AMD's roadmap is in a terrible muddle

WHEN THE SELF-AVOWEDLY paranoid chip company that is Intel has its back against the wall, it doesn't behave like a cornered rat, spit and snap in all directions and make a leap for its tormentor's neck.

Instead, as we've observed over the last 25 years, it sits down quietly, uses its huge brain and resources, and figures out how to survive and even prosper. Intel is far from being IBM, which I once likened to a huge oil tanker and which can only be turned round slowly because of its size and demeanour. Intel is more like a skiff, or to push the mammal metaphor one more time, is like Fred Astaire on steroids.

AMD is such a different corporate creature. Forged in the crucible of Jerry Sanders III and his heroic fight against the great Chipzilla, it has spent much of its existence surviving against the odds. Those corporate traces still persist, even though for the last four years, AMD has had a better CPU technology.

For all we know, it may well still have better technology. Some highly techie journalists, such as David Kanter at Real World Technologies point to the continuing elegance of AMD designs.

But here it's not necessarily just a question of the elegance of a microprocessor design nor the eloquence of the team of Intel speech writers, hired from the brightest and the best of preppie schools or Oxbridge, whatever.

AMD's problem is perception and, er, the lack of huge coffers to put a polish on the speculum of its products. If Barcelona is even half as good as it has promised for the last six months, corporations will beat their way to its door to use them in their server farms. It's taken the last four years for AMD to prove that point by dint of sheer perseverance and skill.

But right now it's failing to square the circle. Realistically, if it cannot produce better cores using better technologies yet, that's not necessarily a problem. But we don't know if it has a problem delivering its next cores because it hasn't really come out of the cupboard and told us definitively what's happening.

That leaves AMD having to face the slings and arrows of outrageous speculation which isn't doing it any favours in the industry or on the stock market. The industry certainly needs a strong and thriving AMD because no one wants a monopoly. Intel doesn't want a monopoly either, because it's firms like Transmeta, AMD, Nvidia and Via which are or have been the virtual steroids allowing it to tap dance its way into the future.

AMD just needs to keep to its last, shrug off the underdog role, get over it, and get on with it, without constantly watching its bigger brother. That's how it's managed to introduce good products in the last few years and allowed it to claw its way into the minds and wallets of corporations worldwide. µ