Online petition on Intel vs. AMD duel

[Nowhere]

http://www.amd.com/us-en/0,,3715_13368_13369,00.html?redir=CPSW51

Won't change the decision of Intel for sure, but the more support the better!

[Mehen]

I think that's a horrible idea on AMDs part, I don't remember Intel ever gloating that much when they were king of the hill (remember when the 3.06 HT came out and all AMD had was its little 2800+ thunderbird? HA!).

I have lost a lot of respect for AMD

[Nowhere]

So...sign the petition, it will hurt AMD in the long run and you'll be happy

edit: oh, and this is much more beeing king of the kill than the case you describe...there wasn't much difference than, but for the time beeing Opterons walk all over Xeons...

edit2: and besides, they don't really make any claims ragarding Intel, just inviting them while making vague claims about Opteron, as everybody always do (pdf is clearly humorous )

[schmosef]

Although I'm sure that this type of approach would appeal to the pubescent smug faced AMD fan-boys out there... I doubt it will help sell servers.

For an IT manager or CIO to stick their neck out for such costly hardware they'd need to be a lot more professional and target OEMs like Compaq and Dell instead of end users.

It's Compaq, etc., that would need to do the work to sell the architecture to big corporate clients, not AMD.

[VJ]

I also don't like AMD for doing this...
I mean, isn't that what competition is all about: try to be better then the competetion, they in turn try the same. A victory won doesn't mean the battle is won.


Jörg

[Whirl-Secret]

Erm you critisize AMD for a jokey 'duel' petition when Intel has used dirty tactics for years to prevent OEMs from even stocking AMDs?

Intel make good chipsets, and good mobile chips, but their server cpus get smoked by Opterons, while keeping an enormous % of market share. I believe AMD are justified in using these tactics to spread awareness.

[Dr Mordrid]

The media industry has gotten the message. Dreamworks SKG has gone all AMD.

Dr. Mordrid

[Tjalfe]

A buddy of mine works for a company doing high end computers for image recongition stations ( e.g inspect toothpicks on a conveyer at some redicilous high speed). For this he uses 2-8 way Xeons. All the computers used for that are Intels, and he says that the reason for this is not raw performance, but the fact that Intel will gurantee availability for the next X years and revision control.
Now I am not sure if these are still current issues, but he is still stuck on the idea of no AMD for those reasons.. I am sure more are too.

[Dr Mordrid]

Given that the lifetime of corporate hardware is more determined by how fast you can write it off your taxes than availability that's a stupid way to run things.

Dr. Mordrid

[schmosef]

He's not talking about corporate hardware, he's talking about manufacturing environments.

tjalfe makes a very good point.

And like I said, there are certain industries where AMD needs to target the OEMs, not the end users, if they want to make inroads.

[Dr Mordrid]

He's not talking about corporate hardware, he's talking about manufacturing environments.

SO AM I!!

Much of factory, business and agricultural hardware & even some properties get replaced on the basis of depreciation allowances. Sometimes (often) you can get huge deductions for buying hardware you don't even need

Go check your friendly neighborhood income tax code.

Dr. Mordrid

[schmosef]

I'm sorry Doc but I do A LOT of work with factories and they don't upgrade the computers on the line "just because".

It's not a "tax code" thing, it's a "production uptime" thing.

[Dr Mordrid]

Yeah, but with Canadian factories...right?

Our tax laws differ a bit when it comes to depreciation, as in sometimes you can get a 100% write off the first year. Companies here are getting cars, hardware etc. etc. just because of the tax break and not even because they need 'em.

Dr. Mordrid

[Umfriend]

I say BS.

Say Revenue is $1,000 p.a. and you make a $200 PC investment (Intel). You can replace it at the end of year 1 or keep it for another year. Replacement is better HW but still $200. After two years, there is no more business.

You can write off $200 this year or $100 in both years. Heck, if you replace, you get to write-off 200 this year and another $200 next year: LIFE IS GREAT! Corporate tax rate is 30%

Uhm, let's see:

Replace scenario:
CF(t=0) = -100
CF(t=1) = +1,000 Revenue, -300 tax, +60 tax rebate, -200 new investment
CF(t=2) = +1,000 Revenue, -300 tax, +60 tax rebate
Total CF equals 2,000 - 700 + 120 - 200 = 1220

Non replace scenario:
CF(t=0) = -100
CF(t=1) = +1,000, -300 tax +30 tax rebate
CF(t=2) = +1,000 - 300 tax + 30 tax rebate
Total CF equals 2,000 - 700 + 60 = 1,360

Clearly, depreciation is no reason to purchase HW one does not need. And I am not even using interest or appropriate Required Returns.

The reason accelrated depreciation is allowed in some countries/industries etc is that it allows for investments that would not be made without it. It's nothing short of a subsidy.

Only companies who favour paying $100 to a company over paying $30 in tax would buy stuff they do not need.

[Whirl-Secret]

One of the probs I have heard from other IT guys who deal with servers (I'm quoting a certified Compaq server fixer) is the motherboard chipsets that come with AMD comps. Afaict that's not really been an issue since the K6s or something like that, but people have a long memory.

The last 2 servers we have bought at work are IBM x-series 3xx machines - lovely, but they use xeons. I showed the IT boss some SQL server benchmarks of Opteron vs Xeon and he was very impressed - so we asked all our preferred suppliers for a quote of a dual Opteron 2u server, and EVERY ONE of them ignored it and sent a price for Xeon machines.

In the end we went for our favourite supplier (he gives us IBM coffeemats and maglites!!!) and the trusted IBM servers, and guess what it had xeons in it.

As a way of getting revenge, every desktop computer of ours that I upgrade (we do 2-3 manually every month to re-use those win2k licences and save the environment a bit) uses AMD64s or Semprons now.