Does AMD have a case?
Published: 29 Jun 2005 14:15 BST
Corporate customers are also notoriously conservative, said Krewell, adding that having only one type of chip (versus chips from two companies) can reduce support costs. For AMD, getting that close to a corporate desktop deal was, in fact, a milestone for the company. The company had suffered through five years of financial losses and several product delays from 1995 to 1999. The situation began to turn in late 1999 when Intel began to falter and benchmarks testers said that AMD's Athlon chip bested Intel's desktop parts.
Another opportunity to surge ahead in desktops came in 2003 when AMD came out with a 64-bit desktop chip. While this move could have beat Intel handily, Microsoft had to delay its Windows for 64-bit chips so many times that AMD's potential advantage became ameliorated.
Other parts of the complaint allege that bundling discounts offered as part of Intel's Centrino chip package for notebooks, which debuted in 2003, have also harmed AMD.
But, at the same time, AMD has put most of its efforts in the past few years into breaking into the server market and expanding its reach in the desktop market. The company only came out with a product, Turion, that more directly competes against Centrino notebooks a few months ago. HP has adopted it.
Servers present another likely AMD said/Intel said situation. Paragraph 83 of the complaint alleges that Intel tried to intimidate Fujitsu-Siemens into backing out of supporting AMD's Opteron chip at its April 2003 launch, and said that the European manufacturer would be the only major computer maker present.
As it turned out, IBM showed its support for Opteron at launch. Through Opteron, AMD has also gone from having virtually zero market share in servers to more than 6 percent and contracts with HP, IBM, and Sun.
Overall, AMD tends to do well in years where Intel is suffering through problems of its own, such as in 2000 and 2004. When Intel recovers, AMD's opportunities fade, even if it is still scoring better on benchmarks. Still, the growing acceptance of AMD and its track record should, logically, let the company succeed even if Intel is not flailing.
If anything, the complaint is likely to be pored over in minute detail by the legal departments of PC makers. So far, PC makers have adamantly refused to comment on the cases. Nonetheless, executives from many of those companies, including the alleged executive HP almost fired for making overtures to AMD, may be compelled to testify.
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