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Short INTC maybe but I am not sure this means that AMD will increase in value over the long run as a result of this one incident.

SteveNuts 9y ago
What about this combined with the Intel ME stuff? I could see large cloud providers starting to at least think about switching to AMD
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  Large cloud providers don't make decisions emotionally. They'll take a "let's mitigate the ME stuff and buy best support + performance per dollar hardware possible" approach. They don't care much about the opinion of the outraged hackers.
  - fulafel 9y ago
    Security track record is taken seriously by many big vendors.
    - IgorPartola 9y ago
      Is it? That seems like a big broad claim. Again, after things like RowHammer, did anyone actually do anything differently in a way that affected stock prices?
      - fulafel 9y ago
        Like everyone else, I sure would want to know what kinds of conversations have been going on around RowHammer and customers most affected by it, and system/DRAM vendors. I'm not a believer in stock price as good indicator of anything, sorry to skip that part.
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      Usually mitigated by a special incentives like "15% extra discount for next 2 years if you stay with us". Intel has enough cash and market presence to be able to do those deal. At the same time AMD also has a golden opportunity to for some PR and marketing.
- ComputerGuru 9y ago
  AMD has their own ME equivalent in their recent CPUs.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Yes, but on recent motherboards with recent AMD CPUs, a bios option to turn the PSP off has appeared, and support says that’s exactly what it does.
  - IgorPartola 9y ago
    ME is actually a gasp useful feature. The problem is with Intel's implementation of it: it's not open source, it can't be disabled, and it's buggy. Fix all three of those, and Intel's stock will go up.
    - zanny 9y ago
      Do you really think enough people care about the ME / control of hardware in general / hardware that spies on you or is out of your control to influence the stock price of a company the size of Intel?
      - IgorPartola 9y ago
        No. That's exactly what I'm saying. Most people don't care. Enterprise users do care because ME is useful for them. It's a feature, not a nefarious backdoor that the NSA made Intel include under the cover of darkness. They'll see this as a small problem that should be fixed and will ask Intel to do so. Intel will fix it, most everyone will move on. I don't think ME will take down Intel stock, and neither will this page isolation bug. Intel's value is 99% engineering + manufacturing ability + customer relations. It would be a poor CEO indeed who'd direct their IT to start buying AMD because of this alone.
        uhhhhhhh 9y ago
        If my recollection serves, when Intel had what was the largest/most expensive recall in the world in the 90's (at that time anyways), their stock still nearly doubled that year.
dboreham 9y ago
I think it will because it shows the downside of a monoculture. Hence big purchasers of CPUs will want to diversify. Also good for ARM vendors I suppose. Disclosure : bought AMD this morning before headlines saying "Buy AMD, short INTC" appeared.
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  Has there ever been a precedent for this? When there were major bugs in Intel CPU's (or drives, or RAM, or motherboards) did the likes of Amazon and Google invest in diversification? And has it affected stock prices meaningfully? My guess is that they'll see this as just another one off issue that can be fixed with software, then move on. For a large enterprise, monoculture that works is actually better than diversification. When you think about your own workstation, it's not a big deal to build an Intel or AMD system. But when you buy 100k motherboards and spend the time adjusting your tooling to those, from packaging to power, to cooling, to support, to OS code, etc. and then you on a whim decide to get another 100k motherboards of a different architecture, you spend a non-trivial amount of time and money to support those as well. Again, if AMD provides better hardware, it's absolutely worth it. But I personally wouldn't do it based on this bug. I don't own shares of either AMD or Intel.
  - revelation 9y ago
    I checked the stock of Intel during the FDIV bug (1994/1995) where they had to go as far as recalling the affected processors at a cost of $500M in January 1995 and there was basically zero effect. By the end of 1995 the stock had actually pretty much doubled in value..
    - sitkack 9y ago
      I personally think FDIV made Intel money, it told the world how important Intel was. It wasn't just the calculator sitting on some trader's desk. It ran the stock market and the stock market responded.
  - uhhhhhhh 9y ago
JackFaker 9y ago
This is probably completely unrelated but apparently Intel's CEO sold a large amount of stock late last year. https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/12/19/intels-ceo-just-sold-a-lot-of-stock.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/12/19/intels-ceo-just-so...
rdtsc 9y ago
I think there is a critical opportunity for AMD here to take this to the public and the media. Basically kick Intel while it is down. Intel will probably recover fine, but AMD shouldn't miss its chance either. Investors and such might pay attention to that and start selling INTC and buying AMD.
amckinlay 9y ago
AMD is doing a lot of things right recently and they have a bright future. And after seeing this, apparently they have been doing things right longer than I thought.

