Ever since Dell and AMD decided to get married (or at least live together) both companies have tanked badly in terms of profitability.

Is this coincidence (ie the two factors are unrelated to one another)

or is this causality (ie one event is the root cause of the other)

debate, discuss, vote!

Dell should have gone with AMD a long time ago, but I think their concerns were supply issues. Dell was relient on one supplier and fed the quasi-monopoly and yet AMD made it through it. Dell decided to go with AMD after their era of dominance was over, which is poor timing.

Dell will not go out of business. So many businesses choose Dell exclusivly because of low costs, high quality (Optiplex baby!), and good design that's easy to service in house.

Who's tanking?

I predict Dell will fare better than AMD over the next couple of quarters...

Perhaps the alleged undercover payments are going elsewhere?

Perhaps the alleged undercover payments are going elsewhere?

Funny that Dell is the one that hid the payments, not Intel....I'll have to dig for the link that points this fact that you will probably ignore...

my apologies for not having time to read this thread, since it's pretty elementary for me, having watched Dell and AMD rather closely a long while. Just in case it hasn't already been pointed out a few times: Dell was "tanking" quite badly before it starting selling AMD chips, which is all about their advertising (how bad it was), and the nice qualities of their very strong competition: HP.

Also, just for how it helps for perspective, consider that the real damage -- the reversal of Dell's momentum, and beginning of the big HP share gains -- began before C2 duo while HP was selling AMD and dell wasn't.

That's a very good point. HP played well with AMD when it was on top. If I remember correctly, HP was selling more AMD systems than Intel systems at one point (and it was a long point). I think it really paid off for HP to have so many Athlon64 and X2 systems in Best Buys across the country.

And...HP's quality has been rather good for the past few years.

HP is just stomping Dell in quality and service.

Dell is doing poorly because HP bought out Compaq and is making really good HP and Compaq computers at lower prices because the two combined now have the purchasing power that only Dell had before.

Also Dell is not getting the Rebates from Intel anymore. Dell really screw'd the pooch with that one. They stuck with Intel exclusively when they had crappy processors and AMD was better, then they decide to give up the Rebates and Intel exclusiveness to go with AMD just before Intel hit a home run and they could have made a killing selling Intel only and getting Rebates.

This is why Dell is not doing as well. Heck, even the the "you got a dell dude" got nailed for drugs. That is how bad stuff at dell is.

I don't think they're really that closely related. Dell's profits are falling because people are starting to realise there are better alternatives like HP, as Major said, and well, we all know why AMD is in sh!t - ATI, price war, etc.

Id say its both. Dells is losing ground because of several reasons.

They lost a HUGE chunk of credibility by going AMD (or going AMD at that certain point of time).
HP has the image of being a kinda pro company selling high-end servers and machines and stuff while Dell is more of the consumer machine company. I guess this has helped HP to gain share in the high margin markets.

How's that? most Dell customers don't even know the difference between a computer with Pentium 4 or a Core 2 Duo, how's the introduction of another Price Tag on a computer supposed to make a difference?

Trust me Ycon, Dell and HP customers are utter Retards
My School had a choice of Pentium D 940 @ the same $ as Core 2 Duo E6300 Systems, And guess what The retarded TDSB guys(who get to choose) chose the Pentium 940(they are desk jockeys)
And we got Spanking new Pentium D940's for Yearbook class, just when we had the option of Getting E6300 systems instead.

Point* Dell and HP customers(no matter their importance) are Either Retarded or utterly Ignorant to Real Computer Performance.

The point of these points is that, Computers as an asset isn't that hot at this moment, that's why Dell is tanking.
AMD is only tanking because they aren't innovating anything right now, their starting to go the way of the Pentium before the introduction of Core 2 Duo. With release of the "Barcelona", "Agena", and "Kuma"; AMD is going to be back committing Gang rapes to Pentium's and a few of their own predecessor Athlon64 Processors. And be up to or exceed the Core 2's

I don't think they're really that closely related. Dell's profits are falling because people are starting to realise there are better alternatives like HP, as Major said, and well, we all know why AMD is in sh!t - ATI, price war, etc.

Dell has also recieved a lot of negative press.
Their tech support.
The Dell dude busted for weed 2003.
Kickback payments from Intel.
Switch to AMD just as Intel stomps AMD with Core2Duo.

AMD's drop is not entirely unrelated but more closely tied to Intel whipping them in performance with Core2Duo and driving the prices down on their Netburst to clear inventory.

When you are a system admin. and have to set up a domain with 300 clients are you going to build all 300 computers yourself and be able to fully research component and software compatibility and support the drivers for components (i.e. be able to make the component vender support them with all your pull in the industry like Dell/HP does) when OS security patches and upgrades effect those components.

Or what computer vendor will you go with if not HP, Dell, or Compaq?

This is just a thought from a retarded HP customer that likes their products, especially notebooks and servers.

Dell isnt exactly tanking like AMD is.

AMD riding high on there success of K8 increased the demand for there chips, and I don't think AMD realized how big a channel Dell had when they cut there deal. I agree with Jack and a few others, AMD just couldn't keep up with supply and demand.

Then when they were getting they're supply up Intel released C2D and all of sudden we had a K8 killing architecture, and of course people want the most bang for the buck, and that was Intel so AMD sales slowed.

Just a typical market scenario, stuff plays out like this all the time, especially in the component and parts market, I believe the article of Microsoft changing production facilities for the 360 is proof of this.

Once Barcelona/Agena