_=DeltaForce=_

I am wondering why Dell isnt Offering AMD based computer??? THey could be making more money...

Jeffbx

Nah. It would cost them more to offer them, because:

- Buying another brand of processors lowers their buying power with Intel, so Intel chip prices will be higher, and they wouldn't be able to REALLY leverage AMD because the volume wouldn't be there.
- They would have to introduce new lines of computers to support the chips. Dell designs their machines from the ground up - they don't just swap components into cases. The would involve lots of engineering & testing work.
- They would have to focus on new marketing campaigns to introuduce the new chipsets, which would take away from their normal marketing of existing systems.

Since they're already stomping all over most other PC manufacturer, there are really no incentives for them to make a fundamental change in their offerings.

Cheesypuff

plus like most companies...take for example vid cards. There were some companies vid card makers that did both nvidia and ati. And one or the other companies didn't like that...so they pull their lines out of that brand...and that company can no longer sell that brand.

Just like dell. If they start making amd machines...intel might take it as a threat, and they might tell dell no more putting in thier CPU's in the machienes! it blows...but hey...it's business!

__________________
Life is like toilet paper, long and useful!
The stars at night, are big and bright *clap 4x* deep in the heart of TEXAS!

fallout1

"that's business.." that's no justification..**** greedy business.

__________________
"A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -MLK

zenbooty

Whine whine whine. Start your own business if you think you have a better way.

__________________
Common sense is what tells you the Earth is flat.

fallout1

I was a business major in college for 3 years till I changed because I couldn't stand it anymore. You start a business. Business is not intrinsically bad. But profit usually comes before people in America, so in that case, thank you, I will "whine." But if you really want to discuss this, let's move this to the political forum..

zenbooty

The point I'm getting at is that there was a complaint about Dell not offering AMD processors. Someone replied that there were a number of reason, including some having to do with business competition. He remarked "Hey, business is business," to which you replied, "**** greedy business." So tell me, how is Dell being greedy and horrible by just carrying Intel processors, when carrying both could end up costing them in the long run? Why should it not be their right to carry whatever they want to carry?

Merlin

The story I heard was that once several years ago Michael Dell and the CEO of AMD got into a pissing contest over something stupid. You know how these BIG egos can be. The dispute ended with Dell saying that he would never sell AMD products. I don't know if it is true or not but it is believeable.

__________________

InfiniteNothing

Because that's what HP is for?

__________________
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

Jihforce

What does being a business major for 3 years have anything to do with starting a business? First 2 years are usually GEs anyway...
Anyway, profit comes before people in every business and country. Without profits, a company cannot survive and grow.

__________________
Auto Leasing Info @ RIDEwithG.com | My Food & Travel Blog

sbp

Start a charity then. Oh wait you doesn't like those cause us selfish Americans don't want to turn everything over to the nanny state.

fallout1

I wasn't referring to Dell specifically..Just to the corporate shareholder driven lust for ever more profits at whatever the cost.

zippyjuan

From PC World :

Dell, AMD May Reach a Deal for 64-Bit Chips

Upcoming Opteron processor may be the chip maker's first to find a home in Dell hardware.

Ashlee Vance, IDG News Service
Wednesday, May 01, 2002

SAN FRANCISCO -- Dell Computer is inching closer to bringing Advanced Micro Devices on as a second chip supplier after the introduction of the company's 64-bit chips for PCs next year, the top executives from both companies indicated Tuesday.

Rumors have circulated for years about Dell possibly purchasing chips from AMD in addition to those it buys from close partner Intel, but company executives have never confirmed such a deal.

Both AMD's colorful Chairman W.J. "Jerry" Sanders III and Dell Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell reignited such speculation with comments made here at the Merrill Lynch Hardware Heaven conference. The executives said AMD's 64-bit family of chips, code-named Hammer, could be the first AMD products to make it into Dell's hardware lineup.

"We are very interested, and we are looking," Dell said about the Hammer chip, during a keynote presentation. "There is not much more to say," Dell paused. " . . . in public."

"We are very encouraged to see the innovations that are going on, not only by our current supplier but also future, potential suppliers."

Benefits of 64-Bit Chips
AMD and Intel are working on 64-bit processors that can handle bigger chunks of data than do current 32-bit processors used in PCs and some servers. AMD chose to adopt a 64-bit architecture that does not require developers to alter their 32-bit software to run on the Hammer chips. Intel's 64-bit Itanium chips have a new architecture that will run 32-bit software only at reduced speeds.

