Apple buys cheaper rather than use Inside rebate
AN ANALYST said that Dell is likely to strike a deal as early as March, involving notebooks.
Doug Freedman, from American Technology Research, said in a note to his clients that the deal "will likely mature from there to include servers and desktops, in that order, in subsequent months."
Both AMD and Intel stock prices already reflect an such a Dell, Freedman said.
He added that Apple's deal with Intel won't add very much to Intel's top line, but is interesting because the Inside rebate is not involved.
Nevertheless, if such an announcement comes, Freedman believes that it will affect AMD stock to the tune of 10% plus while Intel's shares may drop by 5%. He said that while AMD has a tech advantage over Intel, it cannot take more than 20-25% from Chipzilla. And that, he said, is likely to give Intel some time to recover.
Of course, the Dell AMD deal has been in the works for years but has never come to anything. When he opened AMD's Fab 36 in Dresden last year, CEO Hector Ruiz was far from optimistic about his company being able to rely on such a deal materialising.
The INQuierer