Intel to get whacked in Q3 by PC slowdown

Wall Street got a shock this morning as chip maker Intel cut its guidance for the third quarter ending in September. In a statement, Intel said that it was now expecting revenues to be somewhere between $10.8bn and $11.2bn, significantly lower than the $11.2bn to $12bn guidance that the company gave Wall Street back on July 13 …

[Anonymous Coward]

82.9 Computers???

"Gartner said that the PC market jumped in the second quarter, too, with shipments up 20.9 per cent, with 82.9 machines out the door. "

Wow, the PC market has really tanked if only 82.9 PCs were sold the second quarter of this year. I'd hate to be the poor sod who got the 0.9th one, however.

Mines the one with the PC power supply in the pocket that I need to deliver...

[Anonymous Coward]

USB3

Maybe Intel's decision to hold back USB3 removed a reason for some people to get a new lappy? That is certainly the case here. Can keep an old one going another year no probs.

When USB3 is out and Intel in no longer holding back progress of the whole IT planet, I'll do my best to buy AMD/Radeon as IMO Intel's USB3 shareholder-madness should not be rewarded - at least not w MY money. Thanks for nothing Intel.

[Henry Wertz 1]

Well, personally...

Between ubuntu and gentoo, even running VMs, recording and playing back TV, including HD digital TV, my computers are all pretty old (like Athlon XP 2200+ range), and I don't feel like I'm missing out. They've actually been improving the overall performance over time (and reducing CPU time used by any given task) so not only have my systems not been slowing down as I upgrade Ubuntu & Gentoo, they've been speeding up! I'm upgrading or replacing systems only when a motherboard blows caps.

My parents still have a 1.1ghz Duron, with only 384MB of RAM in it, with Ubuntu on it and have no complaints; they could get a 2.8ghz P4 for like $75 at a local store (and I could move the Ubuntu drive straight into it so they wouldn't have to worry about losing any files or whatever), but they say it runs almost as fast as the new Core 2 Duos they got at work (with some standardized Windows + virus scanner + etc. image on them) so it's not even worth $75 to them to upgrade, let alone the cost of a new system. I've considered at least popping more RAM into it but *shrug* it doesn't even run short on RAM so I haven't bothered.

Obviously these are anecodtal, but I figure between software that keeps running well, and a weak economy, these anecdotes can add up into a lot of people not replacing systems compared to the past.

[h4rm0ny]

Picky, picky...

Am I naive? Is being out by around 10% a huge error margin? They made around $10bn profit so it's not like there was a huge risk involved. How much accuracy is required before you don't get criticised for bad forecasting? Meh. They said they thought they'd make $11bn and came in with $10bn - am I missing something here?

[Wallyb132]

Not profit

The $10.8Bn figure stated in the article is revenue, not profit... profit for intel is usually around $1.45Bn to $2Bn, and with the amount of share holders to feed, the loss of 10% is huge, hopefully this trend will continue and intel will go broke, but i'm not holding my breath...

[asdf]

ah the lovely double dipper is a coming

Boy I bet another recession is just what Obama wants to see with mid term election coming. Oh well statistics say we are all seeing the worse economy we will ever see in our lifetimes. Good times, good times :(.

[Mage]

USB3? or ARM

USB3 is not significant. Intel's lightpeak may be better. for storage eSata? Networking 1 Gigabit Everything else USB2 or firewire?

Maybe people spending the money on feature/smart phones, Satnavs, PMP, MID, pads/slates etc all ARM based. Not just iThings from Apple.

Also with lower spec laptops and netbooks that were on a race to bottom on price do people with working laptops need to buy a new one anymore? It's not like 10 years ago.

Mines the one with an old Archos 605 WiFi and Nokia E65 smartphone in the pocket. Hold on while I pack my 8 year old 1.8Ghz 1600x1200 laptop.

[candtalan]

I would buy Computers

With no operating system, as long as they were warranted compatible with GNU/Linux (Ubuntu in my case). Easy sale of two, if not three. Failing their availability (what's new?), I will be perfectly happy with my existing kit. It runs well on Ubuntu anyway.

[Simon2]

Upgraded my PC, but still have old one.

My current PC is based on the GA-MA770-UD3 rev 2.0 M'brd, Phenom 2 X2 550BE and HD4850 Gfx card.

I use it for gaming and as a media centre, including watching/recording HD channels via a VideoMate S350 satellite card.

My previous PC (which I still have, but is now unused) is based on the GA-7N400 Pro2, Athon XP 2500 and AGP GeForce 6600GT.

To play modern games and smoothly watch HD channels such as BBC HD I needed to upgrade.

Also, for storage, the GA-7N400-Pro2 only has 4 IDE channels and 2 SATA 150 ports.

It still works perfectly OK so I think it may be usefull as a file server.

If i remember correctly, I could never manage to get the CPU temp below about 45 C at stock speed with a lapped Thermalright SLK900. I think this was because the CPU socket only had the plastic clips around it so larger heatsinks that screwthough the MB were not compatible.

By comparison my OC'd to 3.7Ghz X2 550BE has never gone above 31 C with a Scythe Mugen 2.

I used my old PC for many years and I expect my current system to last the same if not longer.