Dell makes it official with Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart has begun selling Dell desktops. It appears it might not be too long before Dell notebooks join them in stores, either. (Where else can you get buy a package of frozen hamburgers and a computer in the same location? At least inside the U.S. Elsewhere, it’s not uncommon for supermarkets to sell PCs.)

Wal-Mart has started selling an AMD-Athlon-based Dell Dimension E521 desktop for $498 and a $698 E521 Desktop Bundle, which includes the desktop machine and a 19-inch LCD monitor.

Now comes word (link:  here) that Wal-Mart Stores, which operates Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores, will soon offer Dell Inspiron notebooks, also equipped with AMD processors, on its shelves. Although initial reports say the Inspirons will sell at Sam’s Clubs stores, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them show up at on Wal-Mart shelves at some point in the future. I expect Dell’s push into retail is going to be very broad as it works to increase its sales to consumers.

Even though I still think Dell’s initial desktop sales via Wal-Mart are going to be relatively small—thousands of units versus millions at first—it could still be a big win for AMD. AMD would benefit from additional desktop processor and, now, notebook processor unit sales to Dell. However, there could be hidden downsides for AMD, and Intel as well, in the arrangement. Those have to do with Dell’s approach. The Dimension desktop being offered by Wal-Mart represents a fairly aggressively-priced machine, given it comes with a dual-core Athlon X2 3600+ and 1GB of memory for $498. But, ultimately, if all Dell does with the machine is take sales from Hewlett-Packard, AMD isn’t going to gain as much as it would if Wal-Mart was expanding the market for consumer desktops. That is, unless sales of Dell-AMD systems replace sales of other brands’ Intel-based systems. But I think you get the point.