AMD's Opteron - beginnings

AMD Saw Light In A Dark Time is a fascinating glimpse of AMD’s multiyear $100M effort to design the Opteron microprocessor. The article, written by Dean Takahashi writing for San Jose Mercury News, was posted 4/22/05 at technewsworld.com. This is a lengthy article, but worth the time to read it in its entirety . . .

Almost two years after its launch, the Opteron has captured 5 percent of server chip unit sales, according to market research firm Gartner. The success shows how a smaller competitor can outsmart an industry giant that has all the advantages in cash, engineering staff, manufacturing and customer loyalty.

Snip.

The highest compliment for AMD's efforts came from Intel President Paul Otellini, who in January wrote about the Opteron in an internal blog for Intel employees: "This is the first significant competition we have seen with the market segment that Intel invented. While I hate losing share, the reality is that our competitor has a very strong product offering."

Hat tip to Joe for the Pinehurst Thread for the link