Although Intel has not backed down in expressing its confidence in Itanium, the company is reported to be working on another 64-bit chip that, like AMD's, would run 32-bit software with no penalty. In an interview, Dell indicated it would be this chip--code-named Yamhill--that would be sold along with Hammer in Dell PCs next year. Dell said he does not expect Itanium to be used in PCs "anytime soon."

Dell will have to make a decision soon on its strategy for using 64-bit chips in PCs because demand for the more powerful processors will take off next year, Sanders said during his presentation.

When asked in an interview which chip his company would choose, Dell said, "It does not have to be either-or," indicating the company might offer both.

In another interview, Sanders said he expected all major PC makers to ship both AMD and Intel 64-bit products

__________________
I add new pictures to my photo gallery pretty regularly. You can see them here if you are interested: http://www.pbase.com/jeffryz

fallout1

I never said it had anything to do with starting a business. And no, the first two years are not only GEs. I appreciate you trying to infer my course curriculum, but I have taken plenty of upper division classes in 3 years..I was only 15(4 classes) credits away from a BS in Bus. Admin. On a separate note, yes, you are right profit does come before people. Which is a very sad thing.. As the social contract further erodes, we will begin to drift toward a more and more inequal society where the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few..Obviously companies need profits to survive..But at what cost? Sending jobs to employ poor asian girls to work for a dollar a day? Yes, it cuts labor costs, makes the shareholder happy, but at the end of the day was it worth it? Is the contingent labor force and the shredding of the Wagner and Fair Labor Standards Act worth the profits it's generating? Is it fair for corporations to be able to play state against state and now nation against nation in an attempt to blackmail their oversight (barely a good word anymore) into furthering their own agenda? If not, pack up and leave..Why do u think Delaware is the state with the most corporate headquarters...Anyways..Profit can still be had by businesses without sacrificing the ideals of social responsibility..It's just not the quick fix analysts and shareholders demand.

zippyjuan

That article was from 2002 and similar ones seem to pop up every year. From the Motley Fool July of this year:

AMD: When the Levee Breaks

By Bill Mann (TMF Otter)
July 1, 2004

It's a tale as old as time, but it isn't Disney's (NYSE: DIS) "Beauty and the Beast."

Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), the bellwether PC company (and Motley Fool Stock Advisor pick), has used Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) microprocessors forever. Intel Inside. Exclusively. Intel's biggest rival, AMD (NYSE: AMD), has been pursuing Dell forever to offer computers running its chip. A look back through the Fool archives has mentions of a potential Dell/AMD collaboration from last year, the year before, all the way back to about, oh, 1926.

A research report from Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Tai Nguyen noted that Dell is designing two dual-processor servers based upon AMD's Opteron processors. If this is true, it would represent a major victory for AMD: All of the other big-box makers, including Gateway (NYSE: GTW), Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HWQ), IBM (NYSE: IBM), and Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW), ship products running AMD microprocessors. But they're not Dell.

Dell's "special relationship" with Intel has traditionally meant that when Intel releases a new product, Dell gets first crack. This works out great as long as Intel's driving the chip-design horse. But many industry experts have pointed out that AMD has a long history of design wins over Intel, and the recent decision by Intel to offer a chip modeled on Opteron silicon represents a bit of a watershed. These chips can process data at 32 bits, but can scale up to 64 bits for more calculation-intensive applications.

But AMD's been claiming design and processing speed victories for years. Nothing has really helped: Intel still has the outward appearance of a juggernaut, and AMD's various production problems over time have given manufacturers just enough excuse to stay with the proven leader in Intel. AMD hopes that by breaking into some Dell designs, Joe Consumer's perceptions would begin to change. For whatever reason, the fact that Hewlett and IBM, among others, have launched AMD-based products isn't as important to perception as whether the dam breaks at Dell.

This would spell trouble for Intel. Not because Dell is suddenly going to start throwing Intel chips and designs onto the slag heap -- I'd expect that the amount of AMD-driven gear that Dell would sell would comprise a small portion of its overall gross. But given Dell's special relationship with Intel, the only reason that the company would move to the Opteron or Athlon chips from AMD would be due to customer demand. The PC business remains quite hairy and brutally competitive. Due in no small part to its growth trajectory and superior economic model, Dell used to be able to be a bit schoolmarmy with its customers, in effect saying "We choose Intel because it's the best for you." But if customers are demanding AMD, then what does this say about Intel's carefully groomed image?

