"and it could sell off its upcoming Luther Park fab, or at least part of it, which is being subsidized to the tune of $1.1-billion by the government of New York state."
Why do people keep saying this? There is no fab and no equipment there - all they can sell is 49% of an option to the subsidy. I'm tired of wannabe financial analysts thinking well a fab is in the 3-5Bil rang so they could get 1.5-2.5Bil for it... only one problem: AMD has not yet spent a single dime on the fab shell or any of the equipment so what is the prospective buyer actually purchasing? (access to the subsidy and/or fab process IP) Any money AMD would take in from this 'sale' might go to, I don't know, actually building the fab?
I have a lot that I plan to build a 2Mil dollar home on - would you like to give me 1Mil for 50% owenrship of it? Yeah, I know right now it's just tumbleweeds but it'll be great real soon! Of course the 1 Mil you give me now is worth a lot more than the 1Mil in future dollars when the home is actually built... but we'll just assume zero inflation (or that you have no concept of what inflation and NPV is). I'm just going to use that 1mil to pay down some personal debts, but once I clear those I should be able to raise some cash to build it...
If you look at this financially in terms of NPV AMD would be lucky to get 70cents on the dollar for something that isn't built yet. This thing would not be online until at least 2011-2012 and you are talking about the NPV over quite a few years. So with this perspective - how much of the debt you think they can clear with this?
"We think that if and once AMD gets its act together, exciting products can come out of the company."
Doesn't AMD getting it's act together kind of imply that they will have exciting products? Or do you think AMD can get its act together with dull, boring products? You think AMD can turn things around purely with the 'good enough' marketing campaign?
"Rather than combating this threat, AMD is so focused on cash and is losing so many key people that it has not come up with a credible counter-stroke for Larrabee"
You say this as if AMD has an actual option to do anything different - with no cash and layoffs, how exactly do you expect them to fund this monetarily and resource-wise?