Only if Friedcat wants to disrupt Intel next!

Seriously, it's a very interesting question. At any stage of this arms race competing chip makers have to choose between higher upfront costs and lead times against have a chip with a competitive edge. It's inefficient and risky to go too big too soon. There's no point in being too big a share of the network, so even if you can build something miles better than everyone else perhaps you shouldn't. So I guess it's a question of considering:

• who else is making chips;
• in what volume can they get them;
• what performance will they get with them; and
• when do I think they will hit the network, or will they go broke first

Companies that survive will have to revisit these questions and get good answers every time they commit to a next generation chip.