Intel hopes Dell won't go AMD

CHIP GIANT Intel's future CEO Paul Otellini said he hopes that Dell won't use AMD processors in the future.

Otellini was responding to a question from a member of staff during an internal Intel web cast. As Intel had re-vamped its roadmap again, said the staffer, how had Intel customers reacted? "Do you think Dell might consider selling AMD processors?"

That doesn't appear likely, said Otellini, and he certainly "would hope not". He told the staff that Kevin Rollins, Dell's CEO, had given an interview saying that he sees no near term compelling proposition to change from Intel chips.

Otellini said: "Keeping Dell happy is certainly one of our most important jobs".

This is interesting. We believe at the INQ that there isn't some kind of secret conspiracy that keeps Intel and Dell in such a close relationship. Michael Kanellos, in Cnet recently, pointed to architectural similarities between Castle Dell in Texas and Castle Intel in Santa Clara. Dell gets first crack at Intel's new microprocessors, buys in such quantities that the chip giant has to take note of it, but like every other corporation is actually free to make its own mind up what it does, of this we have no doubt.

Changing the roadmap in the first few quarters of 2004 - Otellini described this as the "roadmap thrash" - was indicative of Intel recognising where it was, he said. Intel hadn't recognised there was a power wall, or rather the immediacy of the power wall. Nor had it realised the opportunity of pushing the features set forward.

He said that, "quite frankly", Intel had parallel investments - it was spending time and money on a low power converged road map and also in extending the Netburst line with Prescott and Tejas.

Customers had been affected by the "thrashes", but it made good sense to change. Intel has compiled road maps with high degrees of predictability and the latest changes in September were intended to stabilise the situation for the next couple of years.

Customers had reacted very positively to the changes and Intel took out insurance policies so it could commit to producing products for its customers.

Otellini took personal responsibility for the cancellation of its LCOS TV project and its original announcement. He said that Intel should perhaps have never have announced it, although it was right to invest in the project. He had been responsible for making the project public.

However, it had emerged that Intel couldn't build a product with high enough volume and the right level of reliability.

He said: "Mea culpa, I am guilty there". But Intel had been right to try, although he did now think some such projects should be kept secret until the firm was good and ready to go into mass production. Intel continues to possess a lot of intellectual property in the field, so could come back to similar projects in the future. µ