Diffusion
When we spoke to Kenyon in August, and when we spoke to fellow AMD exec Leslie Sobon earlier this month, it was clear that AMD has decided to draw a line under its previous consumer and channel marketing efforts and start afresh.
AMD has realised the futility of trying to compete directly with Intel when it has only a fraction of the resources and is using the massive organisational and personnel changes of 2008 as an opportunity to redesign a lot of what it does from the ground up, or so it claims.
So with Vision, we have AMD trying to leave behind the ‘speeds and feeds' language of selling PCs by their gigahertz and megabytes and moving instead to talking about what it can do for you. At the same time, the graphics side of AMD is doing pretty well these days so there is particular emphasis on the visual side of computing - especially gaming and video.
AMD is arguing, as it has for some time, that having all AMD (AAA) components in a PC confers additional benefits that are greater than the sum of the parts. The only problem is, AMD has failed to adequately demonstrate this in the field, so to speak. Where are the products that show off this Vision?
For AMD to achieve this, it has to have both OEMs and the channel onside when it comes to selling its platform message, otherwise it's just yet another PowerPoint presentation. And it looks like the Fusion Partner Programme is an attempt, in parallel with Vision, to get this platform message properly manifested in the marketplace in the form of end products.