Re: Why is it that you no longer talk about the Athlon MP?
Not much need to talk about it. Take a look at the number of listings for Athlon MP boards at distributors that server the VAR market. A lot of VARs now carry as many or more listings for SMP Athlon boards as SMP Intel boards.
Has AMD captured half the market?
No, because the large OEMs, like Compaq and Dell are all Intel and hold more than half the market. But AMD SMP systems are selling very well, which serves two purposes.
One, AMD is establishing a reputation for supplying moderately priced, reliable, very high performance workstations and servers.
Two, Intel has had to cut its SMP processor prices by about 2/3s, to avoid losing even more share than they already have. This reduces the funds available to cross-subsidize Intel sales in other areas.
Another effect of Intel's forcing the large OEMs into a policy of "we'll tell you what you are allowed to buy, don't bother us with what you want to buy", is that so called "white box" sales have continued to increase - especially of higher end machines.
Remember when the expectation was that the corner computer shop would disappear? It seemed like obvious common sense: how could a neighborhood shop that bought in one's and ten's and used domestic labor for assembly and test compete with Dell or Compaq that bought in quantities in the millions and assembles and tested with pennies per hour labor?
The answer is that Dell, Compaq, and HP aren't offering buyers what they want - such as medium to high end AMD systems - so the local shops and VARs keep gaining share. |
