Ask a Fool: Is There Any Hope Left for AMD?

By Eric Bleeker | September 18, 2012

In the spirit of better investing and in celebration of the first annual Worldwide Invest Better Day coming up on Sept. 25, Motley Fool analysts will be answering user- and reader-submitted questions leading up to the big event. "Ask a Fool" anything, and we'll do our best to help you invest better.

Many are wondering about the future prospects for AMD, second only to Intel in the microprocessor manufacturing arena. AMD tends to excite investors quite a bit, as it rises and falls to extremes, with hope seemingly always just around the corner that it can make some gains on its rival.

The problem is that AMD has no major advantage, and it's losing ground while Intel maintains the lead. As the PC market loses growth to smartphones and tablets, Intel is at least succeeding in servers, whereas AMD's latest server architecture was a decided flop, taking only about 5% of market share.

With no presence in mobile, a PC market that continues to weaken, and a server launch that was barely cause for notice, it's safe to say that AMD's future doesn't bode well for the long term. Stick with the more established Intel, or consider a company like Qualcomm, which is well positioned for the mobile revolution.