It seems as though every few months we
receive word of another rumor concerning Dell's wishes to sell
computers with AMD processors inside. Well, this is the beginning of
2006, so isn't it appropriate that we start the year with fresh
AMD-Dell talk?
Les Santiago, an analyst from Piper Jaffray, claims
that Dell will ship AMD based systems in the second half of 2006 with
as much as 10% of Dell's server shipments featuring Opteron
processors. Mr. Santiago goes on to state that "Dell's sales force is
demanding Opteron-based server offerings to be able to better compete
in the market."
We've all heard this talk before. Dell
talks about the possibility of using AMD processors in the future, and
for whatever reason the deal is never made. Many enthusiasts seem to
think that Intel and Dell may have possible marketing or other
contracts that restrict Dell to using only Intel processors, but in
reality it's more an issue of supply. Given Dell's business model, the
question is does AMD have the capacity to ship Dell as many processors
as it can consume without interruption? Can AMD provide Dell with funds
for development of new systems? These are the questions that must be
answered before any kind of deal can be made between these two
companies.
Will we see Dell shipping systems with
AMD processors in them this year? My best bet would be no, but I've
seen stranger things happen. I mean, who would ever think that Apple
would be using Intel processors...