Interesting. Dell's Inspiron E1505 (core Duo) has dropped in price ~40% in two months time, you can get the same model that sold for $1200 in April, for $700 now. Dell is either cleaning up inventory or these things are not selling like they thought they would.

The funny thing here stock analyst wise is that if these guys were worth anything, they would have warned their clients about this back in 2004 -- that's when everyone who knows anything about the microprocessor business could clearly see the writing on the wall for Netburst vs K8. It has taken the mainstream press and the analysts until now to figure out what we have all known for years.

The funny part is that just as they are telling their clients the sky is falling for Intel, everyone but diehard AMD fanboys knows that the tide is about to turn back in favor of Intel. I'm sure the analysts will figure that one out by the end of 2007, after the horses have come home.

I wonder if they give better advice to their paying clients in private...

I agree with alex666, but my spin is

1) I dont want Intel to go anywhere

2) Nor do i want AMD

Its not about who's the best or who's cheaper, its about compeititon. If AMD were to be #1 you betcha they will start to raise their price by unimmaginable folds since they will mostly be a monopoly.

I like it when things are neck and neck. Brings out the best in both sides. I want the best processor with low price and the best quality.

1. Intel ain't going anywhere.
2. AMD ain't going anywhere.
3. Finally, it's going to be a very interesting ride.

People are waiting for Conroe.

I wonder if letting go many of thier senior engineers a few years ago to save a few bucks put them in this rut and put larger than expected delays on thier pending projects. I would guess yes. As far as I am concerned, they are getting exactly what they paid for, so they deserve a few bumps along the way.

-LS

but Diesen says Intel is now expected to make only $7.9 billion.

Please change the wording there. It gives the idea the Intel will have $7.9 billion in profits, which it wont since it is not an oil company, rather than revenues.

I wonder if Intel regrets doing the early Conroe demo... it might have hurt their sales quite a bit more than AMDs, and now with the firesale of their current CPUs...
With hindsight ;) ...
Their 9xx series was quite a bit better in every respect from the 8xx series - they could have pushed that better as a mainstream choice (I guess the 930 as the budget choice, and the 940/950 as the mainstream choices) and forget the 805 (and the rest of the 8 series, but I suspect they were caught with excessive inventory). Yes the 9xx series wasn't quite as good as AMDs, but with a bit of blue crystals marketing (hey it has DDR2, new lower power 65nm, virtual, etc...) they should had have done better
And then go after the SFF & HTPC market with their mobile CPUs (Pentium M and then Core solo/duo when they arrived).

Considering the last 2+ years of horrible product lines for servers, workstations and desktops, Intel is getting away pretty easily. It could have been a lot worse.

Analysts are often off the mark, but coupled with Intel's recent reorganization statements, this analysis might not be too far off the mark. It seems a strange if not bizarre strategy for Intel to pursue on the eve of the expected release of Conroe--if, that is, Conroe will meet the expectations that Intel's pre-release PR is generating for it right now. If perhaps there's a caveat as to Conroe's deployment that Intel isn't yet talking about--then these kinds of reactions would make a lot more sense. By the end of summer everything should be just about crystal clear, I should think.