Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Tech Spending Flat

GigaOm writes about AMD: Earlier today, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced that it is cutting its revenue forecasts, for the first quarter of 2007.

“Revenues declined sharply quarter-over-quarter … due to lower overall average selling prices and significantly lower unit sales, especially in the resale channel,” AMD said.

We are in flat markets - TV, cellular, phone, broadband, PC's, laptops, iPods. Just about everyone who wants one, has it. So acquisition costs go up, because you have to steal from other people. But this also means a market correction for many hardware vendors (Dell, HP, Intel, etc.).

In Broadband, the recent survey suggests that 30% of people do not want BB and/or don't own a computer. Imagine what the penetration costs will be like for that market?

Cellular has been driven by handset sales. MOTO, Blackberry and Ericsson had most of the US market. Now, LG, Samsung, Palm, Apple, and others are making a push into that market.

Let's look at set-top boxes: one of the Bells has ownership in 2Wire; Apple TV was just released; Cisco is integrating Scientific America; Alcatel-Lucent have the VZ ONT business. Flat. This isn't a Blue Ocean; it is a Red Ocean where someone has to lose for someone to win.

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