Dell looking 'more seriously than ever' at AMD

PARIS--Dell Chief Executive Kevin Rollins on Monday gave the most direct indication yet that a deal with Advanced Micro Devices may be on the way, dropping a strong hint that an agreement with the chipmaker was a question of when, not if.

Speaking in Paris at the launch of Dell's first blade server, Rollins commented on reports last week that Dell has been studying the possibility of using AMD chips.

Rollins confirmed that the company has been investigating and testing AMD processors very seriously. "Recently, we have had a much more favorable disposition," Rollins said, "because some of (AMD's) products in high-performance computing are very good and in some cases (are) more advanced than those of Intel. We have looked more closely and more seriously than ever before."

Any agreement would probably put AMD's 64-bit Opteron chips into Dell servers. Intel's 64-bit server processor range starts with a Xeon, a substantially more expensive chip.

The prospect of Dell using AMD's processors is one of the industry's favorite rumors. Dell is famously the only major computer manufacturer that does not use AMD processors. HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems all use them in addition to Intel processors. AMD makes no secret of the fact that its executives regularly go knocking on Dell's door.

Last week's reports of a potential deal between the companies drove AMD stock to close on Friday at $21.02, up $2.43 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Matt Loney of ZDNet UK reported from Paris.

[David Arbogast]

Waste of time

A small segment of consumers would have prefered AMD CPU's all along. But it didn't make good business sense for Dell, and so they didn't do it.

Rather than jiggling the proverbial carrot on a stick, why don't they just sign the deal and then announce it? What kind of news story relays, "We may... its likely... get ready... we'll let you know... later." ????

It almost seems like they are still feeling out this decision... In my opinion, it isn't news until they actually make a decision. If it makes good financial business sense to include AMD products, then just do it. And then release the story. *sighs* more non-news.

Not just Dell

It wasn't just (or even mainly) the Dell rumour that drove the stock price higher. AMD was upgraded by a large number of analysts while Intel was downgraded. The reason for the upgrades was that AMD's products were proving superior for the forseeable future and that they are predicting a substantial shift in marketshare between the 2 companies.

[fred dunn]

Dell is finally growing up...

I am so dissatisfied with Dell over it's decision to only offer Intel. To look at Intel's product roadmap is to look at Dell's product roadmap. Because of this single source relationship Dell products have become commodity items. No technological edge, no creativity, just an Intel box.

Fred Dunn