Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[CombJelly]

"No one gets fired for buying IBM."

Alledgedly there is at least one case where that wasn't true. Seems that way back in the early '80s, Apple (IIRC) was in the market for a high end minicomputer. The engineers had specified a Vax, likely because the software they wanted to run was for a Vax. However, the person who actually signed the purchase order was a recent B-school graduate who followed the advice of her school, i.e. when computing problems come up, call IBM, tell them the problem and sign off on their recommendations. When the IBM 4300 series showed up instead of the expected Vax, they raised a stink and the old adage was proven wrong...

Then, there was the other case where IBM was lobbying heavily to sell one particular tech company a system. When they lost out to a Vax, they contacted the president to let them know how irresponsible their engineering department was and how by purchasing non-IBM equipemnt they were putting their company at risk. Come to find out the head of engineering was the presidents's son and the complaint wasn't well received.

Dunno if either of these stories are true, they were run in "infoworld", ;ikely Dvorak's column, given their nature.