Analysts: AMD’s lack of a netbook chip is hurting sales

gateway lt3103u

Intel, VIA, and ARM are all over the netbook and low power computing market. AMD, not so much. And according to JP Morgan Securities, that could be hurting the company at a time when netbook sales are helping to prop up over PC and microprocessor sales.

VIA holds just 1% share of the overall market for CPUs, but it’s made a bit of a name for itself in the netbook space. Intel, on the other hand, saw its market share jump from 78% in the first quarter of the year to 80%. The company’s share of the mobile market went up by an even higher percentage. And who is Intel taking market share away from? It’s chief rival, AMD.

JP Morgan Securities is predicting that both AMD and Inel will see revenue go up between the second and third quarters of 2009. But the analysts predict that AMD will see smaller gains due to the company’s lack of a netbook processor.

Of course, just because AMD isn’t putting out a chip specifically targeted at netbooks doesn’t mean that other companies aren’t slotting existing AMD processors into netbook-liked devices. I finally got a chance to spend a few minutes with a Gateway LT3100 mini-laptop at a Best Buy store this weekend. The laptop is barely any larger than a typical netbook, but it sports an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display and an AMD Athlon L110 64-bit processor as well as ATI Radeon X120 graphics.

Unfortunately, it felt a bit sluggish, likely because the model I was tinkering with was running Windows Vista Home Premium instead of the lighter weight Windows XP. If AMD really wants to play in the netbook space, the company needs to produce a low power chip that can handle multitasking and video playback. And it wouldn’t hurt if the company got permission from Microsoft to use the chip in computers with Windows XP. Although by the time AMD could release a netbook-specific processor, Windows 7 will probably have been out for a while.

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Posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009, 2:11 pm by Brad Linder
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  • marees
    "And it wouldn’t hurt if the company got permission from Microsoft to use the chip in computers with Windows XP."

    The point AMD is trying to make is ATOM Netbooks are severly constrained and can run only XP, whereas AMD mini-notebooks can give customers the full experiece.

    Obviously this stratgey has failed in this case because Vista Premium is a resource hog. But Windows 7 ultimate (with less demands on resources) might help AMD?
  • I think AMD will do well in the netbook market since they are known for low cost and high performance; IMO. I think they are missing an opportunity to gain market share by ignoring the netbook market (unless they are secretly designing and creating one for this market? One can hope).

    I prefer AMD. I have gone out of my way to get it for my desktop and looked for it in notebook computers. I will check out the one 'netbook' with the AMD in it. :)
  • jANz
    If they could put an AMD Turion Neo X2 Dual-Core on this netbook or a (10" netbook) I'll definitely buy it. I have several netbooks & umpcs but i'm not satisfied with the performance. For now i'll just have to wait. sigh
  • Brad_D
    AMD's response (or lack thereof) toward netbooks has been completely asinine. I agree they could own this market if they would just create a product: dual core, no stupid arbitrary limits on clock speed and performance to protect notebook margins, fully modern chipset and integrated ATI graphics. Intel gives us crap chipsets that underperform while drawing too much power and providing sucktastic graphics. Most people aren't going to shell out $500+ for what is still a dinky little netbook just to have nVidia ION. If AMD would deliver instead of exhaling BS about how nobody wants netbooks, it would be like, Atom who?
  • kj_pda
    I have also played with this netbook at best buys. It was hard to tell how sluggish it was. VISTA is much more resource intensive so I would guess that maybe why. IE loaded normally (as it would on my ASUS 1000h) and navigating the desktop seemed similar. The screen and keyboard make this a much better netbook IMO. I have read complaints about Skype and sluggishness on flash. I think this is a great netbook for the price. Battery life may be the one significant difference.
  • marklarson
    I wouldn't say it failed miserably. For one, Vista allows it to come with a bigger screen, a bigger hard drive and more RAM.

    Looks like some people who are dismissing this netbook are doing it after a short while playing with it at Best Buy.
  • Honestly, it could produce a low power chip that combined ATi graphics with a CPU on a single die that would set the netbook world on fire. Everyone knows that Intel's graphics chipsets are crap, and the Ion is supposedly too expensive for the price sensitive netbook market. ATi could just completely steal the netbook market away from Intel.
  • pauli
    the l110 is in no way an "existing amd processor." last time i looked, there is NO information available regarding the l110 that does not involve the lt3100. same (iirc) with the 256mb x1270. this was pretty clearly a custom setup from amd to test the waters (and it failed miserably).
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