Hewlett-Packard Co has taken a somewhat surprising step away from its friend Intel Corp, and turned to Advanced Micro Devices Inc chips for the lower end of its upgraded Vectra workstations. Hewlett-Packard says not all of the new Vectra 500 will run on Intel chips. Instead, the Palo Alto, California, company has turned to AMD in the interests of cost. Four of the 15 products available in this range will run on AMD’s K5 chip. The addition of AMD chips to Hewlett Packard products is a sensitive issue. Hewlett-Packard entered into an agreement with Intel back in 1995 to develop the P7-next generation chip (CI No 2,727), a partnership that continues today. Andrew Forsyth, Hewlett- Packard’s marketing manager for small businesses said the company has turned to AMD after deciding that performance was of an acceptable level, and said AMD chips are priced lower than an Intel chip. Aimed at the small business, the Vectra 500 series of personal computers is said to be cheap, while at the same time offering good functionality and reliability. The company is making a big deal at having broken the $1,000 barrier in the US and Canada. The company was reluctant to commit itself further on the AMD relationship, and said it likes to see itself as processor independent. It added that if it found a similar chip from another vendor, it would explore its possibilities. Hewlett- Packard said there were no plans at the moment to move other products running on Intel processors in the Vectra range to AMD, despite having admitted it was a cheaper option. It said it would wait and see the market reaction to the AMD chips first.
