It's time for the human race to enter the solar system - Dan Quayle
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AMD's analyst day was a sombre affair
THE MOOD AT AMD's ANALyst day was pretty sombre, with everyone trying to paint a picture that things were bad, but are getting better. The spin is 'glass half full', not 'glass empty', and they repeated that every chance they got.
The NYSE festooned in AMD livery
How well did it come across? Every analyst in the room that I talked to had more or less the same attitude that is out there in the enthusiast press, credibility is used up, time to prove it. Messaging is all happy and nice, but it banks on credibility, and that is lacking here. That said, AMD had a nice message, and if it delivers on it, things will "trend up". If not, things are looking very grim indeed.
The world+dog said the same thing, Barcelona was horribly handled, things could not have been done worse, but the problem is fixed, and working parts are on the way. They said it in February, May, September and November, so what is different now? Hopefully that they are right, but like everyone is saying, we will see in February/March if they are.
If they are, it will be a big confidence and credibility boost. The other thing that will help in that regard is the financials. If you look at the chart below, you will see things are "trending up" in all segments but server. Server is getting hammered based mainly on quad-cores, and a fix for that is coming, maybe.
One of these things does not belong
In Q4, things are said to get a little better, closer to break even but not positive. Once again, the mood was sceptical, let's see if it does it. Baby step s are what it needs to do now.
On a brighter note, we come to ATI. 2007 was pretty bad for the firm, but so was 2006. In Q4 things are turning around. A0 silicon for RV670 was release, R680 is looking extremely good, and early word that on R700 is as well. The brightest spot is definitely design wins though.
Change is in the air
ATI is simply cleaning up on OEM orders and notebook design wins. At IDF last fall, Nvidia had all of zero Montevina design wins, but since then, OEMs and ODMs claim that NV bought a few to save face. Either way, for ATI, 2008 will not look like 2007, they expect to be #1 again by the summer. Once again, we will see.
Overall, things were grim, and to quote Bob Rivet, AMD's CFO, operating income was a "disaster". AMD painted an improving picture but far from a rosy one. Will it do it? We will know by the end of Q1, and until then, most will remain sceptical. µ
See Also
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terrified of financial analysts, shock
AMD
bungled Barcelona launch - official
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Charlie, they said B0, B2, now they fixed the glitch with B3. Even with this “great news!” they are still left with the same poorly designed architecture, with excruciatingly bad thermals, albeit at modest speeds. Additionally, Silicon On Insulator (SOI), a more expensive process, IBM’s brainchild, has not faired well in practical production, not to mention HV production. 

AMD simply cannot afford an entire generational product cycle to prototype both a bad process AND a bad architecture, which is precisely what’s happened during 2007 and into 2008. Further, all things considered, this will not get better at 45nM. Too much time and money has been put into a, basically, broken product. What makes maters worse; INTC will NOT be sleeping on the beach in Maui, sipping Pina Coladas, during 2008. 

No mater how AMD slices their optimistic pie, INTC is just patently waiting to eat it. INTC will not lay down now, bank on it. At this juncture, and at these performance levels, with 3 shiny new FAB’s, with these volumes, all they need to do is just strategically cut prices. They will.

SPARKS 
Right here, AMD is like the teenager with a drinking problem. The show up for a scheduled counseling session and say; "well, I got drunk everyday of last year but this NEXT year I plan not to drink at all - but it's too early to tell you for sure... "

Those charts are meaningless. Unless you print them up on soft paper and use them blow your nose. Or maybe to clean up the coffee you spilled (out of frustration, of course) while reading their propaganda...
Trending up:
I guess that depends if going straight down means going straight up. I cannot see how ATI could possibly dominate again without an Intel partnership and with an inferior performing product, It just doesnt add up. On the other front it gets even worse, Barcelona is not only defective with erratum but it offers no real compelling performance. Clock for clock the fastest Barcelona is slower than the slowest Intel Penryn. Where is the hope in this? What gave AMD its greatest performance increase (onboard Memory controller) will soon be introduced in 2008 on Nehalem. Hector is right , I just don't see what he see's.
Interesting and succinct