Thin and light
We suggested that one example of AMD not coordinating its go-market-efforts was the Yukon thin-and-light notebook platform and its one design win so far: the HP dv2.
AMD head of advanced marketing Pat Moorhead first brought Yukon to our attention late last year, and it looked like AMD had managed to steal a march on Intel, which wasn't due to launch its equivalent platform - CULV - until well into 2009.
The HP dv2 was duly unveiled at CES at the start of this year, but it wasn't expected to make an appearance in Europe for a few months after that. In the intervening time the dv2 has sold in disappointing numbers and there haven't been any new design wins for Yukon.
We asked Kenyon what he thought of AMD's performance with regard to Yukon. "I have three separate thoughts on that," he said. "Firstly, we under-marketed when we should have over-marketed ultra-thin, no question there. Regarding the design win, first of all it won't be our only design win and we're doing everything we can to win others. In some cases the blue guy is in there with the ODMs and there's more there than meets the eye."
After being unable to resist highlighting Intel's business practices once more, Kenyon shone the spotlight back on AMD. "Regarding marketing dv2, one of the challenges for AMD has been the link between sales in and sales out," he said. "So just winning the dv2 design and giving HP a platform was not enough - you have to market it and get it sold through.
"The pendulum has swung within the company from focusing 100 percent on channel partners and retailers with my predecessor [Stephen Di Franco], to focusing equally on other phase in which it's the OEM's product, our chip goes in it and they handle it."