Intel e i prezzi dei chip

Non potendo competere nelle prestazioni, Intel sta mettendo in ginocchio i concorrenti con i prezzi dei processori. Non lo dico io, ma un articolo sul Financial Times, che ho trovato anche on line grazie alle segnalazioni Maria Adele e di Pinuccio.
Il pezzo integrale è a questo link.
Qui lo riporto integralmente.
Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday admitted to a damaging price war with Intel in the memory chip market as it warned on profits and saw its shares fall 26 per cent.
STMicroelectronics, the Franco-Italian chipmaker, also warned that pricing pressures, along with a weak dollar, would hit profit margins in its fourth quarter. Intel was due to report its own fourth-quarter results after the market closed in New York on Tuesday.
AMD, which has been credited with outmanoeuvering Intel in its processor business, appears to have suffered from its bigger rival's aggressive bid to grab market share by cutting prices in the flash memory field. Early on Tuesday, AMD, based in California, said in an unexpected statement ahead of its results next week: “In a competitive and challenging Nor flash memory market, the Memory Group is anticipated to have lower fourth quarter sales and an operating loss.”
Nor flash is commonly used in mobile phones and games consoles, compared with Nand flash that is used in memory cards for digital cameras.
Richard Windsor, Nomura communications equipment analyst, said in a note that the news could be positive for handset makers such as Samsung and Motorola, as they would benefit from cheaper prices for vital components.
Analysts at Princeton Tech Research said they believed AMD had seen its share of the Nor flash market decline from 28 per cent to 20 per cent or less over the past two quarters.
They said this was the result of “extremely aggressive pricing by Intel”.
AMD's rival had previously been struggling to regain market share it lost in 2003 in an attempt to raise flash prices unilaterally.
AMD had guided that overall sales would increase in its fourth quarter, driven by processor sales that exceeded seasonal trends and flash memory sales that would be flat to higher.
However, AMD said on Tuesday that it would be in profit overall, “but down significantly from third-quarter operating income of $68.4m.”
Sales were expected to be up slightly from the $1.239bn reported in the third quarter.
The chip industry as a whole is experiencing a cyclical downturn that most analysts expect to be shallower than previous ones. But competition in certain sectors such as flash memory has become fierce.
AMD is the world's second biggest processor maker after Intel, whose brand is included in four out of every five PCs sold.
But while its Memory Group accounts for around half of AMD's sales, flash represents only around 7 per cent of Intel's revenues.
Non scrivetemi per dire che sto sempre dalla parte di Amd: questo post arriva dal mio portatile, che ha come processore, piastra madre e molta tecnologia Intel: è un Centrino.
C'è da dire una cosa: per i consumatori finali questa battaglia è certamente vantaggiosa. Ma se ne rimane vivo uno solo, poi quello fa quello che vuole. Come ha dimostrato Microsoft.