AMD plays cards upside down

How will AMD's new strategy end with Intel's monopoly empire, in both computer chips and servers?

Just a few weeks after sitting in a new chair: AMD's global vice president for sales channels Stephen DiFranco wondered: why should we be in trouble?

Sitting in the meeting room at the headquarters in the middle of a fall in October 2004, Di Franco was more and more heartbroken when he heard the staff list a long list of reasons why Intel rivaled him. Their business association.

Intel provides a trusted brand, spend more money on marketing and better customer support. " I always said to myself," God! How is competition like this? "Di Franco recalls.

The fight in the store

Eight months later, in a strategic meeting in June 2005, Di Franco presented the answer to executive director Hector de Jesus Ruiz and other officials. In the presentation titled " The Battle of the Store ", DiFranco drafted an ambitious campaign for AMD to bypass Intel at retail stores.

The option DiFranco chose was to compete directly with the product and configure the PC better, instead of racing (in shortness) with Intel with costly marketing campaigns.

Of course, this task is not easy. Skeptical audiences note DiFranco that AMD does not directly produce computers, but must rely on partners such as HP, Gateway or Toshiba and hundreds of other retailers around the world to achieve their goals. suggest.

" Honestly, many people didn't like this idea at first, " Ruiz recalls. But only a year later, the results were clear. Intel officials are stating that AMD emerged quickly only by succeeding in the high-end server chip market, but data seems to be fighting them. DiFranco's retail strategy helped AMD's PC processor revenue soar to 15.3% in the first quarter of 2006.

Silently, retail stores are helping AMD to win market share. The use of a more powerful AMD chip has helped rivals such as HP, Gateway and Toshiba gain an edge over Dell. At retail stores outside the United States, the reality is clearer.

This pressure is an important reason for Dell to make a statement on May 18, that it will start using AMD chips for its servers later this year. And another information could startle Intel: Dell is continuing to negotiate with AMD about using the chip in desktops and consumer notebooks.

Superior in performance

Source: Aurorawdc

AMD's ambition to become a polar opposite to Intel in the microprocessor market is no longer a dream. Now, the company holds 26% of the server chip market share in the US and 48% of the multi-core chip market (with at least two chips on a silicon plate). 3 years ago, the high-end server market was Intel's exclusive playground.

However, AMD's success has a significant (unintended) contribution . Intel. It can be said that Intel has taken wrong steps during the past time. On the high-end chip front for the corporate system, Intel almost stayed on the ground, ignoring customers' demands for powerful and energy-efficient chips.

Instead, Intel engineers only focus on developing high-end Itanium server chips. Itanium requires customers to rewrite the software if it wants to maximize its power, while AMD's Opteron does not. In addition, AMD technology can help large businesses save money on electricity. Not to mention Opteron also takes up less space in data centers, because they don't need too big a cooling fan.

Pick up partners

Before this obvious fact, many big customers decided to give up Intel. DreamWorks and Philadelphia Stock Market are the latest names for AMD's Xeon Intel chip server Opteron.

With the " War in store " campaign , Di Franco wagers that users will choose products using AMD chips even if they are more expensive. In exchange, they will achieve superior performance compared to Intel products.

Another step showed Di Franco's broad vision. He has traveled all over the United States, tightening ties with ATI Technologies and NVIDIA, two graphics chip makers serving today's top high-speed games.

AMD joined hands with NVDIA's lab in Moscow and Beijing, helping build AMD systems for ATI-sponsored games. Threatened by the ability of Intel to integrate its own graphics chip with processor products, ATI and NVIDIA expanded their hands to welcome AMD. Simple, because AMD does not produce graphics chips.

The millions of dollars that Intel poured for brand promotion campaigns were used by AMD in a different direction. They deploy promotional campaigns, discount mechanisms, staff training, etc.

Thien Y