The continuing scrap between Intel and AMD to dominate the lower end market is set to make times tough for late entrants like Rise and IDT. And NatSemi-Cyrix too will be squeezed. Joe D'Elia, senior microprocessor analyst at Dataquest Europe, said today that that both IDT and Rise are "bottom feeders" in the marketplace. "Rise hasn't had a presence in Europe until recently," D'Elia said. "Both are working in the white box market and with corner shops and not competing with Intel and AMD." In IDT's case, he said, that was a deliberate decision. "Later on in the year, they might be able to start moving onwards," D'Elia said. "They'll face an accelerating ramp up later in the year from AMD and Intel." He said that Cyrix too was at a disadvantage. "Cyrix was at least within striking distance of Intel and AMD two years ago," he said. "Now they've lost sight. Their PR233 is being sold purely on price and in the same space as IDT. It won't be until the second half of this year that their products based on the new core start to compete." D'Elia said that IDT's decision to use IBM as a foundry was merely an insurance policy. "IDT is a fully fabbed microprocessor vendor with its factories to fill and it is looking at microprocessors to do that for them." ®