A year ago: Intel sings like canary with flu

Secret price cut shape of things to come

So that was Christmas and one day after the Boxing Day festivities, an email arrived from Santa Claus from Santa Clara, confirming the cut which dare not speak its name. Quoth Santa: "You have been speculating about price cuts in January. I can now tell you that in response to customer requests to establish entry-level Pentium II processor-based systems in Q1 1998, we are conducting an out-of-cycle price reduction on our 233MHz Pentium II processor. "This new price will enable OEMs to offer unprecedented levels of performance at entry-level price points, beginning in January 1998. According to our regular schedule, Intel will provide updated microprocessor pricing for the rest of our product line later in January." OK, so we got that one right then. Bumped into a security guard at a major publishing house in London who, knowing our trade, told us that he'd already placed an order for the 333MHz part which will arrive in the shops, distributors and OEM establishments towards the end of this month. (If there's an erratum, we won't see twin sets for a while (passim)). That, of course, will coincide with a drastic slashing exercise as Intel prepares to once again shift the goalposts on the processor front. At the same time, Deschutes will splash onto the tarmacadamy in a bid to convince the universe that what it needs is more power. But over in AMD-land, Intel's crafty fork technique (passim) has the boys and girls running around in a bit of a panic, we understand. It will introduce a pre-emptive price strike to persuade OEMs and the now vast assembler market that yes, content/archive/84, it will do its thing to keep at that lower price point. We'd seen it in the US press, but now it can be confirmed that the three Wise Men: AMD, Cyrix and Centaur/IDT, are huddled up considering a unified approach to MMX extensions, Ye Socket Seven Standarde and the ilke. They'd better get their act together fast, we think here at The Register. ®