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AMD Sale to Dell Rumored 325

An anonymous reader writes "Advanced Micro Devices may be up for sale. AMD's shares were significantly up yesterday, apparently on rumors that Dell is interested in buying the American multinational semiconductor company. If AMD ends up being bought out, the purchase by Dell, or any other company for that matter, would be among the biggest the technology industry has seen. It would be of course bigger than when AMD bought ATI in 2006."
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AMD Sale to Dell Rumored

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  • by intellitech ( 1912116 ) * on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:08AM (#35209588)

    Is Dell considering making a more integrated kind of product line? Talk about a change in strategy.

    And a damn good one it would be. I can't even begin to imagine the profits Dell could reap through the fruits inherited from an AMD buyout. It's much cheaper to manufacture products when you control every aspect of most of the primary components being used. And then also manufacturing facilities.. well, even more so.. wow.

    • by WrongSizeGlass ( 838941 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:18AM (#35209750)
      Maybe yes, maybe no. The big loser in this would be Intel. I'm not sure of the % of Dell computers that ship with AMD CPU's but it's certainly less than 25%. Dell is big enough to hurt Intel if they switch to AMD.
      • by Desler ( 1608317 )

        You do realize that most of Dell's revenue stream is propped up by money given to them from Intel? If anything, dropping Intel is going to mean Dell is going to lose even more money in net income.

        • I wouldn't be so sure of that. It's either Dell did the math and they will make more money owning AMD & ATI then being paid by Intel or they are using AMD to leverage more cash out of Intel. Frankly, I like the idea of owning AMD more likely, just for the vertical integration aspect. I would trade a little less profitability in the short term for something like that.
      • by 0123456 ( 636235 )

        Dell is big enough to hurt Intel if they switch to AMD.

        Considering Intel's CPUs beat AMD on pretty much every measure other than price, Intel could really hurt Dell if they switch to AMD. Nvidia would be far more likely to suffer if Dell only sold ATI cards in their gaming systems.

        • by Nadaka ( 224565 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:37AM (#35210094)

          Every measure but price? ok...
          They certainly use less energy for the performance.
          They certainly have higher maximum performance at the top end.

          AMD CPU's on the other hand beat most Intel models on price/performance and match Intel's best values (i7 920 and i5 750 last I checked).
          What that means is that at almost any given price point, the AMD chip is better than the Intel chip with only a few cases where they are equal.

          The only two reasons to buy intel are if you need to use less power or if you want the heavy lifting of a thousand dollar cpu for intense computation or benchmark ego masturbation.

          • by 0123456 ( 636235 )

            What that means is that at almost any given price point, the AMD chip is better than the Intel chip with only a few cases where they are equal.

            Which is what I said.

            If you want the fastest CPU, you buy Intel. If you want the lowest power consumption for the performance, you buy Intel (or ARM, at the very low end). If you want cheap, you buy AMD.

            If Dell switched to only selling AMD CPUs, they'd lose all the markets other than the low end... which is where the profit margins are usually the worst.

            • Looking at probably independent sites (the tech report, tom's...), you have to get fairly high in the end for Intel platforms (ie, CPU+Chipset+motherboard) to be cost-competitive at a given level of performance, at that's for PCs heavily skewed towards the Gamer and Enthusiast market.

              My feeling is AMD is competitive all the way up to, but excluding, the 5-10% of the market that can be called "high-end". They have OK and cheaper CPUs, better IGPs, cheaper MBs with about the same features.

              The cheapest M-ATX A

            • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

              Which is what I said.

              If you want the fastest CPU, you buy Intel. If you want the lowest power consumption for the performance, you buy Intel (or ARM, at the very low end). If you want cheap, you buy AMD.

              If Dell switched to only selling AMD CPUs, they'd lose all the markets other than the low end... which is where the profit margins are usually the worst.

