This projected market opportunity closely parallels the planned production ramp of Fab 30. Fab 30 represents the culmination of a dream that began early in this decade when AMD embarked on a very ambitious program to develop independent technology for microprocessors for personal computers based on the Microsoft Windows operating system, which dominates the world PC market. Those who have observed the worldwide PC industry are well aware that the market for microprocessors for Windows computing has long been dominated by one company, which for years has controlled 85 to 90 percent of this enormous market. At AMD, one of our core values is a belief in competition. We believe that competition is good.
Competition is the principal driving force for progress in a free and open market.
Competition is the natural state of affairs in a market economy. There is no monopoly on good ideas, and innovation occurs more rapidly, with more widely distributed benefits, in a competitive environment. In the 1980s, there were as many as 15 competitors, licensed or otherwise, building microprocessors based on the x86 instruction set pioneered by Intel. Today there are only two. AMD is the only surviving challenger to the company that dominates the market for the most critical component of a personal computer.