http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/ Engadget Comments for Intel puts the freeze on notebook prices, ponders Calpella delay http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/Feb 10th 2009 10:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/Feb 10th 2009 10:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/Feb 10th 2009 11:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/
Memory, Cpus etc. are cheap through mass production if less are made then they get DEARER
Local currency can also devalue which means imports are MORE expensive.(happening in the UK at the minute)

No-one at Engadget really understand even basic economics do they ?]]>Feb 10th 2009 11:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/
Intel makes a profit on each CPU. They can reduce the profit they make to lower the cost and therefore sell more units, and perhaps ultimately make more money. But the amount of profit they make and volume increase expected have to come out just right. Apparently Intel doesn't think that they will sell enough extra units by lowering their profit margins to make more money (If AMD could put out a decent mid-high end processor again maybe that wouldn't be the case...).

So price reductions can, and should be expected in a poor economy...on luxury goods. The staples are what should generally increase in price, because you can't live without them. Fortunately, we have a wide variety of options and much better supply chain control, so we don't see very drastic increases on them like we did in the real Great Depression.

The bottom line is, the economy is really friggin' complex, and there are almost always exceptions.]]>Feb 10th 2009 11:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/
In a slight slowdown in a specif segment probably. When everything is down across the board and sales are way off lowering prices is just leaving money on the table.

Since the CPU is only part of the cost of a laptop (I'll be liberal here and say that it's 20% to illustrate), lowering it's cost by, say 25% would only lower the cost of the laptop by, 25% of that 20%. If the laptop costs $500 to build, and the cpu costs $100, with the 25% discount that CPU costs $75. The laptop now costs $475. At retail this Laptop probably costs $625 before and $594 after. Intel is smart enough to know that in this market, the price reduction that finds it's way to the consumer is probably not enough to sell the additional quantity of laptops required to make up the difference for the price reduction. Don't forget that this example is also extreme. The typical cost of a laptop CPU in quantities that manufacturers purchase them is less than 20% of the cost of the laptop in most cases, AFAIK.

Intel is smart to not lower the prices at this time, since they would most likely just eat the reduction. The only good reason for them to lower the price is if AMD significantly cuts prices and starts gaining significant market share. Then Intel will need to respond.]]>Feb 10th 2009 12:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/We had a LOT of people call in using laptops for work purposes.
I would judge up to a third of calls I handled were for professional use of some kind and we only dealt with consumer models.
The models they bought were consumer models (mostly value model systems).
There is an entire department for business models of notebooks.

They usually wanted the system fixed immediately and expected some kind of a loaner as well.
I have to wonder how many of them wouldn't need a repair service of some kind if they didn't use their systems for person use as well, though.]]>Feb 10th 2009 11:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/Feb 10th 2009 11:15AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/Feb 10th 2009 11:29AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/Feb 10th 2009 11:43AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/Feb 10th 2009 12:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/Feb 10th 2009 1:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/Feb 10th 2009 1:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/]]>Feb 10th 2009 10:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/
If Microsoft has any sense they'll ship Windows 7 in a big "seven fest" dual launch.]]>Feb 12th 2009 11:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/intel-puts-the-freeze-on-notebook-prices-ponders-calpella-delay/Feb 11th 2009 1:53PM