Re: Clarifications about AMD TLB L3 bug

Robert Myers wrote:
>>>AMD bought it on this one.  Perhaps AMD should have had
>>>you go out and address investors.  You'd have been a big hit.
>>
>>>Your comment that "both AMD & Intel fixes reduce the perofrmance [sic]
>>>a bit" is like Yousuf coming out with the item about Intel's bug right
>>>after the AMD bug, as if they canceled one another out.  Go look at
>>>the financial press,
>>
>>Whatever. Finacial press is a poor source of techical info.
> 
> You think the articles (and press releases) you get on the internet
> are a *good* source of information?

Stock price is a very poor indicator of performance.

> 
> Your contempt for markets is revealing.  A stock price is the
> ***ulative opinion of many people who follow the stock and who wager
> actual money (not usenet bandwidth) on their opinions.

The vast majority of stock is traded without tracking the companies. Ever 
heard about algorithmic trading? Then vast majority of human traders base 
their opinions on varius indicators not connected directly with company 
product. And the reason is simple -- they do not understand what's the
product.

> The United
> States (in particular) has companies like Intel (and, yes, even AMD)
> because it so efficiently predicts and rewards success and predicts
> and punishes failure through market mechanisms.
> 
> Chattering away like this is an interesting pastime, but it doesn't
> affect anything of im****tance.  Even much less so now than it used
> to.  You may not think much of the dimwits who majored in management,
> but they can buy and sell as many techies as they need to find out
> what's going on.

Then such great manager who does not see the difference between a can od 
soft drink and a computer drives the company to the edge of bancrupcy.

Even noticed that those most succesfull technical companies are lead to 
their biggest success by people who know the technical stuff. Just notice 
Intel or Microsoft. Then compare Intel & AMD -- both started as Fairchild 
offsprings, Intel was lead by guys who were semiconductor specialist
(behind 
being good managers) and AMD was run by Jerry Sanders, who was just 
management specialist. Compare the performance of the both.

And great technical companies have trouble if there are taken over by
those 
management majors you're praising. See Apple, DEC and even Intel at it's 
time of little trouble.


>>>and see if anyone but AMDroids (or anyone that
>>>matters) reads it that way.
>>
>>Whatever. Such recalls do happen. It's a seruoius blow to AMD (as it
delays
>>their more competitive products and causes the to loose Christmast
season),
>>but such things are none the less reality and they do happen to everyone
>>from time to time. AMD has still enough money to wether that one (with
their
>>current burning rate then can go for about 2 more years). And some of
that
>>buring is one time (ATI acquisition costs are big, but one time expense)
> 
> The question here is whether AMD will even survive.  For one thing,
> the stock is selling below book. 

Not for the first time.

> That makes AMD a takeover target.

Book value of high tech companies depracates quickly, fab now worth 3 
billion is not worth half as much 5 years down the road. So either stock 
price must plummet much deeper or potential buyer shelling out those 
billions must be pretty sure the company will be profitable and be more 
profitable than other available ways of investment. Past history of AMD
puts 
serious doubdts about that.

> Would an AMD that was bought in a leveraged buyout continue the
> ruinous war with Intel it's undertaken? 

They have no other option, unless they buy for much much less than it's 
worth now.

> I certainly hope not.

AMD is now just two pony ride. No one can turn it around without throwing 
out much of the company.

>  Only
> time will tell.

That's for sure

[...]
> The sum of the opinion here is that it wishes to minimize the
> seriousness of what has happened with AMD.

This last thing is just a little addition. AMD was worst performer of the 
league the entire year. The stock was below 8 before the news wrt that bug

struck anyway. So they "worked" on their current evaluation whole year.

rgds
\SK