A rumour about possible adoption of microprocessors by Advanced Micro Devices by a long-time Intel supporter Dell Inc. seems to be gaining momentum. One more analyst said that Dell may start utilizing AMD processors as early as this spring and start from laptops.
“We believe there will be an AMD/Dell deal announced very soon; more specifically, we believe it will come as early as March and involve Dell notebooks. The deal will likely mature from there to include servers and desktops, in that order, in subsequent months,” Doug Freedman of American Technology Research is reported to have written in his note to clients, a news blog over Cnet News.com web-site claims.
The majority of industry analysts agree that advantages of AMD processors over Intel chips can be noted primarily in servers and desktops, as AMD Opteron architecture has somewhat better scalability when it comes to multiprocessor systems, whereas performance-demanding desktop applications can take a lot of advantage of integrated memory controller in the AMD Athlon 64 chips. Therefore, it would be quite strange for Dell to begin the adoption of AMD chips from notebooks, where the company’s products are not necessarily much better compared to Intel’s.
The majority of notebooks by Dell are developed, made and tested by the computer giant’s outsourcing partners, whereas servers are usually assembled and tested by Dell’s own specialists. High-end desktops may also require very experienced development and assembling staff. Given that laptops require the least amount of efforts from Dell, analysts believes that the company will start its adoption of AMD processors from this type of products.
However, back in November several wires reported that Dell had informed its Taiwan contract makers, such as Asus, Foxconn and Quanta, of plans to develop devices based on AMD’s microprocessors, and these suppliers were awaiting orders for global shipment. Foxconn, which belongs to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, reportedly develops AMD-powered servers, ASUS allegedly designs mainboards and Quanta Computer supposedly develops notebooks based on AMD microprocessors. Dell denied such claims at first, but recently the chairman of the company said that the firm may adopt AMD processors.
Rumours about possible usage of processors by Advanced Micro Devices by Dell, the world’s largest computers maker, recently emerged once again when an analyst said that Dell might be stockpiling AMD chips to gear up for a large scale launch. Other rumours suggest that Dell’s recently unveiled XPS 600 Renegade will sport either AMD’s or Intel Corp.’s processors.
Comments currently: 2
Discussion started: 02/01/06 05:03:00 AM
Latest comment: 02/01/06 09:27:15 AM
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If it's Taylor based and mid to high end oriented, similar to 9300 and XPS variants it may do well. If it's low end, bottom of the barrel bargain basement junk, it will just be 1 in a sea of so-so products out there doing the same thing.
It may, of course, be total bunk, so we'll have to see. Taking the wait and see approach on this one.
[Posted by: Anemone | Date: 02/01/06 05:03:00 AM]
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I think if they go with a notebook based AMD, it would have to be for the low end. Since AMD can't compete in the high end, the only way this makes sense is if they use the inferior AMD platform to lower costs. They can't make a good notebook with AMD junk, but they can make a low cost one. That's the only thing that makes sense to me.
I'm not sure I agree with notebooks being the least trouble, because they are inherently unreliable and Dell will have to support them. They are also the most proprietary and require greater support training.
The timing of Dell choosing AMD chips would be really, really strange, but, on the other hand, I just read that they were opening another support office in India. Considering their sales aren't growing all that quickly, it might be that they are doing this in anticipation of AMD shipments. It's always nice hearing some bozo with a strong foreign accent that can't be clearly understood answering your call when you desperately need help, huh? Dell is such a crap company, they should only have Americans, and only those without regional accents, answering phones and talking to people. It's beyond annoying when you can't even communicate with someone because of their accent when you're stressed out and have people yelling at you to get the computer back up. Actually, they should have support offices in every major country they sell in with only staff from that country. I suspect hearing German from an American with an American accent (I assume there is one) would irritate German customers, for example. But, Dell will save some money, so I guess that makes it all OK.
[Posted by: TA152H | Date: 02/01/06 09:27:15 AM]
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