The scales of market dominance tipped in further favour of Intel recently, with first quarter results showing that some 80.5% of the desktop, notebook and server system processor market share worldwide, was accounted for by the Santa Clara based chip maker.

The figures from Mercury Research show that Intel achieved an increase of 6 percentage points during the first quarter, whilst Sunnyvale based AMD, found its market share fall from 26% during the fourth quarter last year, to roughly 19% in the first quarter of this year.

A Mercury Research report from April, 2007 also cited that Intel Quad-Core Xeon (Clovertown) shipments during the first quarter were more than AMD's total DP business, however Dean McCarron, the principal analyst and president of Mercury Research, asserted his belief that miscalculated demand on the part of AMD for the fourth quarter of 2006, which in turn caused it to oversell its products to manufacturers, was the reason for the lower sales in the first quarter of 2007 and, had sales been spread over both quarters, AMD's market share would have only suffered by 2 percentage points.

Whilst 'Barcelona', AMD's next generation processor for the server platform burns as a candle of faith to readdress the balance for AMD, the Sunnyvale based company remains upbeat, with spokesman Drew Prarie citing AMD's belief that the results of one quarter do not signify a trend and that the direction of AMD's fortunes is positive.

The Mercury Research report does suggest however, that all the categories taken into account, AMD's market share showed a decline across the board.