What's Going on with Dell and AMD?

Many folks have seen the post on Engadget about changes in Dell's AMD offerings online. Here's the deal.

Dell regularly adjusts its product offerings, and how customers can purchase those products.  Currently the majority of our Inspiron AMD-based systems are available through our retail partners such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Staples, and through telephone sales. Our AMD-based energy-efficient consumer desktop, the Energy Star 4.0 Inspiron 531 is also still available on Dell.com.

Dell also sells a full range of AMD-powered business notebooks, desktops and servers online. Certain product ranges or models may only be available through specific channels such as retail or phone. We are committed to the AMD product lines as a long-term partner to provide the maximum choice for our customers.

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iomongol said:

Quote: 

Dell sells a full range of AMD-powered notebooks, desktops and servers online.Certain product ranges or models may only be available through specific channels such as retail or phone. We are committed to the AMD product lines as a long-term partner to provide the maximum choice for our customers.

1 laptop, 1 desktop and 1 server = full range ? very funny dell.

it is fine if you can't tell us what is going on. we all know anyways. pure shame, dell, pure shame.

Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger said:

iomongol: Those links weren't meant to be exhaustive.. just examples of some of the AMD-based systems that we offer on Dell.com.

Update: I thought about this a bit more and agree with you overall—I removed the word full with a strikethrough in my original post.

AJ said:

Dear Dell,

 Since 1990, I purchased well over 1000 Dell PC's and Notebooks for various companies.  The Optiplex 740 running the Athlon 64 X2 dual core processor is the best machine in 17 years.  Today's Wall Street Journal alert that you're abandoning AMD in your bread and butter Internet business is a significant concern to me.  Did your competitive position vis a vis Apple have something to do with this?

VK said:

Well AJ, What you said about the Optiplex is absolutely true. I have been using the Optiplex 740 in my workplace (which coincidentally is the other party in topic). It is the best ever one can use at their workplace.

But that said, I dont see companies requiring 1000+ PCs in one large invoice ordering these online. The server and workstation and business laptops will not be affected that much by this move by Dell. The home user and the layman wanting to buy a good quality affordable notebook for his teenage son or his grandmother will be most affected. Retailers most often do not customize notebooks to our needs. This will hence be a bane.

But I also see something else cooking up between Dell and AMD. This is coincidentally aligning towards the phasing out of AMD Turion X2 and AMD Athlon and moving towards Phenom and Puma/Griffin. This will of course compete with Intels Penryn. So the consumer will be spoilt for choices. H2 2008 will be exciting for both AMD and Dell in the notebook space (if Dell takes Griffin in as much as Penryn that is)

Also, the period from Jan to April is a sort of "dull sales" period. Dell will not be looking to sell many PCs/Notebooks during the period. This is hence best left to retailers. Dell will surely bounce back with AMDs Griffin, Barcelona and Phenom.

Bob said:

So how long till Michael Dell gets the check from Mr. Otellini? "Dell regularly adjusts its product offerings, and how customers can purchase those products. " Yep, Michael Dell left you he stopped getting intel checks, Dell adjusted its product offering to include AMD, He's back now, getting the checks and you adjusted your product offering to oust AMD. I didn't notice any links on direct2dell about a poll on discontinuing AMD, I am sure its because you don't care what the customers think

JK said:

If Dell can't figure out how to maintain clarity on their web portal and provide access to the AMD line then I think I can't be bothered to order from them. There are plenty of other suppliers out there who will happily provide me specs on an AMD system (for home and business use). 

Just a FYI on the new web portal. A relative was offered a deal on a new system from IBM and I was trying to price it from Dell for comparison. It was near impossible to figure out how to customize on of the laptops from the web site as the web site seems to encourage you to purchase them as listed.

 

 

Cbigfoot said:

What i would like to know is where is the AMD processors in the xps line???  I have several sysetms and my custom AMD Phenom system beats my xps 720 q6600 while the phenom has 800MHz ram my 720 has 1066 but in vista the my phenom is a 5.9 across the board but the 720 is a 5.3 due to memory.  Add amd machines to the xps line with the ati chipset and i will buy 2! otherwise i will be forced to build my own!!!

Keith said:

I looked at the AMD Green PCs...and the configurator not only forces Vista on you it doesn't even let you choose which level of Vista you want.  So we can choose our CPU vendor, or maybe our OS vendor, but not both?

Sue said:

Keith said "I looked at the AMD Green PCs...and the configurator not only forces Vista on you it doesn't even let you choose which level of Vista you want.  So we can choose our CPU vendor, or maybe our OS vendor, but not both?"

On our EnergyStar systems, there is limited ability to change the configuration. That is because these machines have been tested and certified to be energy efficient with certain items only. Changing those items would change the energy efficiency and the EnergyStar rating of those systems, and so there are very limited configuration changes that can be allowed.

It's the nature of the beast.

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