Dell Will Join Opteron Party, AMD CEO Says

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darko21

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Sep 15, 2003
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Before anyone gets to excited Dell has NOT signed on the opteron YET but the AMD CEO says they will and if they do it will be a nice feather in AMDs cap but it still remains to be seen.


NEW YORK—Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc. have all jumped onto the Opteron bandwagon. Dell Inc. remains the only top-tier server maker yet to adopt the 64-bit processor.

However, if Hector de Ruiz is to be believed, Dell will be signing on, and maybe sooner than later.

<A HREF="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1572432,00.asp" target="_new"> Dell Will Join Opteron Party, AMD CEO Says </A>

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.
 
Hector Ruiz has seen the 90 nano CPU`s and that`s why he is so sure about his case.
I do think Dell will sell one day Opteron`s, because in dual ore 4 way system`s Xeon is no match for the Opteron.

Its selling Opteron, ore lose marketshare.


Toms Hardware Site is a joke !
 
i still wont believe it till i see it. although, if it were to happen, it would be a blow to intel, giving amd a chance to make some big marketshare moves if they can get the athlon 64 chips in there too.
 
You sure he wouldn't say that just to get stock prices up? Such statements could potentially drive stocks up and they need not be backed up...

SEX is like math. Add the bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs, and hope you dont multiply
 
Exactly, they don't need to be backed up because of the disclaimer at the end of the article about forward looking statements and so forth.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 
One word from Mikey, and Hector would be in deep doggy doodoo. Dell must be at least thinking about it.
How many opterons have they sold this year? If it's not a lot more than last year, intel has no worries.
 
It looked to me like Hector was throwing a sales pitch to Dell using the article as a vehicle, saying how great a company Dell is and how it's the logical thing for Dell to do. He even applied a little pressure, implying that companies might not want to do business with Dell if they don't start selling Opterons. Looked like nothing but wind to me.

He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it, hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart. -C.S. Lewis
 
Intel will not be happy!! well its NOT THEIR FAULT that Itanium 2 sucked? right? right?

RIP Block Heater....HELLO P4~~~~~
120% nVidia Fanboy+119% Money Fanboy
GeForce 6800 Ultra--> The Way we thought FX 5800Ultra is meant to be played
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<pre>squirtle's just annoyed that I2 has a bigger penis...err pipeline than him</pre><p>
Hmm, if AMD gets this deal, this could lead to some sick possibilities. Intel is def not happy now. Did that 50 year contract with Intel expire btw?

SEX is like math. Add the bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs, and hope you dont multiply
 
I guess I am one those exceptions that thinks Opteron is better off *without* Dell's support for now. If you're wondering why, its simple. HP, Sun (and to a lesser degree IBM) use Opterons, Dell does not. Dell is the number 1 rival for HP, Sun and IBM in the x86 server market. Guess what happens ? Those companies aggressively promote their opteron products, because it offers features, performance or price performance Dell can't match. Want some examples ? Look here:
<A HREF="http://ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/servers/benchmarks/dl585-sap.pdf" target="_new">http://ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/servers/benchmarks/dl585-sap.pdf</A>
a whitepaper where HP shows off a quad opteron stomping all over Itanium and xeon machines in SAP.

Now HP really doesnt care wether you buy Opteron or Xeon, as long as you buy HP. Therefore, it makes sense for them to promote its opterons and compare them with Dell's Xeons to show "HP" is faster, cheaper, and more flexible.

Now if Dell would also be selling opterons, HP would have to find other arguments to show it in a better light than Dell, because its unlikely Dell's opterons would be much slower let alone more expensive.

Same thing applies to Sun that also uses its Opteron based machines to show off how much better "it" is than HP or Dell (by comparing its boxes to Itaniums and Xeons of course). So basically HP and Sun are currently doing the aggressive Opteron marketing (not for opteron as such, but to sell their boxes against Dells boxes). That won't last when Dell joins the opteron party, as they will lose that competitive advantage.

For the time being, I think AMD is far better off with 2 or 3 highly motivated oems aggressively pushing opteron specifically, as with all 4 tier one oems pushing other value sets, and not caring if you buy opteron or xeon or itanium. Once Opteron gets established in those markets, Dell's support would be an important asset, but if I where Ruiz, I wouldnt want Dell signing on for another year or so. HP and Sun and faaaaaar better and more efficient at marketing than AMD. Let them do the job, and give them a good reason to do so.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 
I agree and I disagree, I do believe it's a more or less win win for AMD. You have a great point that AMD will get better exposure form the likes of HP, if dell don't offer opteron. BUT this is not the desk top market... Opterons are focoused on ((IT's) who know what it is all about. Just like you and me we don't need misleading marketing, we know what is best and will buy that regardless of men in blue suits and commercials with the bananah na tune.

I believe it's very likley dell will sign on. For opteron... But for the desktop... maybe, maybe not, Anyway I would not count on desktop cpu's anytime soon. A lot of big companies do really like Dell and their suport but the geeks in the know say what the heck why not sell an opteron system for us? Dell don't have a good answer to that.

There is more money (per cpu) in the server market and I think it's a bigger win for AMD if dell signs on. No reason to worry to much about marketing in this segment cause the guys making the decisions will discuss it with their IT's, or they really should not be making the decisions at all. and this should have both dell and intel concerned.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.
 
