HP bumps AMD up to business class

Hewlett-Packard plans to use AMD's flagship chip in its new Compaq Evo D315, targeting the education, government and small-to-medium business market. The release of the new computer marks the first time in the US that one of the "Big Three" PC makers - IBM, HP and Dell Computer - has adopted Athlon in a business desktop.

"AMD has been trying to get this kind of design for a long time," said Kevin Krewell, an analyst with The Microprocessor Report, an industry newsletter. "I can't say this opens the floodgates for AMD, but it's a big win at a major supplier."

The Evo D315 will include an Athlon XP 2000+ processor, 128MB of RAM, a 20GB hard drive, a CD-ROM and no monitor. The machine also uses Nvidia's nForce chipset.

Athlon, introduced by AMD in August 1999, earned rave reviews and early acceptance in the consumer market. Despite outperforming some processors from rival Intel early in its career, the chip still found a lukewarm acceptance in the business market, especially in the US. Elsewhere, Fujitsu-Siemens and NEC did adopt Athlon for business PCs, while several smaller manufacturers, such as Micron PC and Gateway, began to sell Athlon XP computers.

Meanwhile, AMD pushed ahead with an aggressive marketing campaign, working to convince major manufacturers of Athlon's power and bragging to the industry that it would win a deal for a corporate desktop with a major manufacturer by the end of 2000. The sudden decline in PC sales in August 2000, however, dampened these plans. What's more, IBM and Gateway dropped the Athlon chip in favor of Intel's Pentium 4 early in 2001.

Although HP has no plans to market the new Compaq system to large corporate buyers, the victory is nevertheless important.

"Over the last 18 months, our customers in small and medium business, government and education, have started asking for AMD by name," said Jeff Groudan, head of commercial desktop marketing for HP's Personal Systems Group.

John G Spooner writes for News.com