AMD expected to boost low-end chip sales with Dell deal

Stan Beer
Friday, 18 August 2006 05:23

Your IT - Home IT

Number two chip maker AMD is expected to announce a deal with Dell today, which will see its chips included in Dell's desktop and notebook computers. The deal will provide a boost to AMD in a market where it lags behind the rest of its business.

In May, Dell, the last of the major computer manufacturers to use AMD chips, announced a deal to include AMD Opteron chips in its high-end servers. In the server space, AMD is very strong with some estimates putting its market share at above 26%.

However, AMD is weak in the consumer desktop space where its market share has been estimated to be around 8%. A notebook and desktop deal with Dell could do a lot to boost its share in the consumer space.

Overall, AMD holds more than 20% market share and has set a goal to reach 30% by 2008.

Intel, which has seen its still dominant share eroded over the past two years, hit back at AMD with the release of new Xeon 5100 server chips, which outperform their AMD Opteron counterparts on both power and performance.

However, the major computer manufacturers continue to stand behind AMD and the company is fighting hard to holds its ground in the server space until it releases in quad-core processors in mid-2007.