Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[sgolds]

kpf, we may have to disagree on this one. Microsoft calls the shots in this industry, just as long as they don't play favorites between hardware vendors. In other words, if they say the train leaves the station on day X and is willing to put in whatever drivers that are tested & ready then each manufacturer would have a fair chance of hopping aboard.

There are plenty of drivers already which can make a fine set of new PCs for OEMs. With a due date there would be many more! Those that miss the due date still can make their drivers available in many ways: Microsoft Update, Microsoft service packs and their own web sites.

Would you consider buying such a system, loosing the ability of adding any component you could think of which might be needed later?

This is specious for a couple of reasons:

1. I know that any necessary component would be available over a reasonable amount of time. Maybe my photo printer wouldn't work immediately and I'd have to use a legacy machine, but not for long. (Actually, I can always send that print job to my Athlon server anyway, so there are usually simple workarounds.)

2. My needs are different from the corporate needs. When I make speculations I am not basing it on my odd needs, but the needs of the typical home or office user. The office machine does not get upgraded - the nightmare of the IT department, second only to server crashes, is the end user who wants something not already in the IT spec'd machine. In most corporations, unless you are a developer who can promise to support your own machine, forget it!

The typical home user is a naive user who is afraid to open his machine. He wants a black box (or one lit up with neon...) which just works.

An OEM release of WindowsXP for AMD64 would be very practical.

Of course, the power users are already installing the Beta, so they are just as happy that they can continue using free versions.