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Ask Leslie

Leslie sobon, lead of Csg product marketing, describes amD Business Class, a new initiative that debuted in the second quarter of this year. amD Business Class is available from oEm customers, as well as in the distribution channel for customers that sell both branded and white box pCs to small and medium-size businesses.

By Tam Harbert

Leslie sobon, lead of CsG product marketing

Why is AMD lAunching AMD Business clAss, AnD Why is the lAunch so iMportAnt to AMD? The commercial client space is the single largest revenue opportunity for our business in 2008—and the key area of growth for both our desktop and notebook businesses. With the launch of AMD Business Class, we’re delivering a comprehensive solution to our customers to meet their needs in the commercial space.

pleAse explAin the AMD Business clAss initiAtive AnD ho W it Differs froM other AMD proDucts. AMD Business Class encompasses our client solutions for large enterprises, government, and small and medium-size businesses. The value proposition that supports AMD Business Class is quite distinct from that of our consumer market. Stability and longevity—together with energy efficiency, security and manageability—are both key ingredients in this differentiated client solution for businesses. In conjunction with the new processors and chipsets, we will also launch a new AMD Business Class logo for use in marketing and advertising and on systems.

WhAt Are the Benefits of AMD Business clAss for custoMers?

Customers want industry-leading stability and longevity, exceptional performance and energy efficiency, and essential manageability and security. All of this is delivered through the AMD Business Class solution. To provide stability and longevity, this program has platform stability of up to 24 months on first-issue desktop processor models and minimum 12-month stability on subsequent speed-bump models during the deployment period. This helps OEMs deliver hard-drive image stability assurances to their customers and decreases I T disruption. It also simplifies PC deployment and management, lowering the total cost of ownership.

And with AMD Business Class, we can offer a top-to-bottom, stable CPU roadmap that reaches from the AMD Opteron^™ processors for servers and workstations to AMD Phenom^™ processors and AMD Athlon^™ processors for desktop PCs.

ho W criticAl is the chAnnel to the success of
AMD Business clAss? ho W Will the chAnnel
Benefit froM this ne W progrAM?
The channel is very critical to the success of AMD Business Class
and will absolutely benefit from this program. The white box market
represents 40 percent of the desktop market for small and medium-size
businesses. Specifically for the channel in Q2 2008, we will offer an
AMD Business Class PIB (Processor-In-a-Box) and motherboards are
available from our industry partners for AMD Business Class technology.
Service and support, including advanced motherboard exchange, will be
available through centralized technical service centers.

ho W Does AMD’s success in the enterprise With AMD opteron processors help this initiAtive? It’s been instrumental in helping enterprise customers know that AMD can deliver similar, stable solutions in the client space. And thanks to

photograph: tomÁs pantin

8 june 2008 // AMD AccelerAte