              Do you understand that vast majority of the market in PCs is not:

              1. Low power consumption market
              2. High end market.

              These two are small niches. Most machines in office space and homes are bought because they are:

              a. Cheap.
              b. Supported by vendor on a good warranty plan.

              If dell can take all the markets by the two above by storm with this fusion, intel is going to suffer greatly. While the big profits are reaped on high end and low power, the real revenue stream is in the middle. AMD is hands down better in this

            • by sustik ( 90111 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @01:07PM (#35212414)

              > If you want the lowest power consumption for the performance, you buy Intel[...]

              On newegg I see the following desktop processors:

              35W:

              Intel Celeron 430 Conroe-L 1.8GHz 512KB L2 Cache LGA 775 35W Single-Core Processor BX80557430 $43

              45W:

              AMD Sempron 140 Sargas 2.7GHz Socket AM3 45W Single-Core Processor SDX140HBGQBOX
              1MB L2 Cache $38

              AMD Sempron LE-1250 Sparta 2.2GHz Socket AM2 45W Single-Core Processor SDH1250IAA4DP 512KB L2 Cache $30

              AMD Athlon II X3 400e Rana 2.2GHz Socket AM3 45W Triple-Core Processor AD400EHDGIBOX
              3x512KB L2 Cache $100 (Currently out of stock.)

              AMD Athlon II X4 610e Propus 2.4GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 45W Quad-Core Desktop Processor AD610EHDGMBOX $140 (Currently out of stock.)

              Saying that Intel wins in low power appears to be too broad a statement.

          • AMD CPU's on the other hand beat most Intel models on price/performance and match Intel's best values (i7 920 and i5 750 last I checked).

            Except that they aren't current intel chips.

            The latest benchmarks I saw showed that the Core i3 2100 was roughly as fast as the Phenom II X6 1100T. That's intel's slowest current generation desktop chip, at $100, as fast as AMD's fastest current generation desktop chip.

            • You may want to recheck those benchmarks. Just googled "core i3 2100 vs phenom", this was the first review I found:
              http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/16 [anandtech.com]

              Second page shows the Phenom roundly trouncing the i3 in a large number of tests, and besting a number of the i7s. There were a few tests where the i3 was slightly superior, most others the phenom was 15-20% faster, and in some cases 50+% faster. Look at the encoding performance, th

              • Notably the test you linked only covers the absolute worst case for the i3. If you look at this (from the same site) [anandtech.com] which covers a much wider range of benchmarks, you see the i3 wins as many as it loses, and by similar margins – i.e. it's roughly equal.

                If that doesn't satisfy you though, you may want to step up to the i5 2500, which is still significantly cheeper than the phenom, and beats it in all but 3 tests [anandtech.com].

            • by Pulzar ( 81031 )

              The latest benchmarks I saw showed that the Core i3 2100 was roughly as fast as the Phenom II X6 1100T.

              If by "roughly as fast" you mean about 50% slower, then, yeah.

            • by ElectricTurtle ( 1171201 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @11:22AM (#35210810)
              Lies. Cheapest core i3 2100 is ~$140, and you'd have to be buying from some potentially unreliable outlet at that, and in no way is its performance equivalent to a Phenom 2 X6 1100T. Look [tomshardware.com] at some real bench aggregates, fanboi. You'll see it can outperform an i7-920 in many applications for fully half the cost. Even though it's a bit slower in games, is 5-10% more speed worth 200% the price? Not to most people.
              • the i7-920 is unfortunately for you (fanboy) a previous generation i7, and slower than the i5-2500, and even the i3-2100 in dual/single threaded (read games) tasks.

      • by alen ( 225700 )

        maybe on no profit consumer computers, but on servers Intel rules. Xeons are 32nm, faster in most cases, better power efficiency and by the time you price out the server the cost is the same or less than AMD based servers.

      • Maybe yes, maybe no. The big loser in this would be Intel. I'm not sure of the % of Dell computers that ship with AMD CPU's but it's certainly less than 25%. Dell is big enough to hurt Intel if they switch to AMD.

