Toshiba to use AMD chip in laptop PCs

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070529/bs_nm/toshiba_amd_dc_1

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp. (6502.T) said it would buy microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE:AMD - news), ending its exclusive ties with Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news) for the supply of the brains that run computers, and sending its shares higher.

Toshiba, the world's fourth-largest laptop PC maker, said on Tuesday it expects to put AMD processors in about 20 percent of the notebooks it sells in the United States and Europe.

The move follows an announcement last year by Dell Inc. (Nasdaq ELL - news), the world's second-largest PC maker that had been procuring microprocessors only from Intel for more than two decades, that it would begin using chips from AMD.

Intel is AMD's far larger rival with a market share of around 80 percent.

"With PCs becoming commodity products, there seems to be a new way of thinking that competition should be introduced even in procurement of such core parts like processors as long as there are no major differences in product specifications," Macquarie Securities analyst Yoshihiro Shimada said.

"This could be a message that an era in which Intel took the lion's share of microprocessor profits as the king of PC chips is over."

Toshiba plans to put AMD chips in moderate-priced standard models for individual and corporate clients, Toshiba spokeswoman Yuko Sugahara said.

The Nikkei business daily reported earlier that prices of AMD-equipped PCs are expected to sell for up to 10,000 yen ($82) less than comparable models.

Toshiba will install AMD chips in some models to be released this summer, enabling it to reduce parts-procurement costs by at least 10 percent, the paper said.

Shares of Toshiba were up 1.0 percent at 906 yen in early afternoon trade, outperforming the Tokyo stock market's electrical machinery index (.IELEC.T), which gained 0.37 percent.

 

So who is still exclusive to Intel? I can't think of any of the big names that don't offer AMD.

 

I doubt that *highly*. Just in the last quarter, Intel regained all the market share they lost to AMD over a 3 year spread. And the Dell thing doesn't seem to have helped AMD that much.
I do find it interesting that a lot of people are now selling both AMD and Intel processors.

Apple. Gateway doesn't officially do it, but they have a few models in the retail market, plus eMachines has a few AMDs. Dell 'offers' AMD, but the PCs that have them are just crippled and slightly cheaper versions of the Intel models, so not really useful. The only one that seems really committed to having both AMD and Intel is HP. Well, on second thought, Acer too.

 

Sony?

I haven't seen many Sony AMD notebooks, if any.

 

I have a sony amd notebook from 4 years ago

pcg nvr 32

 

Yea, there were 2 models a long time ago, like 2002-ish. 99% of Sonys have been intel though. Forgot about Sony, which is pretty pathetic, since I'm typing on one....

 

Choice is always a good thing, right?