Intel Goes After AMD: Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Apr 17, 4:43AM EDT

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Intel (INTC) believes that it has another way to keep rival AMD (AMD) on the ropes. The smaller chip company has already revised down it Q1 earnings forecast and is rumored to need $1 billion in capital to run the company after the end of the year.

Last year, AMD introduced multifunction semiconductors, so-called systems on a chip. These new products can put computing for graphics and video onto one processor.

AMD hoped it would have a nice lead in the new technology because of its purchase of graphics chip company ATI Technology. Not a chance.

Just as Intel has introduce dual and quad core chips to stay ahead of AMD in the PC and server markets, the system on a chip business in one where Intel has gone to school on AMD and may actually beat it to market.

Intel is sick of losing share to AMD which now has about 25% of the server market. The rivalry has started a price war that has hurt both companies.

But, if Intel can stay ahead of AMD on the R&D front, combined its production and marketing scale, AMD shareholders could be in for a long summer.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.