AMD rejoices as Intel chip shortage continues
Summary Description Low supplies of Pentium III and Celeron chips are driving PC builders to Intel's rivals.
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Roullas Top10 Simon Vandore

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Editorial InformationArticle Location http://www.newswire.com.au/0002/amdinte.htm
Article Topic Processors
Story Order
Story Group 000213
Post Date 10/02/2000 05:10 PM Status Posted Entered by Simon Vandore on 10/02/2000 10:16 AM


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Introduction
Intel officials claim a global shortage of its processors will last until March, affecting PC supplies in Australia.

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PC builders and component retailers claim stocks of Pentium IIIs and Celerons have almost dried up. Only small batches of the chips have been available in Sydney and Melbourne in recent days.
"There is Pentium III product that is coming through to the marketplace now," an Intel spokesperson told Newswire this afternoon. "It is in constraint. I can't quantify that for you but I will say that of course a lot of it's been going into backlog."
The Intel spokesperson blamed the industry as a whole for underforecasting its demand for processors in the fourth quarter of 1999.
"If the industry has not forecast all of the products that they require, there is a certain delay or lag time in terms of building enough product to supply to the market."
One Sydney PC retailer said that a mixture of Slot 1 and Socket 370 chips were appearing, making it hard to stock up on the correct motherboard type or to know whether to advertise Celerons or Pentium III machines. However, the Intel spokesperson maintained that most Celerons are still available.
"There is plenty of Celeron product in the market -- a variety of speeds, I can't give you that, but I know some speeds are actually more readily available than others and that's really subject to supply and demand," the spokesperson said. "But the expectation is that by March we'll start to see a balance again of the supply and demand so that we will have filled that. That's pretty much all that we can say at this stage.
"I don't know what the numbers are on the different form factors. You know there is definitely a slot version and there is also a socket version there, so it depends on what their orders were."
The Intel spokesperson said incorrect forecasts of Y2K spending had also had an impact.
"Some companies may have made decisions earlier in the year and been way ahead in terms of upgrading and others may have left it until late. So it was difficult to figure out which particular quarter that forecast would fall in."
In December, Gateway blamed a $200 million loss of business in fourth quarter 1999 on a shortfall of Pentium III 400MHz and 450MHz chips from Intel. Chief executive officer of Gateway in the US, Jeff Weitzen, said its relationship with AMD will be much closer in future.
Business development manager for AMD in Australia and New Zealand, Steven Fraser, said his company had experienced increased business, which he attributed partly to the Intel shortfall and partly to the success of the Athlon processor.
Some predict AMD will struggle to fill the demand created by Intel's shortfall and one PC builder reported that Athlons were also hard to find, but Fraser said only lower-speed K6-2s had sold out in Australia.
"I've got plenty of stock and I think the success of the Athlon shows that we're executing on our technology path that we outlined in the middle of last year. And the fact that we can now ship 850MHz processors today -- I don't have any 850s in the marketplace at the moment, but the orders are open and I can ship," he said.


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Bulletin SummaryAMD rejoices as Intel chip shortage continues
Intel says a global shortage of its processors will last until March, affecting PC supplies in Australia. PC builders and component retailers say stocks of Pentium IIIs and Celerons have almost dried up. Only small batches of the chips have been available in Sydney and Melbourne in recent days. An Intel spokesperson blamed the industry as a whole for underforecasting its demand for processors in the fourth quarter of 1999.

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Intel chip shortage

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