After several weeks of prep and years of relenting, Dell announced today that for the first time ever they will be selling fully equipped Opteron-based servers. Starting with the PowerEdge 6950 and PowerEdge SC1435, they don't have anywhere near the same flavor in AMD CPUs as they do for Intel, but it's a landmark in terms of vendor support for AMD. The SC1435 is fairly low priced considering it is a rackmount at $1299, but the four-socket 6950 weighs in at a mighty $6,499.

Will Dell's customers respond well to having the new choices? Considering the quick adoption of the Opteron, they probably will, and likely a year from now Dell will have much greater variety.