AMD CEO Ruiz Sizes Up The Competition

CRN: When do you think dual-core Opteron systems will make an impact in the market?

RUIZ: I divide it into two parts. It will be rather dramatic in that it will force people to rethink their designs, but it will take some time to get things started. So the volume impact for us will probably be next year.

CRN: Given that, how much of an advantage do you think AMD now has over Intel, which is expected to roll out its dual-core offerings next year?

RUIZ: Intel is strong company and very capable. We just think this requires a lot more than a desire to do it. I don't know if you can retain their existing bus architecture and change it enough to get the level of performance and value that we have. If they change the architecture, that is not a trivial thing, so it will take them longer. And customers are already making an investment in the enterprise and are not just tip-toeing in the water.

CRN: Do you think software vendors are on board when it comes to pricing their applications based on a dual-core rather than a single-processor approach?

RUIZ: This is just starting, but the pressure is insurmountable in terms of going in this direction. Microsoft has taken the first step, and everybody will follow. Sun Solaris is the same way. We have major players signed up. At the dual-core level, I don't think this will be an issue. When we get to quad core, that could create a disruption.

CRN: When will that happen?

RUIZ: I'm perfectly confident that we will see engineering samples in 2007.

CRN: Over the last year, Intel has taken more of a platform approach to the market, which seems to be much different than AMD's approach. How much of a difference is there in the two companies' go-to-market strategies?

RUIZ: The good news is that you have a differentiated approach to the market, so channel partners now have a choice. How Intel and AMD are approaching the market is clearly different. We believe Intel's platform strategy is designed to continue their domination and control the market. But you can pick any three-year period [over] the last three years, and it shows that Intel generates all the profit and everybody else loses money. We believe that's crazy.

Systems makers want people to buy their brand because it has good value in it, not because it has Intel inside it. I think this is giving us an opportunity to go to customers that are becoming more interested in getting state-of-the-art CPUs from AMD and state-of-the-art motherboards from Foxconn to create a best-in-class system with their name on it. Our strategy is to continue to offer customers the option of not being marginalized. Any system builder that thinks warming up to the Intel platform brand is anything other than giving their soul away is nuts. They're naive.

CRN: Would you ever consider building your own chipsets?

RUIZ: I have not closed the door on that. If we do that, it would not be to create a platform. It would be to create a reliable source of supply rather than trying to marginalize the customer brand.