Dell moves into uncharted Google and AMD waters

Stuart Corner
Monday, 29 May 2006 09:57

Opinion and Analysis

In the past two weeks leading PC maker Dell Computer has sailed into largely uncharted waters, striking deals with Google and AMD, companies from the new world so to speak.

While AMD has actually been around for quite some, it has only been relatively recently that it has started to make serious inroads into the share of market leader Intel. For the first time ever, Dell will use AMD chips for its products. Admittedly the deal is only for some server products but it is a giant foot in the door for AMD and will almost certainly lead to more business for the number two chip maker.

However significant the AMD deal is, though, the agreement that Dell has struck with Google is even more so. Control of the desktop is the lifeblood of Microsoft and having Google tools embedded on Dell desktops is the beginning of the end of that control.

Desktop search is just the beginning, although it is a big beginning because it eliminates the necessity to visit a browser where Microsoft has the dominant share. Google is also busily rolling out online competitors to Microsoft desktop products, of which the most significant so far is the Outlook competitor Google Calendar. Having recently bought online word processor company Writely, a Google word processor is not far away. And you can count on a bevy of other online office productivity tools to be announced before too long.

On top of all this, Dell has agreed to install a co-branded home page with Google as the factory setting default for its PCs for the next three years. Why is Dell doing this? There are a number of reasons. One is that Google is paying hard cash – an estimated US$1 billion over three years. Another is that Dell has picked Google (and to a lesser extent AMD) as winning horses. And everybody wants to ride a winner.