        More likely good news for Intel. Fair chance all of Dell's competitors will switch from AMD to Intel where possible, just so Dell won't profit from their business. And you have to wonder if Dell's customers will just happily go along with AMD instead of Intel. If this happens, it could cost both Dell and AMD customers.

    • So Dell will become the PC equivalent of Apple?

      • No, because they're still under Microsoft's thumb as a Windows licensor.

      • by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:38AM (#35210110) Journal

        No, Apple did the exact opposite: Dropped developing their own CPU/MB combos in favor of something that Intel offers and designs for them.

        If you look only at Mac computers, and not the iphone, itouch, iwhatever, then Apple is a company that *designs* computers and has created and maintains a popular operating system. They don't actually build the gooey innards for their boxes, ATI (AMD), and Intel do, as well as other parts suppliers.

        • So, let me see if I grok you here... if you ignore the computers that generate the most revenue for Apple, then Apple looks like it did five years ago, and that's the opposite of Dell buying AMD?
          • by jo_ham ( 604554 )

            No, what he's saying is that the comparison that the original thread starter made is that Dell would become like Apple's PC making division - ie, the part of it that designs the laptops, desktops and tower systems.

            The part of Apple that designs the phone and iOS product line is irrelevant here, even if it does make more money. It doesn't matter what iOS is doing, Apple's original business is continuing much as it did 5 years ago, even with the switch to Intel.

            Not that I necessarily agree that Dell buying AM

      • by mitgib ( 1156957 )
        Dell will be more like Packard Bell, irrelevant.
      • More like the equivalent of Samsung, only without the fabs. So they would be more like Dell, than anything, really.
    • Dell is about buying cheap components, and screwing them together to make profitable PCs, and the like. AMD is about baking chips. I'm not sure if Dell's experience and success with PCs will guarantee that they are a good chip baker. Well, maybe if Dell can convince AMD's top management and techies to stay, and Dell leaves the whole operation alone, and doesn't try to fiddle with it too much. Just my take.

    • by altoz ( 653655 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:27AM (#35209916)

      Let's see. HP has a WebOS PC coming out. Dell buys AMD...

      My guess is they're both moving towards Apple's model. Could a real Dell-customized Linux desktop be far off?

      • Dell wouldn't need to buy AMD to do bring a Linux desktop/laptop platform to market. What they would need to do is invest deeply in Linux, in an effort to build up a viable Windows competitor, and somehow do that without coaxing retribution from Microsoft. They might start buy acquiring a Linux vendor, say RedHat or somebody like that. Then, they would notice their calls not getting returned as quickly by Steve Ballmer.
      • My guess is they're both moving towards Apple's model. Could a real Dell-customized Linux desktop be far off?

        If they truly are moving towards Apple's model, then it won't really matter if it's Linux or not - since you won't get root and shell anyway.

    • If Dell buys AMD, goes AMD exclusive, and AMD can't match Intel, Dell will lose out to all it's Intel using competitors.

      This is much too big a risk to take, given that odds are in favor of Intel staying ahead.

      • by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:36AM (#35210070) Journal

        Not necessarily - average PC buyers do not buy on actual performance, and haven't for years. See: Pentium 4 sales - the NetBurst architecture that didn't perform anywhere close to as good as what AMD was offering at the time, yet everyone bought them because of the Intel brand at a higher price.

        Intel's been building a massive brand recognition since the 486, even though the vast majority of PC buyers couldn't even tell you what Intel makes other than "chips".

        It wouldn't be that hard for Dell to just sell the Dell brand, regardless of what's inside the box. They've already been doing that with their shoddy dielectric-bursting capacitors as it is.

        • by guidryp ( 702488 )

          There is Inertia in the industry, but AMD gained a lot of market share when they had better processors and they lost it again when behind.

          It would be a mistake to risk you PC business going exclusive. There is a definite Halo effect that sells processors.