SteveNuts 9y ago

What about this combined with the Intel ME stuff? I could see large cloud providers starting to at least think about switching to AMD

IgorPartola 9y ago
Large cloud providers don't make decisions emotionally. They'll take a "let's mitigate the ME stuff and buy best support + performance per dollar hardware possible" approach. They don't care much about the opinion of the outraged hackers.
- fulafel 9y ago
  Security track record is taken seriously by many big vendors.
  - IgorPartola 9y ago
    Is it? That seems like a big broad claim. Again, after things like RowHammer, did anyone actually do anything differently in a way that affected stock prices?
    - fulafel 9y ago
      Like everyone else, I sure would want to know what kinds of conversations have been going on around RowHammer and customers most affected by it, and system/DRAM vendors. I'm not a believer in stock price as good indicator of anything, sorry to skip that part.
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    Usually mitigated by a special incentives like "15% extra discount for next 2 years if you stay with us". Intel has enough cash and market presence to be able to do those deal. At the same time AMD also has a golden opportunity to for some PR and marketing.
ComputerGuru 9y ago
AMD has their own ME equivalent in their recent CPUs.
- kuschku 9y ago
  Yes, but on recent motherboards with recent AMD CPUs, a bios option to turn the PSP off has appeared, and support says that’s exactly what it does.
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  ME is actually a gasp useful feature. The problem is with Intel's implementation of it: it's not open source, it can't be disabled, and it's buggy. Fix all three of those, and Intel's stock will go up.
  - zanny 9y ago
    Do you really think enough people care about the ME / control of hardware in general / hardware that spies on you or is out of your control to influence the stock price of a company the size of Intel?
    - IgorPartola 9y ago
      No. That's exactly what I'm saying. Most people don't care. Enterprise users do care because ME is useful for them. It's a feature, not a nefarious backdoor that the NSA made Intel include under the cover of darkness. They'll see this as a small problem that should be fixed and will ask Intel to do so. Intel will fix it, most everyone will move on. I don't think ME will take down Intel stock, and neither will this page isolation bug. Intel's value is 99% engineering + manufacturing ability + customer relations. It would be a poor CEO indeed who'd direct their IT to start buying AMD because of this alone.
      - uhhhhhhh 9y ago
        If my recollection serves, when Intel had what was the largest/most expensive recall in the world in the 90's (at that time anyways), their stock still nearly doubled that year.

dboreham 9y ago

I think it will because it shows the downside of a monoculture. Hence big purchasers of CPUs will want to diversify. Also good for ARM vendors I suppose. Disclosure : bought AMD this morning before headlines saying "Buy AMD, short INTC" appeared.

IgorPartola 9y ago
Has there ever been a precedent for this? When there were major bugs in Intel CPU's (or drives, or RAM, or motherboards) did the likes of Amazon and Google invest in diversification? And has it affected stock prices meaningfully? My guess is that they'll see this as just another one off issue that can be fixed with software, then move on. For a large enterprise, monoculture that works is actually better than diversification. When you think about your own workstation, it's not a big deal to build an Intel or AMD system. But when you buy 100k motherboards and spend the time adjusting your tooling to those, from packaging to power, to cooling, to support, to OS code, etc. and then you on a whim decide to get another 100k motherboards of a different architecture, you spend a non-trivial amount of time and money to support those as well. Again, if AMD provides better hardware, it's absolutely worth it. But I personally wouldn't do it based on this bug. I don't own shares of either AMD or Intel.
- revelation 9y ago
  I checked the stock of Intel during the FDIV bug (1994/1995) where they had to go as far as recalling the affected processors at a cost of $500M in January 1995 and there was basically zero effect. By the end of 1995 the stock had actually pretty much doubled in value..
  - sitkack 9y ago
    I personally think FDIV made Intel money, it told the world how important Intel was. It wasn't just the calculator sitting on some trader's desk. It ran the stock market and the stock market responded.
- uhhhhhhh 9y ago

JackFaker 9y ago

This is probably completely unrelated but apparently Intel's CEO sold a large amount of stock late last year. https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/12/19/intels-ceo-just-sold-a-lot-of-stock.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/12/19/intels-ceo-just-so...

rdtsc 9y ago

I think there is a critical opportunity for AMD here to take this to the public and the media. Basically kick Intel while it is down. Intel will probably recover fine, but AMD shouldn't miss its chance either. Investors and such might pay attention to that and start selling INTC and buying AMD.

amckinlay 9y ago

AMD is doing a lot of things right recently and they have a bright future. And after seeing this, apparently they have been doing things right longer than I thought.