News Bits: Vista in November for Some, Acer's Record Revenue, Intel Vs. AMD Court Case

OEM notebook companiesto receive Windows Vista before Christmas

The Inquirer has spoken with some OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), and learned that Microsoft plans to ship Windows Vista before the end of the year, but onlyto the OEMs and perhaps system integrators.

The plan makes sense, as OEMs such as Dell andHP need the new operating system to help boost its PC sales. OEMs typically do not buy machines in January, so if Microsoft did not ship sooner it could take much longer for Vista to show up on consumer laptops.

Microsoft has already come forward and said that the consumer version of Vista will be delayed, but this may mean that the retail boxes might be the ones affected, not the entire OS -- it should come preinstalled on some Dell and HPPCs for pre-2007 sales. Microsoft has also said to expect the corporate version of Vista in November, so perhaps the OEM version would be available around that time as well.

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Acer nears $10 billion in revenues

Acer released its final financial results for the 2004-2005 year, and said its operating income rose to $9.69-billion USD, up one hundred percent year on year. The profit after tax amounts to $258.18 million, which represents a 20.9 percent rise over the 2003-2004 year.

Acer forecast for 2006: $12.42 billion in revenue, and $311.12 millionafter tax. Acer is currently the #5 in sales in the U.S. with notebooks, #2 in Taiwan and #1 in many European countries.

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Intel suggests 300,000 sq. ft. chip factories

Intel's manufacturing capability of semiconductors allows it to maintain a lead in this segment, and they plan to increase that by adding more factories. They already have one 200,000 sq. ft. clean room fab in operation, and another under construction. Sources have suggested that Intel may expand the size of its fabs by an astounding fifty percent in the future.

According to the sources, future Intel clean rooms may reach up to 250,000 or 300,000 sq. ft. in order to achieve a production level necessary to match global demand. Intel considers "5000 wafer starts per week" as a "minimum volume that makes economic sense for a fab to produce." However, Intel will apparently "run out of land" before they reach the maximum fab size for efficient operation.

Intel's next plant, located in Israel, has a 200,000 sq. ft. clean room, and costs ~$3.5 billion. The chief financial officer outlined the cost of chip factories in the near future to be about $5 billion. Due to rising costs limiting the amount of manufacturers being able to engage in projects such as a chip factory, the bulk of the industry will likely be forced into production joint-ventures.

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Intel, AMD, and just to organize antitrust case

On April 20th, the case management conference in AMD's antitrust lawsuit against Intel will take place in the United States District Court for the State of Delaware. For those who don't know what a case management conference is, it's where parties exchange information about what type of discovery they will conduct, the length of the case, and other case-effecting issues.

The case: AMD alleges that Intel violated antitrust law through marketing programs and pricing policies that helped bar AMD from large shares of the PC market. PC Makers apparently were dissuaded from buying AMD microprocessors because of financial incentives, rebates and veiled threats from Intel.

Intel, naturally, denies the allegations, and fires back at AMD saying that they have not gotten a larger share of the PC market because of their own strategic miscalculations, and goes on further to say that AMD has "mischaracterized Intel's marketing and pricing policies."

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AMD headed for 65nm early

According to a report in Fabtech, a deal between AMD and Singapore foundry Chartered Semi is set to bear fruit in June. Chartered will act as a secondary source of 65nm AMD chips. AMD has secondary sources for the simple reason that they cannot supply all the processors as they would like to.

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New Gateway laptops announced

Gateway today announced a couple of new laptops. The Gateway NX100X / E-100M 12.1-inch ultraportable and Gateway M255-E / NX260X thin-and-light 14.1-inch screen laptops will be available in the coming weeks. The E-100M marks Gateways first entry into the ultraportable market since 2002.

For more on these new releases, view the following articles:

• Gateway M255-E and Gateway NX260X Announced (pics)
  
• Gateway NX100X and Gateway E-100M Announced (pics)