Intel’s domination continues

Intel, the 2007 channel champion in the processor category, widened its lead over AMD to emerge a winner.

Intel revamped its channel strategy in the second quarter by introducing a second tier to distribute its products. The vendor also launched Atom processors, creating a new market of computing devices—netbooks and nettops. In contrast, AMD had another dismal year. Within the first five months of 2008, AMD’s Director of Channels and Managing Director put in their papers. Meanwhile, AMD’s Phenom processors and Opteron processors (code named Barcelona) received a luke-warm response from both partners and customers.

There was just one silver lining for AMD: there are still some very staunch partners who swear by its products and technologies.

Price-performancePrice, performance and features are important criteria for processors. Both Intel and AMD raised the stakes with several new platform launches in 2009 with the former launching two new platforms, Nehalem and Atom, and the later launching its ambitious Shanghai platform to take on Nehalem. Intel positioned its Pentium Dual Core and Core2Duo processors in the mainstream PC market, maintaining a price range of Rs 2,600-Rs 7,000 throughout the year. AMD offered its Athlon 64, Athlon X2 and Phenom X3 processors at prices approximately 10-30 percent lower than comparable Intel chips, system makers feel that the final difference on the assembled product was less than Rs 1,000, a premium most customers were willing to cough up. AMD was successfully positioning its low-cost, low-energy Semperon processors for entry-level markets.By Q3 2008, Intel started offering Atom processors bundled with motherboards at prices less than a typical Semperon CPU-motherboard combo. In the high-end PC market, Intel Quad Core processors more than matched AMD’s Phenom X4 and even low-end Opterons.

In the server class of processors, system builders felt that Xeons scored over Opterons. Though AMD seems to have bridged the gap in terms of perceived price-performance by launching Phenom II and the third generation of Opterons (Shanghai), system makers feel that Intel’s new Core i7 (Nehalem) will take technology leadership away again.