AMD wins battle over brand in USA

CHIP FIRM AMD said that the Office of Management and Budget has ruled that government contracts should not favour any particular brand.

The brand in question is, of course, Intel. AMD has won this particular battle in European territories.

The changes mean that federal procurement officers need to publish justifying the use of a brand name in all tenders that are over $25,000.

AMD reckons that brand name specs in contracts have cost US taxpayers a huge amount of money.

It recently commissioned a survey which showed that around 69 per cent of tenders for computer systems and technology in 2004 "contained language that either required specific name brand microprocessors" or "specified that the processor should be equivalent to a particular brand microprocessor".

In this rather coy and ingenuous manner, AMD means Intel. µ