          Dell doesn't only sell Consumer machines. What about workstation class machines:

          http://www.dvhardware.net/article46769.html [dvhardware.net]
          [i]Jon Peddie Research reports Intel owned 99.9 percent of the processor market for workstations in Q3 2010. [/i]

      • by ElectricTurtle ( 1171201 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:39AM (#35210132)
        You do realize that Dell doesn't sell performance, they sell service and support, right? The whole reason most enterprises choose Dell is not because of the best hardware (it almost never is), but because Dell offers (generally) very efficient replacement of defective parts including but not limited to "free" (the cost is rolled into the retail and/or separate extended warranty) on-site service. It minimizes the enterprise's downtime and costs for internal IT support overhead. Corporate IT doesn't care that Intel offers 10% better performance than AMD at double the cost, they care whether they can keep all their systems up with minimal support overhead and downtime.
        • Dell sells support? Really? Have you ever actually dealt with Dell support at anything other than the corporate level?

          "Support": I do not think it means what you think it means.

          • I have worked support at many "Dell only" enterprises. I don't agree what they provide is valuable, but that's not as important as whether IT directors, CTOs, VPs etc. believe that Dell's offers are valuable in that dimension. Their marketshare argues that those people making the decisions do perceive Dell as the best choice for these things.
        • You do realize that Dell doesn't sell performance, they sell service and support, right?

          "You need to reboot your PC."

          The whole reason most enterprises choose Dell is not because of the best hardware (it almost never is), but because Dell offers (generally) very efficient replacement of defective parts including but not limited to "free" (the cost is rolled into the retail and/or separate extended warranty) on-site service.

          "If that doesn't work, reinstall the operating system."

          It minimizes the enterprise's downtime and costs for internal IT support overhead. Corporate IT doesn't care that Intel offers 10% better performance than AMD at double the cost, they care whether they can keep all their systems up with minimal support overhead and downtime.

          "Thanks for calling Dell support - have a nice day."

    • At this point, AMD doesn't have any manufacturing facilities. They are a design show now.

    • AMD spun off their manufacturing facilities to stave off bankruptcy.

      Personally if this is true I would think it is a strategic purchase. Even if dell has to subsidise AMD that may be a better option than letting intel drive them to bankrupcy and take a monopoly.

    • They won't own any manufacturing facilities (I'm assuming you're talking about owning CPU FAB's). AMD spun off all their foundries into another company: Global Foundries [techreport.com]. While they do maintain a 34% share of the newly formed company, it's not the same as Intel "owning" their own fabs.
    • by JamesP ( 688957 )

      Considering the average intelligence of higher levels of management, if Dell buys AMD it's probably going o keep buying chips only from Intel

      Unfortunately, I'm not kidding

  • Maybe now Dell will be done and get some distance from those unstable, overheating Nvidia cards.
  • by Vectormatic ( 1759674 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:18AM (#35209760)

    *raises hands* NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

    On a serious note, Intel must be shitting themselves right now, if Dell were to buy AMD, intel just lost their biggest customer

    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      Not necessarily. Dell will sell what it can sell. If there are people who will buy Intel, Dell will sell them Intel.

    • if Dell were to buy AMD, intel just lost their biggest customer

      According to Wikipedia, Dell is only third in market share in the PC market, with 11.5%, behind HP (19.8%) and Acer (18.5%). So, they'd lose a big customer, but not their biggest. It's not clear how big a customer Apple is - some of their stuff, like the Apple TV doesn't show up in the PC market. It's also worth noting that Intel makes a lot of things other than CPUs (e.g. SSDs), which Dell may continue to buy even if they're shipping AMD chips.

      The real win for Dell would be outside the PC market, in

  • So they can both suck in stereo?
  • by Seggybop ( 835060 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:21AM (#35209808)
    My understanding is that currently there's something of an enforced equilibrium between Intel and AMD, wherein Intel needs AMD to exist in a somewhat healthy state in order to avoid being considered a monopoly. If Dell bought AMD, what would happen to that? Would Dell then sell AMD chips to other (competing) manufacturers?

