AMD (NYSE: AMD) will release its powerful new Barcelona chip today. The chip is a "quad core", meaning that it has four processor on one platform. The new product is aimed at high-end servers and PCs and is being shipped in products from Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Sun (NASDAQ: JAVA).

Larger rival Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) has taken much of the server market away from Advanced Micro over the last year or so. Barcelona is a bid to get that back. Nathan Brookwood, an analyst with Insight 64 told Reuters, "The stakes here are for AMD to staunch the erosion in its marketshare and to once again go on the offensive against Intel."

For Advanced Micro, it may be too late. The company has been left for stock market "road kill" by investors. Shares of the company were above $42 in early 2006. They now change hands below $13. The company took on a great deal of debt when it bought chip company ATI. Wall Street has been concerned that AMD will have trouble paying down that debt. The No.2 x86 processor company has also lost its top two sales executives in the last month.

The markets will know fairly soon if Barcelona is gaining share. Several research firms track chip sales in PCs and servers. Intel has already introduced its own "quad core" products.

If Barcelona does not do well, it is likely that the company will see major management changes and that ATI and other businesses may have to be sold off. Things are that dark for Advanced Micro.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

AMD to release new 'quad-core' Barcelona -- a last stand? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Shares sold short in Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) in June rose 23% to 100.1 million. The world's largest chip company's shares are up 30% this year, while those of its rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) are off over 40%.

Intel has clearly been taking back market share from AMD in both the server and PC markets. Mercury Research reported that Intel's piece of the market rose to over 80% in Q1 compared to 74% in the previous quarter. The analysis shows that some of the gain was because AMD had to dump chips in Q4 2006 to cut down inventories, making its numbers in that quarter unusually high.

Analysts believe that Intel's piece of the x86 customer base will stay above 80% after years of AMD chipping away at its numbers. AMD has had to drop prices to keep up as Intel has introduced its new Core 2 Duo products.

But Wall St. sense that momentum could swing the other way as AMD brings out its new Barcelona chip. Early figures on the performance of the chip put it ahead of Intel's comparable products in computing capacity and power consumption. Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) recently picked the new quad-core chip for its new supercomputer, passing over the competing Intel product.

If Barcelona is a hit, Intel's shares could move back down.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

A spike in Intel's short interest originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.