Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[wbmw]

YB, well, for starters, IBM does not lead in server market share. HP has the majority of the market since they merged with Compaq. That makes HP the leading server vendor, despite your back-handed remarks. Second, Dell is much more than just a "screwdriver" shop, with server sales that grow every year, taking more market share from the big boys. There is enough of a market in the 8-way and below space that they don't need to get into "big iron" to continue their gains. IBM is a great design win for AMD, but it's not like they are going top to bottom - far from it. IBM has a 4-way Itanium 2 system that is apparently already available (see INTC thread), and according to previous news reports, they will have 8-way and 16-way platforms later this year. They also have plenty of 2 to 8-way Xeon platforms, and even if they felt that Opteron is superior enough to Intel's future roadmaps that they will transition to AMD, they cannot do this transition overnight. None of the R&D has been put into high end Opteron implementations, and it's a farce to believe otherwise.