Quote Originally Posted by Mechanical Man View Post
Just remember savantu that amd is not targeting that market, so there is no point comparing ontario to these, but compare them to n and d series.
Intel and AMD are looking for different markets right now. AMD needed a good mobile part for netbooks and above, Intel needs something good below netbooks ( mids, tablets and ultimately smartphones ).

ARM is picking up steam and aiming to go from smartphones to mids/tablets/laptops and ultimately high density servers.

A clash is on the horizon as Intel thrusts in ARM territory and viceversa. AMD at the moment is sitting on the sidelines, but they need to be prepared for this war. Current Ontario landed just above where ARM is trying to go in the next step.

IMO, when the players will overlap, AMD could find itself as a collateral victim. Intel has the resources and is willing ( already its marketing machine turned on ARM ) to steam roll ARM on its turf. I wouldn't be surprised if Intel allocated to Atom and other small factor SoC an order of magnitude more resources than ARM has.
Yet, ARM has an aces on its sleeve : it is a pure design house which licenses its designs and other carry the burden to implement them. ARM gets royalties of a few cents for each chip. That's extremely low, but when your designs are produced at a rate of 5m a day it adds up.
Basically ARM brings together Qualcom, Freescale, Samsung,etc. Intel isn't in battle only with ARM, but with those companies also.

Why could AMD end up as a collateral victim ? ARM is so widespread because it is cheap. ARM based CPUs sells for cents and rarely above a few $. It is safe to assume its trust in low power and low end x86 territory will be price driven ( they don't have the SW base ). Who is the low cost king of x86 ? AMD.
Intel doesn't go after every unit in the market for a very simple reason, its margins would crater from the lovely 60%+ it enjoys now. Every time AMD took a beating from Intel it retreated in the low cost part of the market where Intel wasn't willing to enter.
Well, that is about to change since ARM targets specifically that market. ARM won't bother to design the next Nehalem, but it will produce an ARM based Ontario-like CPU ( AR15 ? ).

But I'm preparing the popcorn to see this new war unfold in the next years.
Ps. If it is true what ppl say and you are financial analyst. I see problem with your very negative view on amd and very positive view on intel. It wont let you properly analyze potential of both companies. It is true intel is big and can handle failures better, but for amd the result of major win is also bigger in stock prize than for intel. That is why i find your biased view strange.
I have no financial interest in the matter, it is simply a hobby for fun.