This article is more than 1 year old

Will Opteron's first birthday be its most memorable?

Dream on...

Come on, Michael. Intel will never know what we've done.

Dell's importance is two-fold. The most obvious need for Dell support comes from the incredible volume of servers sold by the company. While its mostly a perception issue, having Dell on your side certifies your product's position as a low-cost, practical option. Dell is in some ways the lowest common denominator - a marker that says it makes sense to give this product a try.

But there is another more superficial component to Dell's backing that is key.

On the PC, AMD managed to carve out a large chunk of the market, but its share is still surely a joke at Intel. Large OEMs flirt with Athlon but don't manage to ship loads of AMD-based gear. That's because AMD is not really essential. It's interesting and cheap but not essential. If it were essential, Dell would sell the product.

This is the hump AMD must get over with Opteron. AMD must prove that Opteron is not just competitive with Xeon Extender but superior. If Dell started shipping Opteron boxes, it would signal to the market that customers are asking for Opteron by name over Xeon, making it essential.

To its credit, AMD has a chance to pull off this feat. As HP proved again this week with the new four-processor box, Opteron is outpacing Xeon on numerous benchmarks. And that's just with 32-bit software. Athlon rivaled Pentium in the past too but not with equally impressive results. If AMD can continue to truly outclass Intel, it will win Dell and the market's approval.

The problem for AMD is that Intel has a fair amount of time to catch up. As good as AMD's performance is on 32-bit software, Intel already has that market more or less locked up. Customers may flirt with a few Opteron boxes for 32-bit code, but they're not likely to mess too much with what's working.

On the 64-bit side, AMD has to wait with the rest of us for the software market to mature. The Linux OS vendors are there, but Microsoft is taking its sweet time rolling out a 64-bit version of Windows for AMD64. And that's just the operating systems. Hell, VMware made AMD's Opteron birthday press release, and the ISV doesn't expect to have a complete line of AMD64 software for 18 months.

It would be great for the market if we could still be touting AMD's 64-bit lead over Intel 18 months from now. AMD's success can only mean better prices and better products for customers.

For this to happen, however, AMD can make no mistakes. It's a familiar story for the vendor, but the stakes have never been higher. Unlike times past, AMD has beat Intel to the prize, meaning its has everything to lose and everything to gain. ®

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