AMD stealing SPARC share claim causes downgrade

A BANC of America analyst, Keith Bachman, has followed on the heels of Standard & Poors by downgrading Sun shares, according to a report here.

Back in January Bachman thought that Sun's deal with AMD showed plenty of promise but now he is apparently having second thoughts.

His sources tell him that Sun is struggling in this financial quarter while IBM, HP and Dell and tracking pretty much as expected, and he questions Sun's ability to gain share in the Linux market.

Bachman also raises the question of Sun's sales of lower-margin AMD products stealing market share from higher-margin Sparc-based products. Surely that would never happen in the IT industry. µ