Keith, However, adopting Opteron would drop the rebates on the additional 1M processors from INTEL, making it factually impossible for Dell to make the move, as the lost rebates would far exceed the potential upside from selling Opteron, even with heavy discounts on Opteron.
That's why I mentioned "market maturity." Surely if people actually cared that much for the advantages Opteron brings to the table, they'd either pay a lot of money for Opteron, or they'll forego Dell and rush to competitors who offer Opteron. Then it would be worthwhile for Dell to drop the rebates offered by Intel. (Surely that's the sentiment we get from the AMD cheerleaders when we get the periodic rumor of Dell offering AMD.)
The fact is that people really don't care all that much anymore for these things. This isn't a case of AMD offering something that consumers are dying to have, but can't because of big bad Intel. This is instead a case of economic law trying to handicap a market leader in order to jump-start lagging competition. It matters not whether the market leader got there legitimately. The only thing that matters is "what's good for the consumer."
But what IS good for the consumer these days? Is it really about the performance, or is it more about price? Is the free market really that inefficient when one company has 85-90% of the market? And if so, what's the alternative?
I don´t think this is so hard to understand
And yet you keep repeating it as if I don't understand. I see your point clearly, but apparently you're not making any effort to see mine.
Tenchu