Let's not start carving Intel's tombstone just yet. In fact, a Dell spokesman has flatly denied claims that the company has plans currently to offer products based on AMD. Until such an announcement takes place, this is just a rumor, coming from an analyst who may simply be trying to make a name for himself. Or it could be that he's done some excellent primary research. Whatever the outcome, he's managed to re-ignite the rumor that just never seems to die. Regardless of what happens with Dell, it seems clear that AMD and smaller Transmeta (Nasdaq: TMTA) are finally prying into a world that was once Intel's own private oyster.

fallout1

Maybe I will start a charity. I "doesn't" like greedy businesses. I am an American as well. It seemed u thought I wasn't or something..And I dunno..If you look at the fact that 60,000,000(20% of the pop) children in the US are growing up in poverty, while in Sweden, only 164,000(2.3% of the pop) are..Then it seems their "nanny state" is doing something right. But we American's enshrine this individualism crap to the extent that we'd rather have mass poverty and inequality than embrace the social market..Great priorities..

Apex

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=955

BTW, would love to hear where the statistics on US child poverty comes from, with the buying power between US and Sweden accounted for. Thanks.

As of 2003, 35 million Americans were identified as being "in poverty" by the US Census Bureau.

Of these 35 million people below the poverty line:

46% own their own homes (average of a 3-bedroom house with 1.5 baths, garage, and porch or padio)

76% have air conditioning

6% are overcrowded, while >66% have more than 2 rooms per person.

The average person in America living below the poverty line has more living space than the average person (not classifed as poor) living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe.

Almost 3/4 have a car, 30% have 2 or more cars.

97% have color TV's, >50% have two or more. 78% have a VCR or DVD, 62% have cable or satellite.

73% have microwaves, >50% have stereos, 1/3 have automatic dishwashers.

Expenditures per person in the lowest 20% of households today equal those of the median household in the 70's, after adjusting for inflation.

60 million kids out of 35 million total...

I'm obviously not saying it's not a problem. However, we do have to look at facts objectively. 2/3 of poor children live in single parent homes, and each year 1.3 million children are born out of wedlock. If poor mothers actually married their child(ren)'s father, almost 3/4 would no longer be below the poverty line.

__________________
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin (1914 - )

Cheesypuff

Why don't we brace for both sides of the arguement! Fallout goes for the we we we idea, and sbp goes for the me me me idea!

At times, I really don't understand why our society can't have a happy medium of both we and me. Lets not go to the extremes people. To a certain extent, there needs to be regulation on both sides of the arguements. But the way I see it, the humanitarian way of doing things would be a bit harder for some to grasp because we as humans are greedy by nature.

LegendKiller

Fallout,


Who do you think "corporate shareholders" are? I ask this question of Canta often, or other people who start ranting of evil corps and their lack of social responsibility. Many thing that "shareholders" is some catchall phrase that can describe the prototypical "White rich fatcat" who drives an H2.

However, the vast majority of shares and bonds that corporations pay are held by institutional investors, which in turn hold them for large porfolio's which in turn hold the wealth of millions of Americans through pensions, 401k's, Thrift Savings (govt workers), IRA's, College plans, mutual funds, index funds...etc.

Sure, individuals do own shares, but it isn't this massive conspiracy that you seem to be hinting at.


Furthermore, isn't societies best interests lie in letting people do what they want?


Go to a store, buy a 5lb bag of sugar for $4, then while your walking to the register think of what that $4 is really buying. Its not $4 to the company, hell no. That $4 is bought by your tax dollars, YOU are paying double that amount in tax subsidies to keep domestic sugar growers in business.


How about steel. Steel tariffs cost americans BILLIONS of hard earned dollars. Yet, what did those teriffs do? Sure, they kept a few hundred thousand (or even a million) jobs around. But they also stiffled innovation, stopped efficiency, modernization, and cheaper goods.


You claim that searching for profits is socially bad. But is it always good for society to support the few at the loss of the many?


LK



Smackdown by Apex. I wonder how many own cell phones and many pounds of bling bling.








Back to the original post.



