Since I've been in High School, I've been fascinated by business and watched the stock market. I've wanted to do some long-term investing for quite a while and finally bought a few shares of a couple companies.
I'm considering Intel right now as it's looking to be a good value and they have decent dividends. But my concern is with the increasing demand for smart phones and tablets, they might be missing out of a valuable market.
I know they are working on some plans for those types of chips, but it seems like they are running behind.
What are your thoughts on their product lineup over the next couple years and possibly longer-term?
What do you think of Intel's future in the next couple years
Re: What do you think of Intel's future in the next couple years
As has been pretty obvious recently, the netbook market is falling hard at the hands of the tablet. Intel is pushing hard to get Atom into tablets, but they simply don't have the architecture for it. The entire tablet ecosystem is based around ARM, and Intel sold off their ARM... arm several years ago.
Android, iPad, webOS, Symbian and Windows Phone 7 are all ARM dominant platforms. Even if it provides better performance (or performance per watt, even), x86 chips are not going to provide good enough battery life or enough benefits for phones and tablets to start switching. So Intel has lost a lot of that market entirely.
Within the general computing market, Intel is still king, especially with the poor showing AMD has been making recently in the CPU front. Fusion, AMD's new product line, does have a lot of potential in the netbook and low to mid end markets, though. With their ownership of the former ATI, AMD is in a position where they can sell a single chip that provides a competent, inexpensive CPU with best in class graphics, which is an appealing proposition for computer manufacturers and users alike.
At the top of the hill, in high power computers and servers, Intel will most likely will remain leader unless AMD's Bulldozer architecture is as groundbreaking as the original Athlon 64 was compared to the Pentium 4. Even in that situation, Intel certainly didn't wither and die. They're too big for that.
My outlook? Intel will keep doing what it's doing, pretty well. Their key market of high performance processors is a pretty reliable base, even in the face of competition. They've survived an onslaught once before. The mobile market is a lost cause, unless Microsoft's aim of making Windows 8 on tablets is as popular as they want it to be (even so, Win8 will run on ARM as well...).
Sandy Bridge and the following chips are so strong AMD would be lucky to give equivalent performance in many means, pushing the performance race into lower prices, which could hurt profits somewhat. Intel does have the beneficial position, though, of being so trusted and well known that they have a natural advantage in the marketplace.
Graphics performance is the only department where Intel's work is truly cut out for them. With HD video and GPGPU (using a graphics chip for general purpose calculations, like nVidia's CUDA does) gaining popularity, the need for powerful graphics units, even in budget systems, is growing. AMD is in a position where they can take advantage of that, owning a large graphics chip manufacturer, while Intel is certainly the underdog. You can be sure (since it's starting to happen now) that AMD will cash in on this advantage with future chipsets and Fusion processors, as well as a rise in general purpose uses for graphics chips.
Hope that's a slight insight into the current CPU world. I'm not a banker, so I won't tell you what to do with your money, but maybe some of my rambling will help you make a well informed decision.
Android, iPad, webOS, Symbian and Windows Phone 7 are all ARM dominant platforms. Even if it provides better performance (or performance per watt, even), x86 chips are not going to provide good enough battery life or enough benefits for phones and tablets to start switching. So Intel has lost a lot of that market entirely.
Within the general computing market, Intel is still king, especially with the poor showing AMD has been making recently in the CPU front. Fusion, AMD's new product line, does have a lot of potential in the netbook and low to mid end markets, though. With their ownership of the former ATI, AMD is in a position where they can sell a single chip that provides a competent, inexpensive CPU with best in class graphics, which is an appealing proposition for computer manufacturers and users alike.
At the top of the hill, in high power computers and servers, Intel will most likely will remain leader unless AMD's Bulldozer architecture is as groundbreaking as the original Athlon 64 was compared to the Pentium 4. Even in that situation, Intel certainly didn't wither and die. They're too big for that.
My outlook? Intel will keep doing what it's doing, pretty well. Their key market of high performance processors is a pretty reliable base, even in the face of competition. They've survived an onslaught once before. The mobile market is a lost cause, unless Microsoft's aim of making Windows 8 on tablets is as popular as they want it to be (even so, Win8 will run on ARM as well...).
Sandy Bridge and the following chips are so strong AMD would be lucky to give equivalent performance in many means, pushing the performance race into lower prices, which could hurt profits somewhat. Intel does have the beneficial position, though, of being so trusted and well known that they have a natural advantage in the marketplace.
