AMD moves into 'business class'

AMD has announced the launch of a new branding initiative for original equpiment manufacturers (OEMs) called 'Business Class' with HP and Fujitsu Siemens the first to offers systems featuring the logo.

The new branding will take in CPUs and motherboards based on either the AMD 780V chipset or nVidia MCP78 chipset, and will offer a guaranteed period of product availability, driver stability, and extended warranties.

David Diedrichs, product marketing manager, commercial platforms EMEA for AMD, said that the program was designed to help OEMs manage its inventory and at the same time increase the appeal of AMD products to businesses that are looking for product reliability and longevity.

"We're looking at fairly commoditised systems, with mainstream products at around $600 - $700. Differentiation is becoming harder so we're helping the OEM to simplify its branding with AMD."

The initiative includes Athlon, Athlon X2 and Phenom X3 and X4 processors , with the model numbers denoted by a 'B'. CPUs bought through select distributors will have 24 months of stability guaranteed and come with a three-year warranty.

Motherboards will have stability and longevity guaranteed for 18 months, and boards in the program will all have been tested under the AMD Validated Solutions program. All will feature Energy Star 4.0 compliance, thus offering efficiency savings.

The chipsets available today will offer TPM security and conforms to DMTF standards for in-band support but Diedrichs said that systems the conform to the open standard DASH 1.1 standard for full out-of-band support, equivalent to Intel's vPro, will appear in the second half of 2008, with broader availability in 2009.

In addition, companies buying systems or components from vendors that are part of the AMD Validated Solutions program will benefit from a next business day exchange service in the event of faulty components.

When asked why AMD was including rival nVidia chipsets under the initiative, Diedrichs told IT PRO: "While we prefer systems are all AMD we recognise that many partners prefer nVidia for whatever reasons and we don't want to exclude ourselves from that business. We want what's best for our customers."

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