Dell Shares Are Rewarded

Though he didn't name names, Rollins clearly referred to H-P when he carped about an industry player with a "subsidization-based model" that uses a printer business to offset its loss-making PC business. For its most recent reported quarter, H-P's computer division was profitable, however.

In a separate comment of interest to chip-watchers, Dell seemed to throw cold water on the idea that it might sign onto AMD's(AMD Quote) 64-bit Opteron server chip, which is being offered by rivals IBM(IBM Quote) and Sun(SUNW Quote) and will reportedly be adopted by H-P.

"I think a 64-bit extension to a 32-bit chip is a rather good idea, but I think [AMD] won't be the only one to come up with that idea," said Rollins, lending credence to industry speculation that its sole chip supplier Intel(INTC Quote) will soon roll out its own version of the silicon. "We're going to fully participate in that market. The issue right now is not whether you can extend a 32-bit to a 64-bit chip. The question is what you can actually do with it in the form of software," he added.

The vast majority of software applications are currently geared to the 32-bit silicon architecture version rather than the 64-bit version, which offers faster data-crunching capabilities.