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I wouldn't be so sure. As Intel's customers, the cloud providers are very interested in not seeing Intel maintain the near-monopoly they have inched toward over
by chao- 9y ago
I wouldn't be so sure. As Intel's customers, the cloud providers are very interested in not seeing Intel maintain the near-monopoly they have inched toward over the last 5 years. They don't want to pay $7K each for the highest performance Xeon if it could be $6K in a slightly more competitive market. So much so that Google and others joined the OpenPOWER Foundation. Whether that was just for signaling alone, or if they legitimately thought a POWER8 chip would come available that met their needs, I of course do not know.
- nodesocket 9y agoI agree, but there is inherent risk to switching for a cloud provider, even though AMD might offer a cheaper and faster CPU.
- arcanus 9y agoCertainly a risk, but this is Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook we are talking about here. The largest public companies in the world. Some of the most technologically advanced as well. If they cannot bring pressure to Intel, no one can.
- wmf 9y agoCloud providers aren't going to switch fully to AMD, but I wouldn't be surprised if they buy a mix like 70% Intel / 30% AMD. There may be a situation, however, where the servers that are rented to customers are 100% Intel which would perpetuate the appearance of a monopoly even if it no longer exists.