    There might be something similar going on with ATI vs nvidia as well. =/
    • Would Dell then sell AMD chips to other (competing) manufacturers?

      Dell would probably be happy to sell the chips. The real question is, would competing manufacturers want to buy them? For example, I'm quite sure that HP would phase out and eventually stop selling systems with AMD processors. Big companies don't like sending money to their competitors.

    • Intel is competing against ARM manufacturers now.

  • Apple? (Score:2, Redundant)

    by mario_grgic ( 515333 )
    Would it not make more sense for Apple to buy AMD? They are already in CPU business and custom hardware, they ship their Macs with AMD video cards, and they are not particularly happy with Intel's video on CPU and controllers or their ultra low voltage offerings for Airs.
    • Is that *no* x86 processor is going to appeal relative to their ARM for low-power applications. AMD has an edge for capable integrated graphics, but all in all the x86 offerings are not going to improve by going to AMD with respect to heat/battery concerns.

    • Been there, done that, DON'T want to do it again.

      It was called: PowerPC.

      Apple has decided (probably correctly for them) that the processor is a commodity, not a product differentiator. Apple has figured out that it's better for them to use the same processor chip everyone else does, and differentiate their products with software and industrial design.

      The problem with using your own unique high-performance processors is that if you're ahead you might see a small benefit, but if you ever get behind, you lose
      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        I agree that purchasing AMD would be odd, PowerPC pretty much left Apple at the mercy of Motorola and IBM in the same way they are at the mercy of AMD and Intel today. I think the straw that broke the camel's back was that Apple could not get IBM to compete with Intel in the low-power arena and Apple was pretty much powerless to get what they wanted because it was all IBM at that point. History is kind of repeating with x86 v. ARM for them currently in the space that really matters to them (i.e. Mac deskt

        • The problem with PowerPC was that no one except Apple was shipping PowerPC desktops. The idea, originally, was that IBM would sell PowerPC PCs running Windows at the low end, PowerPC workstations running AIX at the high end. Apple would sell PowerPC computers running MacOS. Other PC makers would sell PowerPC computers running Windows. They'd use a common hardware reference platform so that you could run any PowerPC OS on any vendor's hardware, and they could keep costs low by sharing chipset and CPU dev

    • Dang, I was just going to suggest this. They purchased a chip outfit for their iOS needs, why not one for their Mac line? They could even keep the AMD name: Apple Mints Dough
  • Bad idea... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:26AM (#35209898)

    For Dell.

    We are talking about a chip design company that is at best second-place in most business concerns (GPU sometimes in an exception).

    In the CPU industry, you are talking about a move that would severely alienate Intel, a valuable partner in the server arena at the moment. Further complicating things is that a lot of consumer electronics are on the ARM platform, with an ever-increasing chunk, and I don't think AMD has licensed that platform.

    On the GPU front, they would be alienating nVidia.

    Either by choice or force, you'd see Dell's competitors stop selling AMD products, and maybe medium-term some AMD loyalists will follow Dell, but overall you'd see people giving up on AMD as an invitation for total platform lock-in.

  • I would say the recent departures of senior executives — COO Robert Rivet last week, CEO Dirk Meyer back in January — is still unexplained and can lead to all kinds of speculation. There's not a lot of color on the rumor at this point. Is Dell considering making a more integrated kind of product line? Talk about a change in strategy.
  • Bad enough it was bought by AMD but to wind up being owned by Dell? Blech.

  • The only thing I'm interested in, is how about the linux support ? AMD has been quite good lately, Dell has been so-so. With Dell buying AMD, I'm fearing linux support will go down.
  • Its about Storage (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DarkOx ( 621550 )

    This makes total sense, this is about storage. Dell has made some other purchases recently of storage vendors, and has a line of x86 based iscsi mid level SAN products they are seeking to push.

