CRN Interview: AMD CEO Hector Ruiz

RICHARD: Training and information. You'd be surprised how many people don't know about the programs AMD has.

CRN: Will you provide training for Barcelona, and how will it be integrated with the ATI chipset? Is there anything in terms of programs that AMD will offer to the channel?

RICHARD: One of the key advantages of the new AMD offerings to the SMB and channel is that we're the only company with an agenda of a balanced platform. We won't convince customers that the CPU is the center of all things. Clearly, the competition sees the world with that black-and-white view. We think that to deliver the best user experience, you need a combination of technology that involves a great CPU, chipsets, motherboards.

There needs to be a balanced approach. It's a game-changing event in terms of offering a platform. We think that the new AMD is positioned to help partners move quickly to take advantage of that technology transition and, frankly, one of the benefits of the channel is to be able to jump on the technology transitions faster than OEMs.

CRN: To what extent is AMD's Linux business growing?

RICHARD: Linux has always been a stronghold for us. People using Linux in the computer and server space are unconventional thinkers. So that often drives them to be AMD partners. One area Linux is well-known for is high performance, and the Opteron is [big] in HPC and large clusters. We're continuing to invest in that space. We recently opened a software development center in Redmond, Wash., and we continue to work closely with Red Hat and [Novell] SUSE and enhancements for Barcelona. You'll see in the next release of the Red Hat OS that there is optimization around the AMD platform, which is a first.

CRN: What will be the performance of Barcelona vs. Intel's quad-core?

RICHARD: It's in the speculation stage. [But] we know that we expect performance gains in the 40 percent to 70 percent range, and we know the scalability of our architecture is better than the competition. And it's no secret they have to introduce a new architecture at some point, so we know Barcelona will perform exceptionally well and will be outperforming the competition. The program is on track.

RUIZ: The best measure of whether Barcelona is going to be good, great or fantastic is really our customers, and the feedback from them is so strong.

CRN: When will Barcelona ship?

RICHARD: It's slated for introduction at the end of the second quarter and will be in the market in the third quarter.

CRN: What is AMD saying at the conference about enhancements to AMD Validated Solutions, the new nomenclature for the combined desktop and server program for system builders?

RICHARD: We're announcing a lot of things. It's an important event, and we'll spend more time listening than talking. We are making sure they leave here with confidence. It's a tough fight in the marketplace. But we're not blinking, and there's no intent to back off.

Secondly, we acknowledged Hector's point that we've had a couple of mis-executions, and we shared what we're doing. So they know we have this part of the equation under control and [that will] inspire confidence that we identified the issue and fixed it. Third, we believe that because of the technology transition, 2007 is the year the channel and system builders will shine. They always do well in tech transitions in the marketplace, and we want them to leverage assets.

CRN: What else?

RICHARD: They asked questions about what will happen in the area of security and manageability, and we have an initiative called Trinity around open standards. We'll share with partners everything we do around the new AMD-ATI and more [around CPU, chipset and open standards and our broad portfolio of offerings].

On the validated server platform, over the years our competition has a one-stop shop offering, and it's been simple for people to configure. And there are some constraints. We don't want to turn ourselves into a similar provider of solutions, but we want to make sure for the system builder selecting a complete AMD solution that it is as simple to configure that solution as if it's a single vendor, even though many partners are involved in the solution, and around validated platforms, how we tighten up the relationships and make it easy for partners to acquire the solutions, service the solutions and make money on the solutions. We're announcing initiatives around advanced return, validation of benchmarks, software validation. And there are a lot of things we want to deliver as a one-stop shop without getting into the business of making systems.

CRN: What will AMD offer in 2007 as the next generation of AMD Validated Solutions?

RICHARD: It's going to be a whole variety of solutions. We're providing customers with a small form factor for the desktop area. That's our DTX initiative, which has been well-received. There will be a whole series of solutions for customers that want to build small form factors, and we have more initiatives in the client space, server space and will keep working in the whitebook space. We're asking how [we can help partners] validate and compete in the notebook space. Ensuring quality in the notebook market is a very difficult challenge, because the notebook structure is very different. Right now, we're listening to the needs [of system builders], and we'll help them get closer to that nirvana, which is their ability to get high-quality global solutions that they can compete with. We don't have a solution today, but we're trying to help them in the mobile space because if they can't [compete], they can't win.