Dell appears to be in a state of denial about its customers and AMD chips. Merrill Lynch released a CIO survey that just so happens to back up a topic I blogged about yesterday. At its press conference yesterday outlining new Latitude notebooks, Dell officials responded to questions about whether or not the company will inject its systems with AMD chips by saying that the company gauges customer demand and will offer AMD chips when it feels customers want them. That company line is becoming increasingly thin given the number of Dell’s competitors that sell servers with AMD chips. Even still, in an interview after the press conference, Dell execs reiterated that the company’s posturing has always been to “evaluate the marketplace.”Well, Dell, look no further. Merrill Lynch’s survey says that while CIOs anticipate that Dell will gain market share faster than its rivals, many users would like to see Dell offer servers running AMD’s Opteron. There is some hope, though, for those Dell customers who want AMD chips. CEO Kevin Rollins told InfoWorld in November that he believes Dell will use AMD chips at some point. “I am sure there will come a time when we are going to use AMD. We are going to want to add [AMD] to our product line in the future,” Rollins said. Perhaps that time has come. Dell’s customers want AMD chips, and those same customers also likely have hardware from Dell’s competitors — and almost all of them carry the Opteron. Technology Industry