OEM relations
One key way in which this imbalance of funds manifests itself is in brand recognition. When we were in Austin we encountered some people (not AMD employees of course) who hadn't heard of AMD. All of them were familiar with Intel. Part of the reason for this is the ubiquity of the little Intel jingle and logo in the marketing of many major OEMs - something AMD just doesn't have the cash to replicate.
And talking about OEMs there have been times when AMD hasn't been best served by the big system builders. Take its Puma notebook platform for example; a just decent enough CPU but mated to a storming integrated graphics processor superior to anything Intel and even NVIDIA has to offer. It was launched well in advance of Intel's Centrino refresh, but actual notebooks were slow to come to market and some of those that have come hardly show off the great potential of AMD Puma.
AMD would benefit from having even one OEM through which its new platforms would be properly and promptly represented in the marketplace. However, it would have to be a company big enough to withstand the potential damage to its own relationship with Intel that such intimacy might cause.
AMD would benefit from having even one OEM through which its new platforms would be properly and promptly represented in the marketplace
The other big benefit AMD would get from working more closely with a major OEM would be greater control over the design of the end product. This would give AMD the chance to have its brand associated with a truly unique new product and so to benefit from the brand recognition and ‘halo effect' that it would bring.
There are plenty of examples of other technology companies dramatically improving their fortunes by 'thinking outside the box' and designing products that came to define them and their brand. There are no prizes for guessing how much benefit a certain computer company got from moving into MP3 players...
