MOSCOW, April 22 (RIA Novosti) - Formoza, one of Russia's largest computer producers, has decided to give up using Intel's Pentium 4 processors in favor of 64-bit processors, made by Intel's chief rival AMD. The company explains the move saying Intel's processor is "ancient," but market players blame tension between the Russian assembler and the processors market leader, Biznes reported.
Now up to 80% of PCs will be assembled using AMD's Athlon 64, says Formoza's vice president Vladimir Sharov. The company will still use the Pentium 4 for corporate clients who ask for it.
Computers with the hyper speed AMD processor will start working "properly" only by fall, when the new version of Microsoft Windows XP 64 Edition, which supports the new technology, is released.
Intel's Russian office declined to comment on Formoza's decision. Yet some of the assembler's partners hint that the reason for the drastic move may be its conflict with Intel three years ago, when Formoza was excluded from the list of Intel's partners: under the agreement the Russian assembler may use Intel processors in their computers, but cannot sell them in other countries as spare parts. Formoza did not disclose the details of the incident.
"We do have rather cold relations with Intel," said Formoza PR Manager Andrei Kovalev. "But our initiative to move on to AMD has nothing to do with it."
Most market participants also declined to comment, describing the topic as "very sensitive." But one reason for the silence could be that Intel processors account for almost 90% of the market, meaning most assemblers do not want to lose the support of a major supplier, which remains the most popular processor for desktop PCs in the world.
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