AMD seems to offer more back for the buck but it seems that they never
offer desktops with AMD cpus. I seriously doubt people buy off the
shelf PC's based on CPU brand since DELL etc.. are now commodity
products and they choose on features and price not INTEL or AMD.

Selling PC's as 64bit in the Advert will move more product yet DELL
etc.. do not seem to follow. Does intel threaten cutting the pipeline
if they even think about selling one model line with a non Intel CPU.
How is the DOJ not even investigating this?

> jdobb2001 <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

Gateway has sold AMD-based PCs in the past (their
"Gateway Select" line). And now that Gateway owns
eMachines, they are once again openly selling AMD.

Dell, on the other hand ... supposedly has a deal
with Intel that ensures that Dell can match the
price-performance of competitors using AMD.

Of course, with Intel being off their game in raw
performance, no price break can get many enthusiast
dudes to go Dell these days.

The DELL-INTC deal is apt to entirely implode if Dell
begin openly offering AMD CPUs - Dell would suddenly
lose the huge price break.

Dell's business and product mix might have to radically
change overnight, on the day that they put the first
AMD-based PC on their web site.

The Dell-INTC deal may well be a "deadly embrace"
at this point. If Dell adopts AMD, it may be seen as
more revealing about Intel's problems than about the
state of Dell's customer demands.

--
Regards, Bob Niland private.php?do=newpm&u=
http://www.access-one.com/rjn email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
NOT speaking for any employer, client or Internet Service Provider.

jdobb2001 wrote:
> AMD seems to offer more back for the buck but it seems that they never
> offer desktops with AMD cpus. I seriously doubt people buy off the
> shelf PC's based on CPU brand since DELL etc.. are now commodity
> products and they choose on features and price not INTEL or AMD.

Gateway *does* sell AMD-based systems now, through its Emachines
subsidiary brand mostly. You can even buy AMD-based notebooks through them.

Also HP (through both HP and Compaq) sell AMD-based desktops and notebooks.

Nobody I know of yet, advertises AMD very much on TV. Even the ones who
sell AMD products only advertise their Intel products. That's mainly due
to the Intel-Inside campaign. AMD has nothing similar.

> Selling PC's as 64bit in the Advert will move more product yet DELL
> etc.. do not seem to follow. Does intel threaten cutting the pipeline
> if they even think about selling one model line with a non Intel CPU.
> How is the DOJ not even investigating this?

You sound like you think that the DOJ actually is working to benefit you
as a consumer? :-)

Yousuf Khan

On 19 Dec 2004 08:31:40 -0800, "jdobb2001" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>AMD seems to offer more back for the buck but it seems that they never
>offer desktops with AMD cpus. I seriously doubt people buy off the
>shelf PC's based on CPU brand since DELL etc.. are now commodity
>products and they choose on features and price not INTEL or AMD.
>
>Selling PC's as 64bit in the Advert will move more product yet DELL
>etc.. do not seem to follow. Does intel threaten cutting the pipeline
>if they even think about selling one model line with a non Intel CPU.
>How is the DOJ not even investigating this?

Cutting the pipeline to Dell would just hurt Intel's bottom line, who's
going to buy that inventory?

btw, about 3 weeks ago I noticed BestBuy had an ad on the cover for a
Gateway PC (not a E-Machines) with AMD inside, so I guess the "Gateway"
brand (or just re-badged e-machines?) are back in the AMD camp.

Ed

Hi,
My name is Bob Russels. I am a recent graduate of Harvard
Business School, and I have decided to start my own computer
manufacturing business, and go head to head with dell. We
would like some input from the public about what improvments could be
made in the pc business. We are welcome to any suggestions or
complaints. Every single suggestion will be looked out and evaluated.
Please send any information to (E-Mail Removed).

On 19 Dec 2004 08:31:40 -0800, "jdobb2001" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>AMD seems to offer more back for the buck but it seems that they never
>offer desktops with AMD cpus.

One thing to remember is that Dell does not pay anywhere near the same
price for their processors as you or I would. At a rough guess, I
would say that the low-end Intel Celeron and P4 chips are being sold
to Dell in the $40-$60 range, while they sell at retail for somewhere
around $100-$200. So, where if you or I were to buy these chips, AMD
might work out to easily be $30 or $50 cheaper, for Dell the
difference is more like $5.


