Market research firm Rackspace found that 65 percent of respondents to a recent customer survey would not pay more for an Intel server versus an AMD server. The company, which provides managed web hosting, says that customers are less concerned about processors because they manage most of the technical details. Rackspace has about 17,000 servers and 2111 of their customers responded to the survey.

Managed server companies have trained technicians and standard server builds that take much of the guesswork out of making a web server. 43 percent of those surveyed did not care about processors so long as the company guaranteed server uptime and honored the service level agreement. The Rackspace press release says, "Enterprises are less concerned with the specific processor technology used to power their applications because they rely heavily on their managed service provider to optimize the technology delivery."

Intel still has some brand loyalty in the survey and although the majority of Rackspace customers would not pay a premium, a sizable 25 percent felt pressured to pick an Intel server. In addition, if the servers were priced the same, 48 percent would pick an Intel server versus the 28 percent who would select an AMD server.

Source : Tom's Hardware US