Hang on. Let me get this straight.
AMD has what? One manufacturing plant? Two? They can not even supply the likes of Dell (as badly as they want to). They own what? 14% of the market? And they operated in the red for how many years because they practically had to give their processors away to get anyone to buy them? And let me see... They own HOW much of the corporate sector was it?
Intel completely kicks their ass in absolutely every aspect. They completely dominate the market. They own 82.2% of the market share last I checked. They have Dell, the biggest manufacturer of PCs out there. They completely dominate the corporate sector (which is why AMD has been suffering financially. You can't really get rich selling Sempron processors to a bunch of kids)
So how exactly is it that AMD is going to topple Intel by merging with ATi? All that means, more than likely, are advanced chipsets.. But chipsets aren't everything.