AMD, Intel Goes For The Kill

AMD (AMD) has all kinds of antitrust suits filled against larger rival Intel (INTC), both in the US and abroad. It appears that the smaller company will have to win in the courts, if it is going to win at all.

AMD is about to release it quad core Barcelona chip, a move that The Wall Street Journal calls the company’s "most important product launch in years."

But INTC does not want to be bested, so it will launch a new version of its Xeon processor which will have two chips that each have the core circuitry of two microprocessors. That would be trumping AMD’s ace.

Both the AMD and Intel product are aimed at the high end server markets where products are sold to enterprises to run large amounts of data.

AMD has not been able to get out from Intel’s shadow. After taking a clear technology lead, AMD picked up significant market share in both PCs and servers. Its stock handily out-performed Intel’s from September two years ago until late last year.

But, Intel got tired of being beaten like a red-headed mule and turned on its R&D rockets. It has take back most of the market share its has lost. It stock has done much better than AMD’s so far this year. INTC is now up about 20% year-to-date and AMD is down about 35%.

It does not look like AMD is going to get back into the game. It may want to lay-off everyone except its lawyers.

Douglas A. McIntyre