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Dell Might do AMD
mboverload writes "In a move that will surely make waves in the industry, Dell's CEO, Kevin Rollins, has said they may provide machines decked out with AMD CPU's if their customers really want them. "We are still looking at AMD; they have fairly good technology," said Rollins. "
They'll never do it.
Heard that. I give it a month before they revert back to their intel ways...
Call Dell and say you want quotes for an Opteron system. Dell does listen to Customers.
I wonder what kind of concession Dell wants from Intel this time 'round.
Does anyone else get the feeling that Dell doesn't know what the heck they're doing with AMD?
I guess everytime they want to apply pricing pressure on Intel, they submit a story to Slashdot.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I find it hard to believe that the average dell customer, the essentially computer illiterate home user just looking to check their e-mail and use office software really cares what CPU they have, if they even understand the difference. If people are looking for a high-end machine to get better fps at "insert game here," they usually aren't even looking at Dell.
where ever it mentions AMD, swap this with linux and you can gauge the progress here. Dell is always "might" this and that.
Jonathanjk.com
Rollin's noncommittal comment that they have 'fairly good technology' certainly stands out. It confirms the impression he's trying to convey that Dell would only be interested in going with AMD if the customers really want it.
Perhaps he intends to use this as a bargaining chip not with Intel, but with AMD!
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
I don't think I'd buy Dell servers anyway, but I *certainly* won't entertain it at all if I can't get them with Opteron processors. For the kinds of tasks we generally run on my company's server farm, the Opteron is noticibly faster AND cheaper per unit. A no brainer choice.
As near as I can tell, unless you are going to use a system for a particular GAME that's optimised for Intel cpus or plan to do media encoding, Intel is going to be playing 2nd fiddle to AMD for the near term.
Given that Dell tends to cater to the generally uninformed masses and middle market businesses, perhaps they feel that their customers simply don't know or don't care to know what the real difference is. In the absense of shrinking market share, perhaps they feel they'll make more money by consolidating their production around one particular architecture.
*shrug*
Nobody seriously considering changing suppliers calls the new supplier's stuff "fairly good." What's their slogan if they make the switch?
Dell Computers - Now with fairly good technology!
*With intel, I can buy a motherboard with a intel or serverworks chipsets, which is not exactly the same than a VIA/Nvidia shitty chipset that people uses with AMDs.*
yeah it's not the same. via/nvidia offer more things people want on their desktop with reliability that is good for desktop(no problems there to be frank)while being lower priced....
what exactly do you perceive the problem to be with, say, nforce3 chipset? or via's kt800? maybe you just buy intel because you don't bother to keep up with the choices?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I reckon timing is about right.. its been, what, 5 or 6 months since the last time 'Dell might have been going to do AMD'. I've lost count of how many times this has been claimed, its certainly been going on for something like 5 years now. I'll believe in an AMD based Dell the moment I see one for sale on their website. Till then the speculation is pointless, Dell have always done this to ensure Intel continue to give them good prices.
"Joy is not in things; it is in us." Richard Wagner
I know it's an impossibility and AMD would be insane to do it but Dell seems like they've played this particular note so many times in the past that I'd like to see AMD answer once with a press release going something like this:
Today, in one of the strangest announcements by a technology company in recent memory AMD said that their rival Intel should in no way be concerned about the recent comments from computer maker Dell and that no Dell computer would ever feature an AMD processor regardless of how much Dell was willing to pay for them. Said AMD "Dell makes crap and we won't be a party to it at any price!"
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Dell has threatened to do this before. In the past, it may have been posturing to get a better deal from Intel. This time it may be more realistic because of only 1 factor. The Opteron. Intel's Itanium has lost major support from Windows, IBM, and other players. The Opteron is getting all the attention. Maybe Intel will build something to match it in the future. However, if Dell wants to build a 64-bit server for their customers, the only game right now is AMD.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
As others have pointed out, the issue MUST be a matter of price. There's certainly little-to-no valid technological reason for Dell not to offer AMD anymore. We're not talking slightly incompatible CPUs that need instruction-translators.
Having said that, I still have to let customers know that it's okay to get off the Intel teat when thinking about a new computer. People like that brand recognition. If Dell starts pushing AMD, they'll have to go through some customer-training on what a AMD is and why it's just as good as Intel. That will piss off Intel, no doubt.
Otherwise, what? Just stick it in a catalog? People won't buy it. The fact it's not an Intel will be major turn-off.
Dell's kind of in a Damned-If-You-Do/Don't situation here.
I would love to see Dell push AMDs on the lower-cost systems and stick to Intel for higher-priced systems designed for certain applications. I realize that AMD can fulfill both roles, but this might be a good way to introduce the line to customers. Besides, I'd take a Sempron over a Celery right now.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
"If they don't offer Opteron servers (especially now that the dual-cores are coming out), they're going to take a nasty hit to their server sales."
Server sales to whom? All those IT shops out there where the sysadmins decide what hardware to buy based on performance reviews they read on the web? Big IT decisions regarding vendors aren't made by people who give a damn about the nerd cred of running customized open-source apps on kewl AMD gear, they're made by CTOs and bean counters concerned with getting low prices and support contracts. Unless Gartner, Oracle, and Microsoft partner up on a series of high-profile reports about dual-core Opteron chips offering signifigant cost/performance savings over Dell's intel servers, Dell is still going to be the king of the x86 server world.
Look at the published % margins of Intel and AMD and realize that this is much greater gap than you would get simply from Intel's ability ot command a price premium -compared to AMD, Intel's manufacturing costs per die are LESS, so it's not "so expensive".
/.ers are infuriated that the stock market doesn't reward AMD stock price like that of Intel stock price, but if they understood that share value is determined by the ability to make money, not just pump out cool stuff, they'd understand. Making money means keeping your cost-to-selling-price ratio healthy and AMD doesn't manufacture at lowest price and doesn't sell for a premium price.
Say what you want about AMD's microprocessor design prowess, they are definately not in Intel's league in terms of wafer yield and other areas of manufacturing prowess that dictate cost to produce.
Many clueless
(BTW, please don't assume this represents some kind of consumer-friendly behaviour for AMD - if they could charge a big premium over Intel's product, they would in a heartbeat. And of course, the poster that said this is a price negotiation tool on Dell's part is correct)
Well, that but they could save a license and sell it to someone who wanted it and would really use it, and maybe it would help offset the shipping costs.
:)
If you do, make sure it's a private sale and don't put it on eBay. The Doctrine of First Sale won't keep you out of court, and it'll cost lots of broilers to do it!
My God, it's Full of Source!
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