Consider that you can configure out near-identical systems between a
Dell Dimension 3000 with a 3.0GHz P4 with 800MT/s bus speed or an HP
Pavilion a810e with a (much slower) AMD Sempron 3000+ processor and
they work out to the same price. For the fairly basic config I tested
I got the Dell at $548 before a $40 mail-in rebate and the HP at $580
before a $50 mail-in rebate, though small tweaks in configuration
could push it one way or the other.

Now part of the reason for this is that Dell's cost-structure is lower
than HP's, but a major reason for that is that Dell has far fewer
differences between their various systems at least in part due to
using only Intel processors.

> I seriously doubt people buy off the
>shelf PC's based on CPU brand since DELL etc.. are now commodity
>products and they choose on features and price not INTEL or AMD.
>
>Selling PC's as 64bit in the Advert will move more product yet DELL
>etc.. do not seem to follow.

64-bit probably isn't a huge selling feature just yet, especially
given that there is no 64-bit Windows available (in a non-beta form at
least) for AMD's chips yet.

> Does intel threaten cutting the pipeline
>if they even think about selling one model line with a non Intel CPU.
>How is the DOJ not even investigating this?

DOJ *HAS* investigated this, and they found that Intel is doing
absolutely nothing wrong. The EU's version of the DOJ is currently
investigating as well and they are a bit more skeptical, but nothing
has come of it as yet.


Really you have to look at Dell's business model to understand some of
this. Dell survives entirely on minimum inventory and just-in-time
shipments of parts. While on the front they claim to offer the most
customizable systems out there, in reality they are all about
minimizing customizations. They can't custom-assemble every system
for every user that comes along, so they just take a guess at what
will be purchased and assemble systems that way.

A key part of this process means minimizing the motherboards used.
Motherboards are the key to an OEM design. Where a different
processor or different amount of memory can be just dropped in without
a thought, a different motherboard means a TOTALLY new system where
you have to re-validate everything and set up completely different
product lines. This is not just true for Dell, but all big OEMs, any
given model of computer is defined by the motherboard it uses. No
matter how you configure up a Dell Dimension 3000 you always get the
same motherboard.

Now, here's the problem for AMD. To use an AMD processor you need a
different motherboard than for an Intel chip, ie Dell would have to
dedicate at least one entire system to AMD chips. Now Dell only sells
a grand total of 8 different desktop systems, and within those 8 there
are at least a few products which are very similar allowing for some
overlap and maybe even sharing motherboards (ie the Dimension 4700 and
the Optiplex GX280 might share a board or some such thing), greatly
reducing the amount of validation required. For comparison, HPap
currently sells 20 different models of PC. While there is probably a
fair bit of overlap between their Presario, Pavilion and Media Center
PC lines, they still have a lot more configuration options and, as
such, more costs involved with selling these systems than Dell.

So, combine that fact, along with the addition of more suppliers (at
the very least AMD for the processors and possibly another company for
the motherboards), additional support costs involved, the need to keep
more spare parts on-hand and you end up with some financial reasons
why Dell sticks to Intel-only.


Of course, this only works for Dell so long as Intel remains at or
near the top in terms of performance. With AMD gaining a bit of an
edge in performance, particularly on the server front, Dell is kind of
backed into a corner.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca

Ed wrote:
> btw, about 3 weeks ago I noticed BestBuy had an ad on the cover for a
> Gateway PC (not a E-Machines) with AMD inside, so I guess the "Gateway"
> brand (or just re-badged e-machines?) are back in the AMD camp.

Yeah, I would've assumed they would reserve the Gateway for Intel-only
branding, while Emachines did all things. I'm not sure how they plan to
differentiate their two brands now.

Yousuf Khan

Tony Hill wrote:
> Now, here's the problem for AMD. To use an AMD processor you need a
> different motherboard than for an Intel chip, ie Dell would have to
> dedicate at least one entire system to AMD chips.

I don't know how valid this is. Remember, once upon a time AMD used to
sell processors that were socket-compatible with Intel processors, and
Dell still wouldn't sell AMD at that time, saying that there is not
enough differentiation. First it wants differentiation and then it doesn't.

Also Dell does sell certain numbers of low-volume, but high-margin
systems. Such as Itanium at one time: I know, Dell did have to drop the
Itanium because of slow sales, but it at least still attempted to sell
them before giving up -- it doesn't even give AMD /that/ amount of the
benefit of the doubt. I'm pretty sure an AMD system will at least sell
more units than an Itanium system ... any AMD system!

> So, combine that fact, along with the addition of more suppliers (at
> the very least AMD for the processors and possibly another company for
> the motherboards), additional support costs involved, the need to keep
> more spare parts on-hand and you end up with some financial reasons
> why Dell sticks to Intel-only.

