News and rumors have been swirling for a couple of days, but it seems nearly concrete now that Dell will be dropping AMD-based systems and notebooks from their online store.  They will apparently only sell AMD systems in Dell’s new brick and mortar partners like Best Buy and Staples, but we all know this is a SMALL part of Dell’s sales and thus this is a very bad development for AMD.

Customers who wish to purchase AMD-based Dell machines in the future will instead have to go to brick-and-mortar stores like Best Buy, Staples, Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club. Any exposure is better than none, but Dell derives the vast majority of its sales from its online business so AMD will clearly be missing out.

The news of Dell giving AMD the boot online couldn’t come at a worse time for the Sunnyvale, CA-based company. AMD reported 2007 revenue of $6.012 billion and a net loss of $3.379 billion. AMD is still struggling with the remnants of its 2006 purchase of ATI — ATI is also now worth 30% less than AMD’s original purchase price.

Dell has also had a mixed bag of news in the past few months. The computer giant was able to slip past HP as the top computer marker in the U.S. for 2007. Dell commanded 31.4% of the U.S. market last year compared to 26.1% for HP.

On the other hand, Dell announced the decision to close its Canadian call center resulting in the loss of 900 jobs and close all 140 of its Dell Direct Store kiosks around the U.S.