Don't confuse marketing with advertising. And don't overestimate the average IT buyer (I know, i've been on the other side of the fence as presales for Fujitsu and when I worked as project manager for an ISV, where projects often included hardware, and basically *I* decided what hardware would be used).

Concerning the first point, if HP/Sun really push a product, that can include things like giving higher bonusses to its salesforce for every opteron they sell. trust me, that does more than any tv add. It can include things like sending out evaluation machines (saw what sun is doing ? they'r giving them away with their development suite!). So its not just advertising, its really "trying to sell" the thing, and corporation and IT managers are not imune to the strategies used to achieve this, *at all*. You really think those people don't care about "business trips", lunches and freebies (silly things like a free digital camera with every HP server ?). It sounds silly, but it really works.

Secondly, don't overestimate the knowlegde of those customers. You would be surprised to learn just how many people in charge of IT purchasing, especially in smaller corporations are completely unaware of Opterons performance, capabilities, probably in many cases not even its existance. For many smaller corporations, a server is "just a box" they need to run their software, and they rely on their preferred OEM to guide them, as well as perhaps the developpers (if they have any) or the ISV. They don't read Aces' or THG, they don't ask for 5 different machines and evaluate/benchmark all of them. At best they will write out a call for tender, and evaluate the options on paper. But if you don't know just how fast a 2.2 Ghz opteron is compared to a 2.8 GHz Xeon, which one will they choose ? If your HP rep doesnt show him some whitepapers to clue him in, how will he find out ?

The higher up in the market you go, and the larger the corporations/IT departments, less this becomes an issue, but for 2 way and even 4 way servers, in small to mid sized corporation, you'd be surprised how purchasing is often done.

As it is, I'm pretty certain AMD is better off with a highly motivated HP& Sun, a moderatly enthousiast IBM than with unenthousiastic support by HP, Dell, Sun and IBM. As Opterons marketshare increases this might obviously change though.

As to your comments about desktop/server market. Agreed, I don't see Dell using A64's anytime soon either, for the simple reason the competitive advantage (especially in the eyes of unwary customers) over P4 isnt nearly as big as Opteron versus Xeon. I'm not too sure how likely it is Dell will use Opteron either; 50/50 at best IMHO.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 
Re: Don't confuse marketing with advertising. And don't overestimate the average IT buyer.

Ok you know the server industry better than I probably ever will. But I do think the adverage IT guy knows a lot more than the adverage joe schmoe. so he not as suceptable to misleading marketing. The trips cameras free lunches is valid and i'm sure it would be effective in selling servers, but like you said earlier. HP wants to sell the box not intel or amd. So why not offer a free camera if you buy an hp intel system.

I do see it this way though if HP sells opteron and dell does not, HP will have an advantage over dell and will most likley take advantage of it. (("Dell can't sell you this now can they and it's superior to anything dell offers")). either way though you would think they would offer the free camera or cheese burger no matter what cpu is in the HP box.

I personaly think more opterons will be sold if dell signs on. I also think if dell dose not sign on companies like HP will sell more boxes because of the advantage of being able to market a superior product that dell does not offer.

It's really a win win for amd and a loss for dell if they do not sign on, but thats ok by me as I don't care for dell.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.
 
>HP wants to sell the box not intel or amd. So why not offer
>a free camera if you buy an hp intel system

LOL, sure you'll get one if you ask :) The free camera example was just to show servers are marketed just as desktops are, and efficient marketing works in those markets just as well.

But a better example is the whitepapers the HP/Sun reps will be carrying with them, to demonstrate the real advantages of "HP's" (read😱pterons) over "Dells" (read: Xeons) for certain apps. Its gonna be much more tricky to make up as convincing white papers showing how superior/cheaper a HP Xeon is over a Dell Xeon (or a HP Opteron over a Dell Opteron for that matter), so once Dell offers Opteron, you can toss those whitepapers away, and HP/Sun will need to come up with something else that will most likely not specifically help Opteron.

>I personaly think more opterons will be sold if dell signs
>on.

Maybe, though I'm not 100% sure. But most likely, at least they would be sold more as 'cheap alternatives', at least Dell is quite likely to market and position opteron that way. It may result in more short term sales for AMD, but at this point, I think its more important for AMD to win the perception of being a *better* product, not just a cheaper one. Otherwise, in the long run, AMD will again be selling in the low end (though this time of the server market) pretty much like happened with AXP, which was being sold as being "cheaper", not faster/better (which it definitaly was once). No major oem ever positioned Athlon XP as a better/faster alternative over P4, hence it competed price wise with celeron while we all know it was very much a superior product to Celeron.

But now, HP and Sun are marketing opteron as "better than Dell/xeon"; i say: let them spread that word for a bit longer before Dell starts "celeronizing" it. Giving HP and Sun a competitive advantage over Dell, and thereby reinforcing the relation between AMD and those oems is also definately a good thing for AMD. It needs friends in this business, and Dell is never going to be one, might as well side with the others then.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 
Re: But now, HP and Sun are marketing opteron as "better than Dell/xeon"; i say: let them spread that word for a bit longer before Dell starts "celeronizing" it.

Well said! I was not looking at it from that point of view.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.
 
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