Comment by ChuckMcM
13 years ago
At NetApp, when I had visibility into the hardware building side of things we negotiated with Intel (our CPU supplier) on prices pretty much every year, and every time we added a new SKU to the mix. And when it became clear we were going to build systems with AMD parts those negotiations got a lot testier. And I don't doubt for a femptosecond that NetApp ended up having to pay more for their mid-range chips while they were shipping AMD chips in their high end filer.
I have no idea what goes on in the Samsung Microelectronics board room when Apple comes to call, but I would be astonished if the patent suits haven't changed Samsung's willingness to negotiate on price, and the base price they negotiate.
I thought Intel's prices went down whenever you mentioned AMD (or now IBM). Do the prices go back up if you actually buy from AMD?
They go down when you are trying to decide, if you decide against Intel[1], and still have to buy Intel stuff, the price on that other stuff goes up.
[1] They were really pushing Itanium as their 64 bit solution to keep it out of the x86 line. But that was never going to work for NetApp.