Intel Corp (INTC)

[rudedog]

Joey -
re: AMD would have to have outperformed Intel chips by a significant margin (which they did not) for it to make sense for Dell to switch

Well, the only problem with that is that Dell DID switch - in the sense that they offered AMD products for the first time - and that in 2004-2005, Opteron was clearly superior to Xeon in many areas, and had the 'buzz' value of X64 leadership as well.

Dell was being punished in the server marketplace by competition from Opteron-based servers from both HP and IBM. Dell had worked hard to get credibility in that space after being a perennial also-ran, and the shift put a lot of heat on management.

It did not take Intel long to recover, and Dell ended up getting hit with both ends of the stick - they displeased Intel, AMD could not deliver the volume Dell needed, and Intel came back with a winning product while Dell was coping with all of that. Dell's timing was terrible.