I think there is going to be a demand explosion in the third and fourth quarters that surprises even Intel.
Taiwan is operating at about 50 percent capacity on average, ... My first worries concern a shortage of graphics chipsets.
There is a need for more horsepower machines, and we have seen retail data showing that consumers have been seeing that too. They are beginning to buy higher and higher performance processors.
Historically, the highest-end chips of this year become the mid-range chips of next year. That's always been the case, ... Two years ago, people were asking why they needed a 200 MHz Pentium processor. Now, most people wouldn't be caught without at least that.
Until then, we're dealing with smoke and mirrors, ... We're looking at an industry decline in capacity of 20 percent [in October]. What you've got right now is propaganda from companies saying that everything is okay.
We're talking about inventory that would have shipped in the last month and would have appeared in PCs shipping around Thanksgiving, ... You're running smack into the holiday shopping season.
People in the industry don't want to believe it, and most of the executives are still talking about the higher growth rate.
If you were constrained by manufacturing capacity, you would focus on selling the lower-end Pentium III, which is almost a drop-in replacement for the higher-end Celerons, but more profitable.
Copyright © 2024 Electric Goat Media. All Rights Reserved.