AMD becomes Cheapzilla

AMD Developer Forum The little brother of Intel -- AMD -- has booked suites at the Hilton Hotel, two blocks down from Chipzilla's Developer Forum near to the Wyndham Hotel in Palm Springs to queer its pitch, we can reveal. AMD, which does not have the millions it takes to do a developer forum, has instead adopted an old database vendor strategy and is wooing journalists and analysts away from the Intel gig, and especially a Willamette keynote speech. But when we talked to staff at the Palm Springs Hilton, on Tahquitz Canyon Road, they said they were embarrassed by the situation. At first they denied they had AMD personnel in the hotel -- close to the local Indian casino -- but under pressure confessed there were suites booked by AMD under another name. The whole situation is uncannily reminiscent of the times when Informix, Oracle and Sybase engaged in database wars. At one Oracle User Conference in Florence, Informix attempted to buy the entire range of advertising space in the Tuscan city. AMD confirmed to us by email early today that it was demonstrating alternative technology to Intel just two blocks down the road, but declined to be interviewed on specifics. According to US AMD representative Stacey Cochran, her company will be conducting a series of off site meetings for journalists and semiconductor analysts. ® IDF Spring 2000: Full Coverage