healthy bellwether companies that have already deftly demonstrated that they know how to scale their business, up or down, as needed to deal with the realities of recessions and shifts in consumer demands.

In this situation the onus is more on you to prove your case, that somehow this bellwether company that has weathered many recessions in the past, has weathered the economics of releasing products that were not favorably competitive, knows how to shrink operating costs via layoffs and fab idling/closing, etc...the onus is on you to prove that this very same company will somehow lose all its business sense and somehow become guaranteed to fail for whatever reasons you see its doom coming.

If Intel were cash strapped, loaded with debt, and barely keeping its head above water then I could see an argument being made on the premise that they have little room to negotiate a few bad years while they transition their company into another market space.

But they have lots of cash, lots of IP, and lots of manufacturing prowess to differentiate their products should they decide to change course and head into an entirely different segment of the semiconductor industry.

My argument would be simply, Intel has never faced the kind of competition they are trying to usurp. Whatever money Intel can throw around, Qualcomm can double it.

Qualcomm is firmly entrenched. I don't believe the onus is on me to prove Intel will fail - I do believe they are failing however and their lack of traction in mobile is all the proof I personally need. The onus is on Intel to prove they are capable of breaking the mobile market, something they are currently as far away from as they've ever been.

Even if the ARM crowd can take just 20% of Intel's server market, the damage will be huge. The ARM guys can afford to lose some tablet and even some amount of phone share to Intel, but Intel can't afford to lose server share to the ARM crowd.

 

[SiliconWars]

Intel does not compete on price alone; they compete on margins. They don't firesale their wares because they don't have to.

Intel didn't give two ***** about the next gen console CPU wins because the 2-3% (down to 1% over the lifespan of the product) profit isn't worth the effort.

Hell, Intel spend more in a year on toilet paper and tampons than AMD spends in total.

Yeah, competing on margins. When they run out of money I'm sure that'll keep their investors happy. :awe:

Intel cannot maintain their margins while competing in mobile. It's just not possible.

 

[blackened23]

True, but why would a manufacturer already selling arm, using android or iOS go to the trouble of switching to Intel? The chip would have to be superior technically by a large margin. Believe me, I would love to see x86 make headway in phones, but except for maybe high end business phones, I think it will be a difficult road.

It all depends on the target market. For high end tablets, I think intel will do extremely well because all indications are that Bay Trail is the best SoC available. For the low end market, I don't even know if that matters because margins are razor thin and i'm not sure intel would want to compete with the likes of Mediatek. But intel did announce intentions of competing in the sub 200$ market with competitive pricing to match. We will see.

I'm pretty confident that there will be a sizable market for Bay Trail if it is as good of a product as we've been told. Whether that translates into low end or high end sales, who knows. It all depends on how aggressively intel prices for the low end, whereas costs matter slightly less for the high end.