    AMD has the right technology for that. You don't need powerful number crunching and the crunching you do need could be optimized easily in the hardware. What AMD offers is good bus and memory architectures that would serve well in those more integrated applications. I suspect this is a way for Dell to continue to

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      On the flipside, after bringing about that awesome bus/memory architecture, they haven't made any particularly exciting breakthroughs ever since and Intel has caught up on that front.

      Sometimes you have the right people and leadership to have an overwhelming improvement like HyperTransport to make you a clear market leader. Often times, that set of people turns out to be a one-trick pony and/or gets sucked out by companies willing to pay them more.

      • by 0123456 ( 636235 )

        On the flipside, after bringing about that awesome bus/memory architecture, they haven't made any particularly exciting breakthroughs ever since and Intel has caught up on that front.

        More to the point, the 'awesome bus/memory architecture' only really helped them on servers; Intel's FSB was good enough for home users. And from what I've read the weird desire to maintain backwards compatibility with ancient motherboards has harmed their memory performance by forcing them to keep supporting DDR2 as well as DDR3; those kind of compatibility issues are one reason why we switched from integrated memory controllers to independent ones outside the CPU many years ago.

        • by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

          AM3 does not support DDR2. AM2+ does. AM3 CPUs can be used in AM2+ boards. This means that the on die controller is not used in that instance.

  • On the plus side, they could get rid of the overhead from AMD's sales and marketing team because no other system integrator would ever buy an AMD or ATI product again.

    This maybe would increase AMD's CPU share - all of Dell plus motherboards for homebrew systems is probably slightly bigger than AMD's current share of the CPU market - but the ATI part of AMD (you know, the profitable part) would lose almost every system design win they have since Apple, Lenovo, HP et. al. wouldn't exactly be keen on putting m

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by 0123456 ( 636235 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @11:15AM (#35210684)

      It wont be long before we dock our cell phones in a station and work via KVM at our office desk.

      True. Everyone wants a phone with a half-hour battery life, and every company wants employees carrying their work around in their pocket.

  • by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:34AM (#35210050) Journal

    I seem to be in the minority, but I do not think the merger is viable

    1) Antitrust issues: Normally I would scoff at the U.S. gov't stepping in and stopping and anti-competitive merger. This, however, is very high profile and would impace Intel and U.S. business as a whole. I think the private sector would push hard enough that the gov't would have to act.

    2) This is antithetical to what has made Dell successful. Dell does not want to be in the business of owning production. They want to be a middle person, putting their brand on items, finding efficiencies in distribution and doing very well at it. Owning production is a different game altogether.

    3) Dell would damage their relationship with Intel. As long as Dell is independent they can negotiate hard with Intel and cooperate to ensure that product offerings integrate well with Intel's products. Intel is less likely to want to do business with Dell in a cooperative sense.

    Overall, I think this rumor is just a rumor. Course, I've been wrong before, and businesses have done some boneheaded moves.

    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      2) the middle person is loosing money. Owning the line increase profit. This is what Wal-mart, Amazon, and many very successful companies do.

      3) If they own AMD, then they won't really need Intel except for in the server space, and that's a different market and Intel would be happy to continue there relationship. That aren't going to loose server sales to 'get' Dell.

      I don't know if ti's true or not. Hell, Dell may have started it becasue they are getting ready to enter negotiations with Intel.

    • There are no overlaps in the product lines of Dell and AMD, so there are zero anti-trust issues from a legal point of view.

  • by guidryp ( 702488 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @10:36AM (#35210078)

    Any PC Vendor would risk putting itself at a performance disadvantage to it's Intel using competition.

    Not only that, it would make competing PC vendors leery of using AMD chips.

    This would be massive strategic failure for any PC vendor, hastening the slide of both the vendor business and the CPU business.

    There are few potential companies that might have a good fit. IBM might be one. IBM might have the silicon expertise, funds and neutrality to keep AMD viable in the CPU industry.

