Is AMD making a comeback?
For the last two or so years it seems that AMD has not be able to get out of its own way, from horribly timed acquisitions to botched chipsets and GPU/CPUs. These last few years have been painful to watch as AMD has had one failure after another. But recently someone at AMD (or more probably several someones) made a decision to move back into more comfortable territory. Instead of trying to compete head to head at the high-end level AMD seems to have returned to an earlier philosophy; one that caught the minds and wallets of the DIYers and enthusiasts.
This philosophy is one that is not only easy to implement but easy to maintain.
Simply put AMD is looking to give the best performance to the widest range of users. Just like the K6 days AMD is going to work hard to earn the average consumer and DIYer’s confidence (and money) back.
To do this they have put good marketing strategies in place like AMD Game. This starts to work at debunking the perception that you have to have the top of the line products t game. At the same time it gets people looking for a recognizable brand to grab. This has to be in place to get people even to look at AMD in a performance light. And by including competitor’s products (for AMD parts of course) they give the impression of neutrality.
Next they had to produce something that at least met the performance levels of their competitions products. They have gone a long way towards this with the 4000 series GPUs which are combine very good performance with lower power consumption and a lower over-the-counter price.
The same can be said for both the x3 and the x4 Phenoms. While the top end parts have very high TDPs the mid range parts are low power and low cost while maintaining good performance.
Next in the AMD image makeover is the removal of what many people saw as the core problem with AMD.
They got rid of Hector Ruiz as CEO. They did not fire him; they simply removed him from the lime light and put Dirk Myer in as the top man. This puts a recognizable name (to the enthusiasts and many DIYers) as most will remember Dirk as one of the leads on the original Athlon, the CPU that put AMD on the performance map. This was a smart move on AMD’s part as it combines with the other items listed above help to change people’s perception of AMD as a company that can produce good solid products.
Time will tell if these marketing and product moves will pay off in terms of market share and profit but this all adds up to the fact that AMD is prepping themselves for a comeback.