Changing the record
One of the key AMD executives behind this Vision is global VP of product marketing Leslie Sobon (pictured). We caught up with her not long after the Vision event for an exclusive interview to find out more about the thinking behind it, and started by asking how confident she is that AMD has read the market correctly.
"It's more than hope - our research shows that's what people want," said Sobon. "We've been shackled by an old message. I don't think anyone could argue that by following our competitor's route we have been successful."
"Even the people who use company notebooks use them for entertainment, and ask yourself how much of this resonates with SMEs, for things like video conferencing and visual content."
But AMD only makes some of the technology that will find itself into these products, and thus has limited influence over what ends up in front of end-users.
We asked Sobon what AMD had learnt about getting OEM mind-share. "In order to sell-out you need stuff on the shelves. But you need to sell-out in order to get that opportunity," she said.
"We were not able to bring all the great technology in Puma [AMD's previous notebook platform] to life for consumers, that experience helped us build the Vision strategy. It began with our challenges with Puma - how do we communicate our differentiation through our OEMs?"
