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AMD's CEO on the Athlon 64

Techstination feature for Tuesday, September 23, 2003

AMD introduces the Athlon 64. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. AMD, the biggest rival to Intel in the computer processor business is bringing 64 bit computing to the desktop. Most computers sold today use 32 bit processors. Think of the chips as providing a bigger pipeline for data. Chief Executive Hector Ruiz tells us... it may take a while to catch on, but...

"We believe consumers are going to find the cinematic computing experience to be very powerful. So I believe that we'll start seeing a consumer adoption of 64 bit next year and it will accelerate towards the end of the year as more and more applications... more software... becomes available."

Hard core computer game players could be the earliest buyers. And Ruiz says sales could actually be helped by Apple's advertising for its 64 bit G5 machines which use IBM processors...

"We're thrilled that Apple has gone out and is pushing 64 bit computing. It is helpful. I think people are going to see that 64 bit computing is important and is key for users to experience that. So what Apple is doing is going to help."

But AMD... which has lost money in every quarter in each of the last two years... faces obstacles. Pricing for machines using the Athlon 64 will be higher. And Dell, for one, says it has no plans to offer a 64 bit desktop computer... and will continue to sell only Intel based PCs. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.