Intel's sunny outlook brightens the sector

Dell may be in the doldrums, but Intel for one doesn't share that particular vendor's gloom. The chip giant on Tuesday turned in Q2 results that caused audible smiles from analysts participating in the company's quarterly earnings call.

Granted, the company did post its first quarterly net loss since 1986 for the quarter that concluded on June 27 -- a GAAP operating loss of $12 million, a net loss of $398 million, and a loss per share of 7 cents. But that's the European Union, not the market, at work, as the company's results absorbed a $1.45 billion antitrust fine from that quarter. Excluding that, the firm earned $1.4 billion in operating revenue, $1 billion in net income, and earnings per share of 18 cents.

And here comes the holiday season. Intel on the call offered a Q3 revenue outlook of between $8.1 and $8.9 billion, up a bit from Q2's $8.0 billion (which was itself up 12% sequentially). The uptick reflects the usual seasonal demands, but does not reflect increased demand for new machines to run new corporate installations of Windows 7.

The company says it doesn't expect to see much sales impact from Windows 7 until next year, in fact. "We're not counting on Windows 7 driving much in the way of sales yet," said CEO Paul Otellini during the call. He said that he expects that IT departments will begin evaluating Windows 7 during that quarter with an eye to making new purchases in the new year -- a normal buying pattern whatever the economic weather.

Otellini said that the numbers confirm the company's previous expectation for a seasonally stronger second half, and that first-to-second-quarter growth was the best it has been since 1988.

Analysts had questions about inventories -- too much, too little? Otellini says that channel, distribution and internal inventories are all at "very good" levels, maybe even a bit lower than expected. Revenues from Atom processors and chipsets were up 65% sequentially and in fact accounted for $362 million in revenue, even though the average selling price for microprocessors was down from the previous quarter.