Doesn't Dell, sell more than one brand of video card? What about hard
drives? At one time, it may have even sold more than one brand of
printer (before it went into the printer branding business itself).

> Of course, this only works for Dell so long as Intel remains at or
> near the top in terms of performance. With AMD gaining a bit of an
> edge in performance, particularly on the server front, Dell is kind of
> backed into a corner.

The high performance systems wouldn't necessarily be the highest unit
sales systems either. If Dell has no problem selling these low-volume
systems from one supplier, then it shouldn't have trouble selling them
from multiple suppliers. Afterall, in the high-performance segment,
people like a fair bit of customizability.

Yousuf Khan

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 19:33:30 -0500, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Tony Hill wrote:
>> Now, here's the problem for AMD. To use an AMD processor you need a
>> different motherboard than for an Intel chip, ie Dell would have to
>> dedicate at least one entire system to AMD chips.
>
>I don't know how valid this is. Remember, once upon a time AMD used to
>sell processors that were socket-compatible with Intel processors, and
>Dell still wouldn't sell AMD at that time, saying that there is not
>enough differentiation. First it wants differentiation and then it doesn't.

Dell talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. You have to take
everything that is said by Dell (both the company and the man) with a
LARGE grain of salt in my experience.

>Also Dell does sell certain numbers of low-volume, but high-margin
>systems.

Very few of them.

> Such as Itanium at one time: I know, Dell did have to drop the
>Itanium because of slow sales, but it at least still attempted to sell
>them before giving up -- it doesn't even give AMD /that/ amount of the
>benefit of the doubt. I'm pretty sure an AMD system will at least sell
>more units than an Itanium system ... any AMD system!

Yes, certainly. My only guess here is that there is some STRONG
incentive from Intel on this one, because Dell must be losing a
reasonable chunk of money their Itanium line. My guess is that Intel
is taking this hit, not Dell.

>> So, combine that fact, along with the addition of more suppliers (at
>> the very least AMD for the processors and possibly another company for
>> the motherboards), additional support costs involved, the need to keep
>> more spare parts on-hand and you end up with some financial reasons
>> why Dell sticks to Intel-only.
>
>Doesn't Dell, sell more than one brand of video card?

It does, though it sells surprisingly few considering how they claim
to offer so much customization. I counted a grand total of 5
different video cards (6 if you count the integrated video) on the
entire Dimension line-up. The Optiplex line-up adds a few more due to
the multi-head and DVI options, though they remove the high-end gaming
cards.

With AMD processors they could easily require 5 different chips for a
single system just to handle the various speed grades (though
fortunately this is easier than different video cards).

> What about hard drives?

Three companies there, all of which can be used TOTALLY
interchangeably. This is a somewhat of a different situation than AMD
where they could only use the processors in the AMD systems.

Note that there is obviously more too it than meets the eye here.
It's well known that Intel not only gives Dell VERY good deals on
their processors, but also covers a lot of their advertising costs
(any time you hear the Intel jingle on a computer ad, you know that
Intel money is involved somehow). I've heard some rumors that Dell's
entire marketing budget is actually paid for by Intel, and that is
something that AMD hasn't been able to match.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca

On 19 Dec 2004 14:41:31 -0800, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>Hi,
>My name is Bob Russels. I am a recent graduate of Harvard
>Business School, and I have decided to start my own computer
>manufacturing business, and go head to head with dell. We
>would like some input from the public about what improvments could be
>made in the pc business. We are welcome to any suggestions or
>complaints. Every single suggestion will be looked out and evaluated.
>Please send any information to (E-Mail Removed).

I'd strongly suggest you find a different line of work.:-) First, Dell has
priced it's competitors into the toilet and is in serious danger of
following them itself. Second, they have squeezed suppliers of component
parts -- mbrds, video cards, hard disks, CD-DVDs etc. and yes even CPUs --
on cost to the point that many are teetering on the brink of extinction.

IMHO the PC business is now in a replenish and replace cycle with a period
of 3-4years on average, just like the automobile or the appliance business.
IOW the boom is not coming back.

OTOH if you can come up with a commodity box which "man and his dog" must
have, a sort of computing nerve center for the home, you might be on to
something. So far that is in a process of *slow* evolution and the result
is not likely to really resemble what we currently think of as a "PC"; it's
also not likely to resemble what businesses need to satisfy their
"computing needs".

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??