IBM MIGHT NOT BE THE BEST choice of friends for AMD if the attitude of Bill Zeitler is anything to go by. He is predicting IBM and Intel will be the only players at the high-end of the chip market in five years time. In a gaffe that can only sour relations with AMD, Zeitler - Senior Vice President & Group Executive, Server Group - let slip to Fortune that he thinks the rest of the 64bit competition will fall by the wayside.
AMD is pinning its hopes on its x86-64 technology, all of its new products over the next few years are offshoots from Opteron. If Opteron and its successors are dead in five years, it would leave AMD with nothing. The obvious inference is that Zeitler doesn't expect AMD to be around in five years time.
AMD has worked hard to make its new 64bit processor a success and has gained enormous support within the industry, including from IBM. It is sure to come as a nasty shock that while IBM has been helping AMD along it has also been sharpening the knives behind its back.
News source: The Inq
