arcanum:
Other posters have pointed out that a semiconductor company does not build a successful business model based on selling to hobbyists.
Possible, but just claiming that without bringing evidence does not weight too much.
Yes, the Atmel AVR processor is used in all different kinds of applications, commercial and industrial. I'm not at liberty to discuss specific customers, or numbers, but they are definitely used by professional embedded systems.
A similar topic, opened last year, ran for a few dozens posts without demonstrating that 8 bit AVRs have indeed industrial applications.
see: http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=114016&postdays=0&postorder=asc