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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. "
Dells fear with AMD has nothing to do with pricing, and everything to do with execution.
You're on the right track but...
The Athlon launch party was PLAGUED by delay and pipeline stalls in getting parts from AMD. Dell sells SO many computers that they don't want to be forced to turn customers away to competitors if AMD started rationing processors.
Oooo... thought you were going to go down the right track, but you faltered. Dell's decision had less to do with the execution of AMD for delivery or production; it had more to do with extra support costs.
From Dell's POV, they wouldn't want a second processor with a second socket/slot configuration, with non-interoperable motherboards because it would be a nightmare to maintain. Just the burn-in testing of all the different configurations they have in an Intel only world is an oppressive task. Basically take that effort and multiply it by a factor when you add in another "architecture." This is why Dell has been so resistant to adding AMD to their line. Of course, they get great business incentives by threatening Intel with adding AMD (and Intel gets to threaten "no more price break" if Dell adds AMD), but unless they're in danger of losing customers or they can figure out a way to do it much more cheaply (read: have off-shore tech people test configurations for $1/hour) they wouldn't make the move to AMD. The latter has more potential, methinks.
Most likely, this is just a move to get better pricing out of Intel (for now).
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.