Countryboy, Dell Scrambles To Explain Opteron Ad Goof
Fri Mar 26, 4:52 PM ET
Jason Lopez, www.newsfactor.com
The commotion following the brief appearance on Dell's (Nasdaq: DELL - news) Web site of an ad for an AMD (NYSE: AMD - news) Opteron processor probably is much ado over nothing, say analysts. Dell insists it was acting merely as a reseller and that it does not offer AMD processors in its personal computers and servers.
The AMD product -- an Opteron 148 processor -- was posted on the company's public site mistakenly. It should have been published on Dell's Premier Pages, which is intended for a specific set of customers. The ad was taken down after it ran for about a day.
Match Made in Silicon Valley
"As we understand it, this product was being sold through Dellware, Dell's catalog business," AMD spokesperson Amy Stansbury told NewsFactor. "Unlike Dell Corporation, which sells Dell-branded products, Dellware sells a range of products by multiple manufacturers through a distributor," she explained.
"I would think it's not a surprise to Intel that Dell resells some AMD products," commented IDC chip analyst Shane Rau. "They have a very strong relationship that would include full disclosure about how exclusive the relationship is," he told NewsFactor.
Dell says it is committed to making computers outfitted only with Intel processors. The pairing has proven to be a success -- not unlike the Windows-Intel duo that reinforced Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) dominance as an OS supplier. "It's a bit of a symbolic issue that Dell is the last OEM to have never used AMD processors," said Rau.
What If ...
Other hardware makers, such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM (NYSE: IBM - news), now support AMD chips in order to broaden their offerings. But Dell's exclusive support of Intel (Nasdaq: INTC - news) suggests that it benefits by not selling AMD chips.
"If AMD is able to take Opteron to a level of penetration in HP (NYSE: HPQ - news), IBM, Sun and other major OEMs -- such that Dell feels it's missing a market opportunity -- then Dell would be compelled to pick up Opteron," remarked Rau.
There is an argument that Dell needs to support AMD, but it may not be a very strong one. If Dell did offer Opteron and Athlon, it most likely would be a very limited carriage. Dell's competitors still showcase Intel chips. "HP and IBM are supporting AMD in specific places -- not in every product line," Rau said.
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