    • If you want any indication of how important *Intel* x86 is to them, look at their current product line. They used to carry Blade and 2S server models with AMD. Now they just have a 4S box available. One could argue that 2S doesn't make sense with AMD's current architecture to explain away the missing 2S servers, but the Blade omission seems pretty glaring.

      IBM is firmly in the Intel camp, and they would do nothing to threaten that in a head-on capacity (doing things with ARM and POWER are a little less di

    • by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

      Or Apple. Not very likely since Apple has such a close relationship with Intel but it would allow Apple to have complete control of their stack. The new CPUs from AMD do seem to be very competitive with Intel right now.
      Of course Apple could also decide to go after Microsoft full force. Now that they have the app store on the mac I could see them deciding to create a mac mini plus with a slot for a video card and a desktop speed HD. Price it at $399 or $499 and start really building market share not to menti

    • Apple could very easily get away with this. Assuming AMD continues to make advances in their mobile chips, it would actually make perfect sense for Apple. Their users don't give a shit what CPU is inside, and Apple doesn't compete directly on price/performance. It also would be unlikely to prevent other vendors from using the chips. Apple *really* isn't a competitive threat on the desktop side IMO. The only time I see someone comparing an Apple box to a Dell/HP is when they're Linux users trying to dec
  • Unless Dell is considering a fundamental rethink in strategy(as in "trying to turn into IBM" fundamental...), I can't imagine the logic behind buying AMD...

    Right now, Dell is more or less Intel's box-assembly bitch; but they are reaping substantial "marketing assistance" funds, and they also seem to be able to buy AMD chips for their cheap seats and/or large-number-of-sockets servers(where hypertransport is still enough of a factor to make up for intel's better cores), since AMD's open-market prices are
    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      (where hypertransport is still enough of a factor to make up for intel's better cores),

      Except Intel does QPI which is pretty well equivalent technically. One could make a competent argument that AMD is more aggressive and pricing parts with enough links for 4/8 socket at the same level Intel is doing parts with only 2 socket capability, but the EX Intel stuff is technically capable of competing with AMD *if* you ignore the pricing structure.

  • Rumors (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2011 @11:04AM (#35210494)
    I wonder how much it costs to start rumors like that whilst selling the stock short from another country.
  • the three product I will never buy rolled into one easy and convenient company to ignore.

  • If this turns out to be true I will be absolutely baffled, considering how timid Dell has always been about using AMD chips in their machines in the first place. Overall I don't think it would be good for the second largest x86 chip manufacturer to be owned and controlled by a PC maker; especially one that tends to cut corners in my opinion (*cough* capacitors *cough*). Ditching Intel altogether would be a horrible strategy also. Even with the days of the wintel alliance over, they still have a presence
  • I don't know about anybody else but I don't associate Dell with quality. I can't see them buying out AMD as being good for AMD, I see it as the nail in the coffin of the processor wars with Intel finally having a permanent corner on the processor market, and I don't think that would be good for anyone.
  • with few exceptions, mergers/acquisitions, this kind of financier shit, has always ruined whatever i held dear as products/services. this was also so in the field of i.t..

    if amd gets sold to anyone, i will start looking for an alternative that did not whore itself out to rabid bloodsuckers, but still run by their initial founders and vision holders.
  • Well, this is obvious:
    As Dell is already to be known as being in Intels pocket,see teh voluntary payment of over $100 Million regarding the lies about disclosing the payment of rebates.

    Intel could not buy AMD as it would get blocked, and the PR optics would be horrible

    This provides a clean exit for all concerned.
    Intel controls Dell, which controls AMD

    Intel gets the AMD GPU tech and some patent licenses.

    They spin the AMD parts as the low end in desktops.

    Dell gets an insurmountable lead over HP , at least unt

  • Apple should buy AMD instead, if only for the comedic effect on the tech press and comment boards.

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