Bill - here's a little more from Zimchic on Yahoo.
rudy - rebuttal to Bill Jackson
by: zimchic1 (13/M/Austin, TX) 10/6/00 7:05 pm
Msg: 187249 of 187249
Let's make this the end from my side. I don't want to impose on you further.
Bill obviously does not understand the benefits of heterogeneity in large corporate computing environments.
It goes far beyond the CPU. Software revisions, firmware revisions, disk type/size/brand, network card, graphics card, etc. etc. Everything you can imagine. An AMD motherboard will have a whole new set of quirks vs. an Intel based Dell motherboard.
Each time you change something you run the risk of introducing a new, unique problem. If everyone has something different on his desktop they become a nightmare to manage, with so many problems it becomes impossible to sort them out cost effectively.
Stocking replacements becomes a more expensive proposition. If an AMD based machine goes belly up you can't yank out the hard drive and throw it into anything but an exact duplicate and expect it to work. Therefore you have to keep two different replacements on hand or your employee stays down for lord knows how long.
If Bill thinks that Intel based motherboards and AMD based motherboards don't have different problem sets then he's sadly mistaken. There isn't a PC in the world that's perfect. They all have problems. Some have more than others and they all differ to some degree even when made with exactly the same components. Even silicon differs from one manufacturing run to the next. Anyone who's built a large number of computers knows the value of date codes stamped on the top of ICs. You get bad batches of parts indistinguishable in any way other than the date stamp.
This is why Dell has separate product lines for relationship customers and transactional customers.
Relationship customers want no surprises. They want carefully planned roadmaps with their input taken into consideration at the front end of the design cycle. Lots of advance notice and as much continuity across product transitions as possible.
Transactional customers evaluate each purchase on the spot. They're typically looking for the best performance at the best price, buy in small quantities, and have little brand loyalty. This is the sweet spot for AMD but it's NOT in the Fortune 1000 and given Intel's installed base I doubt it ever will be. It's hard enough to switch an large account from Compaq to Dell even when the products are ostensibly identical. Well, maybe it's easy to swipe accounts from Compaq but you get my drift. <g>
There are other concerns that Dell must evaluate when considering a transactional line using AMD based motherboards that have been adequately addressed such as reliability, volume, chipsets, sequestration of design teams, politics, and etc.
It's hard enough dealing with one vendor's idiosyncracies from design, procurement, manufacturing, and support standpoints. There has to be a VERY compelling reason to justify so much duplication of effort. A few fleeting percentage points on benchmarks just doesn't cut it for Dell or its relationship customers.
End of story. |
