By Will Sturgeon, 16 January 2006 12:10
NEWS
The UK head of Dell has said the company has no plans to be drawn into the game of producing cut-price 'no frills' computers.
He also told a select group of journalists that there is no 'done deal' with AMD over the use of its chips in Dell kit, despite rumours to that effect late last week.
Josh Claman, UK head of Dell, said: "I wish I'd invested in AMD stock before the rumour came out."
He added: "As far as I'm aware Dell has not put out any statement about AMD," repeating that it is still little more than a rumour.
Explaining what constitutes an official statement, Claman said analysts and the media have been reading far too much into Michael Dell's assertion when speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show that an AMD deal is "a distinct possibility".
Claman said: "He'd probably have said that last year, or even two years ago," adding that Dell has been in constant discussion with AMD over the past few years and would 'never say never' to a deal with AMD.
Dell CEO Kevin Rollins also got industry tongues wagging last week when he said the company is "always open" to making changes.
Claman said, in focusing on rumours, there is a danger of losing sight of the real issue - customers. Users are unlikely to care what chips are inside the kit, he said, adding that is especially true for enterprise customers, who represent 90 per cent of Dell's sales.
He said: "CIOs don't care. I was recently at an event with 50 or 60 CIOs and this subject came up and one of them asked, 'Should I be embarrassed that I don't give a shit about this?'."
Any change in Dell's component supplier will certainly not precede a move into 'no frills' computers, said Claman, adding there is no chance of the company providing $150 laptops, in line with a swing towards cut-price computers.
He said: "There have been $150 desktops around for some years but nobody wants them.
"Ninety per cent of our revenue comes from business. So what functionality do these businesses want?"
He added: "Finish is also important," claiming cheap laptops look just that - cheap. "If you've got a sales guy sitting down with an important client then it's also about style and everything."
Claman admitted that in the consumer space there may be some success for a cheap laptop or desktop where families want nothing more than a machine to surf the web and download their digital photos.
Comments
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1. A Grove
They should give a Sh*t!
- 30% less power in your datacentre!
+ 40% less cooling
= lots of money to spend (and power costs are increasing all the time)
(and they also run faster.....)
(and less power means less CO2...)
2. anonymous too
LOL, yes, I can see how those pesky journalist might have "read too much" into the CEO's statement that AMD chip inside is "a distinct possibility", I mean, that's such an ambiguous statement- not!
Interesting that a CIO should say that he - and us, the customer - doesn't care what CPU is inside: the AMD is cheaper. Since when did CIOs stop caring about the profitability from the lines of business?
If, at the end of the day, the AMD is cheaper and does the same job as the Intel, then surely from a CIO’s "we don't give a sh*t" perspective, it makes better business sense to go with the lower cost production option. Now why would a company choose the more expensive option? Ooo, tough one that… as if we couldn't guess ¬.¬
3. paul broome
We use AMD's whereever we can at 192.com We buy Evolution brand Servers - they are as good as any.
I care that we get every cpu cycle we can for our money and that's why I buy AMD.
As for Dell - what are their motives in a Intel only policy. Seems mighty suspicious to me.
Is there a lot of x stock ownership or worse going on?
4. anonymous
Having worked for Dell for a number of years I thought everybody had guessed why Dell makes these announcements every year or so. It's negotiating tactics with Intel!
The cost of setting up a manufacturing plant to cater for AMD (or AMD and Intel) is pretty high, so unless they can buy one at a knock down price they're unlikely to make the switch.
5. Dominic Johnstone
I agreee with the CIO, the cost difference is minimal, the benefit either way is also quite small so why should he stop playing golf to worry about that. I can just hear the conversation "Just buy the damn computers and get out of my office.. f'kin AMD or Intel... TW*T!."