Graphics performance is the only department where Intel's work is truly cut out for them. With HD video and GPGPU (using a graphics chip for general purpose calculations, like nVidia's CUDA does) gaining popularity, the need for powerful graphics units, even in budget systems, is growing. AMD is in a position where they can take advantage of that, owning a large graphics chip manufacturer, while Intel is certainly the underdog. You can be sure (since it's starting to happen now) that AMD will cash in on this advantage with future chipsets and Fusion processors, as well as a rise in general purpose uses for graphics chips.
Hope that's a slight insight into the current CPU world. I'm not a banker, so I won't tell you what to do with your money, but maybe some of my rambling will help you make a well informed decision.
Re: What do you think of Intel's future in the next couple years
Yes, great reply, so thanks for that!
Here's some follow-up questions...
Do you think that smartphones and tablets will erode into the laptop/desktop market significantly?
I know personally, will my Android phone, I don't use my old laptop NEARLY as much. I hardly even turn it on anymore. I used to use it all the time on the couch and such, but now it's pretty much my desktop for work purposes (and some news reading/research) and my phone for most general consumption.
I still think PCs will have their place for work, but I'm wondering if that's enough of a transition to see a big decrease in Intel chip production. On the other side, you also have more developing countries get PCs as well, so maybe that will make up for it.
Also, I don't want to overlook server chips, when Intel is obviously strong. I would think that demand for servers will also increase over the years as more and more things will depend on them (especially with the move to the "cloud").
Here's some follow-up questions...
Do you think that smartphones and tablets will erode into the laptop/desktop market significantly?
I know personally, will my Android phone, I don't use my old laptop NEARLY as much. I hardly even turn it on anymore. I used to use it all the time on the couch and such, but now it's pretty much my desktop for work purposes (and some news reading/research) and my phone for most general consumption.
I still think PCs will have their place for work, but I'm wondering if that's enough of a transition to see a big decrease in Intel chip production. On the other side, you also have more developing countries get PCs as well, so maybe that will make up for it.
Also, I don't want to overlook server chips, when Intel is obviously strong. I would think that demand for servers will also increase over the years as more and more things will depend on them (especially with the move to the "cloud").
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Re: What do you think of Intel's future in the next couple years
tough to say. But I remember when laptops finally hit a reasonable pricepoint I thought to myself "well now NOBODY is going to buy desktops anymore." But that's not what happened.racketboy wrote: Do you think that smartphones and tablets will erode into the laptop/desktop market significantly?
Re: What do you think of Intel's future in the next couple years
I think as things get affordable it just means that a family now owns three devices instead of just one. There's not one device that fits all.noiseredux wrote:tough to say. But I remember when laptops finally hit a reasonable pricepoint I thought to myself "well now NOBODY is going to buy desktops anymore." But that's not what happened.racketboy wrote: Do you think that smartphones and tablets will erode into the laptop/desktop market significantly?
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Re: What do you think of Intel's future in the next couple years
This is what I think will happen as well, but not everyone will be able to afford all three even if the prices drop, so for them it's more a matter of what can they get the most use out of. In my mind, the answer to that is the laptop. If you can afford to buy several though, it's nice to have a tablet and a dedicated PC as well.MrPopo wrote: I think as things get affordable it just means that a family now owns three devices instead of just one. There's not one device that fits all.
The tablet is a new technology, so more people are venturing into buying it right now, but I don't see it as necessarily across-the-board better than a laptop or PC. It's excels at certain uses, particularly mobility, and it will probably pull away a chunk of the laptop market that is only concerned about mobility, but I don't think laptops or PCs will go away.
Intel has some interesting ideas brewing now too, such as their latest in integrated graphics processors that eliminate your need for a dedicated graphics card and their identity protection technology that is now used in Steam Guard, which made Valve CEO Gabe Newell so confident in the security of his account that he released his Steam user name and password to the public since the only way to log in is by checking in with his Intel chip first.
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Re: What do you think of Intel's future in the next couple years
Severs are a strong traditional market, but there's brewing competition there as well. Bulldozer could be a sleeper hit in servers, if AMD can use their "mass number of cores with shared components" idea to deliver a great deal. Also, there's competition from IBM with their POWER chips and Sun with SPARC. Then ARM come into play... in the days of multiple cores and multithreaded applications, some are looking at large numbers of low powered chips to replace big, thirsty CPUs, and ARM chips, which are developing at a huge rate and have lots of developer support, could be the chips to do so.