Replies to post #60893 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Tenchu]

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

[imho]

KeithDust2000,

Let´s take Dell. 100% of their servers are INTEL-based. I´ll choose hypothetical numbers to get the point across. Let´s say Dell sells 1M Xeons per quarter. They get a certain rebate per processor (or there is a similar scheme with the same effect). Now they want to adopt Opteron. Let´s say they adopt the configuration described above. They´d get good pricing from AMD for what would, in the first quarter, be maybe a few 10K parts (or whatever you deem reasonable). However, adopting Opteron would drop the rebates on the additional 1M processors from INTEL, making it factually impossible for Dell to make the move

Interesting example. Why did you choose AMD only offer 10K units? Why not offer exactly 1M "superior" AMD units? That would make Dell's choice factually possible, would'nt it?

Now is it because AMD can not produce that many? And why is that? Maybe if AMD spent a few billion dollars on a new fab in the late 90's? Oh, that's right, they had to cough up some money to buy NextGen to bail them out of their very own, home grown, K5 design "disaster". How about if they used some of the money they continue to give to IBM? They could have used that for fabs? Oh right, they needed IBM to bail them out of their very own, home grown manufacturing process "disaster". And why bother splitting profits with Fujitsu on flash, when you could easily build it yourself?

You see, Keith, you can not ignore the past. While AMD was paying to send it's sales force to Hawaii for their annual convention, Andy Grove was looking for a good parking spot among the many Intel co-workers who were hard at work achieving the huge Intel advantage they now have against AMD. So now, you expect them to be "nice" to AMD? Fact is, AMD's current disadvantage is a product of their own past failures and decisions.

IMHO