I am not sure about what Merlin states. Just looking at it from a sheer economics point of view, AMD chips require a whole retooling of Dell's lines. As mentioned before, mobo's are different, power equirements, heatsink requirements, RAM, drivers. You have to run 2 lines instead of 1, which more than doubles costs due to inefficiencies. Dell is streamlined, adding in complexity is something that Dell will not do easily.

slaus

By selling one line of CPUs, dell can better achieve economies of scale thus making their products cheaper and letting more people afford computers.

InfiniteNothing

I say 46% home ownership is sobering. I don't care if you're rich or poor, you should get to own your own home unless you live in NY City where there are no homes.
Yes, but how well does that money trickle down? Is the middle American taking a peice of the pie or is a "Big Swinging Dick" sinking a customer making big money for his chairman and improving Salomon's portfolio

LegendKiller

You shoudn't get to own your own home if you are incapable of maintaining and paying for it, that is just simple logic. Giving a home to everybody just because is stupidity. YOu should earn something in your life. Even in the most socialist countries there isn't anywhere close to 100% home ownership.

How would the middle american NOT get some advantage of increasing profits from companies? Stock goes up, mutual/401k/IRA/pensions go up, they get more retirement money, rely less on SS, which makes that last longer.

I fail to see any logic in your last sentence. Salomon doesn't really own their own portfolio, you seem to think that these companies just get cash from nowhere. People OWN Salomon. People OWN its assets, in this case it's Citibank's investors. People OWN Salomon's portfolio's. This isn't very hard.

LK

InfiniteNothing

To me, a really nice home should be something you earn but a decent home seems like a staple. Just one of those common decency things. Maybe I'm out there on this one.

You said that middle america benifits by owning mutual funds. I'm saying that there's a big blockage between the stocks and the mutual fund owners. Namely the bond trader's cuts, the floor men's cut, the CEO's cut. How much trickles down? Who's really making the money out there? The white fat cats who offer mutual funds or the mutual funds owners. There's another blockage, the financial advisor. What cut does they guy putting your portfolio together make? What about his boss?

Merlin

About 150 basis points.

Not very much at all. They (we, since it is what I do) only do well once the amount of assets under management gets to a critical mass. So the cut taken from each person is really quite low.

InfiniteNothing

What do you make if he loses money or breaks even? (Curiosity)

Merlin

Same thing. It is a flat fee and not performance based. At least in the traditional mutual fund game. Now if you get into the realm of hedge funds it is a very different story where they get a big base fee and take a cut of the upside as well.

Now we can earn bonuses for beating the market and our peer group but that does not change the fee the investors are charged. The company picks that up knowing that if we beat the market the assets under management will increase and that brings in more revenue.

LegendKiller

A house is NOT a staple. A house is a luxury. You can live without a house and apartments are not that bad.


Let me ask you, were do we get the money to give everybody a house? People need to be paid, workers need to be compensated, materials need to be bought. If 35,000,000 people are in poverty and 54% were given a house with an average cost of 60k, that would equal 1,134,000,000,000. Thats 1.134 TRILLION dollars. Are you really that naive?


A trader loses money if he is holding the wrong side of the market, but the market sets the spread.

A portfolio manager makes his money as the assets grow larger in the portfolio. He can make more if the port does well, but that is obvious.

If middle america has its money in a losing port, thats their fault.

The advisor gets his cut because he advises. He doesn't get much more or less because Coke has 5% extra profits one quarter, which is really what we are talking about.


LK

InfiniteNothing

By trader I mean a bond sales man hired by the finacial investing institution that holds the mutual funds/pensions, etc. By chairman, I mean the guy who is above the trader. I want to know their cut and how much gets to middle america. I'm not saying they are losing money, I'm just saying there's alot of corporate greed out there.

Now, I didn't realize how much it would cost to build all those houses. It's alot of money. I wouldn't say it's impossible though. It seems like many of these people's current rents could go towards a house. $1000 a month over 50 years is $600000. 47% is sad.

LegendKiller

The trader can lose his shirt one day and make a ton next. It depends on what side of the market he is on, how much spread their is between bid/ask (dictated by the market), and how much his personal holdings are.

it used to be worse when they would front trade individual orders, but that kind of stuff is being watched much more closely in the past decade. They should make a lot of money, its a high-stress, dog-eat-dog, live or die world where you have to be damn smart, dedicated, and quick.


LK

InfiniteNothing

You were trying to equate what the market makes to what the "average" American makes. I'm saying that Corporate profits largely go to the rich.