Computer Industry News

January 10, 2006 3:06 PM

Dell to partner with AMD.
posted by boo_radley (28 comments total)

well, ok.
posted by mcsweetie at 3:16 PM on January 10, 2006

At least add a [newsfilter] tag, willya?
posted by killdevil at 3:16 PM on January 10, 2006

last link fixed
posted by suni at 3:17 PM on January 10, 2006

Apple to Intel.
Dell to AMD.
Who will win...?
posted by armoured-ant at 3:21 PM on January 10, 2006

Microsoft to PPC (xbox)

Everything's all messed up.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:24 PM on January 10, 2006

where are my 200 comments :(
posted by boo_radley at 3:33 PM on January 10, 2006

Shortly after (or who knows, maybe before) any AMD/Dell announcement, Intel will make Dell an offer they can't refuse--they play dirty, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had incriminating photos with which to blackmail executives at every major computer manufacturer. We may see AMD-based Dells, but they'll be hidden away in a basement locker, behind a sign saying "Beware of the Panther."
posted by adamrice at 3:33 PM on January 10, 2006

If this is "Newsfilter" (as per your tag) can you point to one actual piece of "news" among your 7 links? They are all from analyst predictions.
posted by neustile at 3:34 PM on January 10, 2006

.. and it's all the same analyst.
posted by neustile at 3:36 PM on January 10, 2006

boo: i think the original news is 7-8 weeks old now ; )

i'll miss the intel jingle..

btw here are the first yonah pics from akiba
posted by suni at 3:37 PM on January 10, 2006

dell's too boring to have 200 comments. anyhoo, doesn't some analyst say this every so often anyway? it's almost like the old apple-switching-to-intel rumors, except it hasn't happened yet and people froth less about dell.
posted by mrg at 3:39 PM on January 10, 2006

dell is teh suck. (okay, well, their monitors are aight.)
posted by keswick at 4:05 PM on January 10, 2006

. . . other boring news starting with del.
posted by isopraxis at 4:36 PM on January 10, 2006

Well, sure. Now that Apple and Intel are making sweet sweaty hot silicon love, AMD wants some action and went after the substantially less cool but rich Dell.

I'm still not buying a Dell. But I'll happily buy a new IntAppel.
posted by fenriq at 4:46 PM on January 10, 2006

I'm so glad the first link was to a wikipedia article. Without that I'd have had no idea who Dell was.
posted by shmegegge at 4:50 PM on January 10, 2006

Wait, wait... Most of these articles are about the same analyst report, or about speculation related to that report. As the folks at Slashdot said when presented with the same story, this is as much news as the article last Friday suggesting that Google would buy Monster.com.
posted by VulcanMike at 4:54 PM on January 10, 2006

"We may see AMD-based Dells, but they'll be hidden away in a basement locker, behind a sign saying "Beware of the Panther.""

Come on, adamrice, get it right. It's in the basement, in the bottom of a file cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard."
posted by zoogleplex at 4:59 PM on January 10, 2006

It was obvious that they would do this, and there is nothing Intel can or will do about it.

It's about the Opteron. Dell used to sell a shitload of dual xeon rackmount servers. They still do. They have at least %80 of the server market.

That's slipping away because their common dual Xeon servers use in excess of a thousand watts. Opterons use a fraction of that. In a datacenter, that's quite an issue, not just because your power is metered and expensive, but because much of the time, you can't get more than a certain allotment for your racks, not for any price.

Dell's customers overwhelmingly want Opterons. They're not going to continue to say no.
posted by blasdelf at 5:00 PM on January 10, 2006

You almost definetly won't see AMD Dells outside of the server and maybe high-end workstation market. Only Opterons, for now.
posted by blasdelf at 5:02 PM on January 10, 2006

I'll refrain from criticizing the post, though it's bit of a yawner, I concur.

Speaking of Dell (which makes crap computers, in my humble), though, this makes me dislike Google that much more.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:03 PM on January 10, 2006

Austin Texas Hates AMD

The company is seriously pissing off the entire city with arrogantly moving its entire 3000 employees to a new location directly on top of one of the few fresh water acquifers left in the continent. Months of protests and pleas from the entire city have been met with deaf ears.
posted by Peter H at 6:47 PM on January 10, 2006

Every month Dell come out saying they'll use a competitors product in order to scare their current supplier into giving them a better deal.

This time is no different. Like the other times it boils down to Michael Dell talking and analysts writing and nothing more.

Lets say an industry analyst isn't a real job and that I too am an industry analyst. Here's my take:

Michael Dell has made so many public claims of switching to AMD without following through that no one takes him seriously anymore.

I suppose these threads allow some interesting speculation on whether AMD has enough plants necessary to supply Dell, AMD's dual-core CPUs, power-usage. Maybe some people haven't talked about that yet. Maybe we could even talk about Dell getting AMD motherboards made back in November, but that may as well be a publicity stunt for the lack of evidence of change, just like now.
posted by holloway at 7:28 PM on January 10, 2006

shmegegge: I'm so glad the first link was to a wikipedia article. Without that I'd have had no idea who Dell was.
I admit it. This posting was in protest to the Apple keynote (obvious, I think). When I was previewing, I thought to mock one of the most insipid FPP fillers, the Obvious Link to Wikifilter. Thank you for noticing. I'd like to thank Stavros for his ever-so-gentle chastisement, as well.
posted by boo_radley at 5:12 AM on January 11, 2006

This posting was in protest to the Apple keynote (obvious, I think).

Oh. Well in that case...SUCK IT HATERZZZ APPLE RUUUUULEZ WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
posted by fungible at 6:11 AM on January 11, 2006

Thank you.
posted by boo_radley at 7:00 AM on January 11, 2006

Will intel really even notice this? When apple moved to intel, IBM didnt even flinch.
posted by iggychaos at 8:15 AM on January 11, 2006

Yeah, Apple is big enough that this will make a difference. It's also quite a coup.

The reason IBM didn't flinch was A) it would be bad PR for them to get all weepy and clingy, and B) they've got bigger fish to fry—the X-box, PS3, and embedded markets. In fact, it was the fact that they have bigger fish to fry—and weren't catering to Apple's needs in the first place—that must have been a big part of Apple's reasons for switching.

There's little doubt in my mind that IBM could have built a chip to keep Apple from switching, and certainly Apple did not make the decision to switch lightly. But IBM wasn't devoting engineering resources towards a low-power G5 that suited Apple's needs. It's too bad.
posted by adamrice at 9:08 AM on January 11, 2006

Hmm. Unless there was a really big price difference offered, I am not sure how many people in the home computer sector would get all excited about an AMD-based Dell.

Basically, for 90+% of the home computer buyers out there, "computer" means Windows and "processor" means Pentium. Although they will have heard of Apple, stop anyone on the street at random, ask him or her what AMD makes, and enjoy the blank stare you get as a reply. I don't know that many average home users who recognize the difference between an Intel vs. AMD chip. I mean, I look for the AMD badge on purpose - I love my Athlon XP and the Turion in my laptop is a beast and a half. But I build my own systems. People who build their own systems know that AMD can give you better performance at a lower price, but people who build their own systems don't buy Dells, do they?

On the other hand, everyone else has been selling systems with AMD chips long enough that I don't think the lack of an Intel case badge will put anyone off.

Now the server and educational sector, there's a market possibility. All of the computers in our lab are Dells, and all of them are outperformed by the AMD box I built at home (with half the memory, at 1/4th the cost). I would love to see our department start getting more computer for less money.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:12 AM on January 11, 2006