ZDNet: Speaking of alternative processors, Dell has never officially ruled out AMD, but so far hasn't announced anything. Any news on that front?
Marengi: We're an Intel shop. Always have been. But, never say never. AMD is a good California-based company. The guy who runs it is my neighbour.
ZDNet: So, no interest in Opteron?
Marengi: We don't see a big adoption of Opteron taking place and adoption is what matters. You have to realise that to support anything new, whether it's hardware or software, takes great deal of investment. I can tell you that the [economic] cycle we just went through was not a time for casual investing.
ZDNet: And on the 64-bit front in general?
Marengi: Come take a look at our benchmarks any time. We've got 32-bit multiprocessor systems that are beating the 64-bit stuff hands-down. But when 64-bit's time comes, Itanium looks good.
ZDNet: Any thoughts on whether Intel will go the hybrid 32/64-bit route as AMD has with Opteron?
Marengi: Intel is there. I'm not saying that they have the technology ready or that I've seen it. But for them to put that technology into the marketplace would take a nanosecond.
ZDNet: Going back to the very first question on the various categories you're in…
Marengi: On client systems (desktops, notebooks, and workstations) and servers we're now bigger than IBM and HP combined. We're not No. 1 in storage though. There, our partnership with EMC and the selling of their Clariion stuff is going very well. Dell represents more than 10 percent of EMC's revenues.
ZDNet: How about merging with EMC?
Marengi: Makes no sense whatsoever. Why merge? We can work with them and other partners, and they can too. A merger wouldn't be best for the customers for either company. If we merged with EMC and some of our customers wanted Veritas, that would be hard. We have Veritas as part of our software and peripherals line, but we're also able to offer EMC.
