Dell Rejects AMD Chips (again)

LarsWestergren writes "A few months ago Slashdot reported that Dell was considering using AMD for server CPUs, but most people rightly remained sceptical since Dell has announced this several times before and always backed out. Well, according to the Register you were right to be sceptical." From the article: "Dell, however, doesn't seem concerned by these pricing issues or the fact that Opteron outperforms Xeon on numerous benchmarks. 'We believe that Intel has responded,' Rollins said in the wire report. 'That is now beginning to put customers more at ease that they don't need to make a shift (to AMD).'"

Comments

HAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

First Microsoft will only allow re-installs/product activation of XP via phone support, now Dell won't use AMD's incredible processors. Let Dell and Microsoft both fade into irrelevancy. Christmas in February! I love it.

Re:Logical

[sosegumu]

It's Dell. They make inferior computers for people who don't know anything beyond how to turn it on.

A recent exchange:

Customer: Wow, that system your company built for us seems much faster than the other one we have--and it was even less expensive. Was there some sort of mistake?

Me: No mistake. It's because we only use AMD Athlon 64 processors in the computers we build. Your Dimension has an Intel Pentium processor which isn't nearly as fast and costs much more.

Customer: What? How can that be? Are you saying that you produce a better system for less money.

Me: Yep.

Customer (indignantly): Your system can't be faster than the Dimension--it's a Dell.

Me: ...Sigh...

Re:Well

[Qzukk]

Well, as the other coward pointed out, you need to justify it. In triplicate. With change control forms sent out at least a year in advance citing exactly what make and model hardware you're going to buy, why you're going to make the switch, and how much this change will increase the stock price (to the quarter-point). Once the change control has been reviewed and rejected twice, the boss's brother's daughter's husband's nephew's wife's niece's brother-in-law will suggest the same thing, at which point he'll be promoted and the change control will be accepted "for review" at which point you'll need to purchase the new equipment out of your own budget ("sorry, we can't requisition new equipment for you until the change control process is complete") after which you will need to document in entirety the process of setting up and installing the kit, along with months of testing to prove that the applications will even run on this "AMD Thingy", then ensure that the applications will not crash on this "completely unknown" architecture. Then, two years later, you will have completed the change control process and your AMD computers will be put into production (being, a model from two years ago). And when your boss's wife's father's second cousin's child's sister-in-law's (who doesn't even work at this company!) computer BSoD's, your head will roll!