cheap and cheerful
According to Sobon, even people who use their notebooks primarily for business will use digital media and use it for entertainment type activities, too. "These devices are being used in two ways," she declared.
Windows 7 combined with a bunch of new Vision-certified "sleek, slim, affordable" notebooks should make for "a very good buying season."
She boasted AMD had managed to get 150 design wins under its Vision belt, but noted, sagely, that it wasn't just about the design wins, but about the products actually winding up on shelves sometime soon.
Sobon said AMD had set itself a goal of getting 75 per cent of its design wins on shelves by Vision's launch in September, and that the firm had already exceeded this with 91 per cent of machines already available to date.
"We're very excited about the platforms and now we have the software to go with it," she said.
"We have some very, very cool designs out for this holiday," continued Sobon, adding that the designs were also "at the right price point."
AMD hopes that by undercutting Intel's prices on similar notebook models, consumers will be swayed, but it's a dangerous gamble to take, especially as AMD have historically been viewed as the "cheap" option - stigma which has somewhat tarnished its image with consumers.
But Sobon said AMD was "placing bets in the right places and optimising for the mainstream consumer market," which she described as "by far the largest market." The firm, she said, could then take what it had created for mainstream punters and "tweak it for the business and enthusiast markets."
But above all, Vision, commented Sobon, was about "making sure that the mainstream consumer gets the machine they need." And, apparently, AMD is going to do its darndest to try to convince what they really need is an AMD, and not a rival Intel machine.
Like most comments that come out of AMD this one makes implicit sense, and the company is making all the right noises. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, goes the idiom, and we'll see in six months' time if AMD has been able to wrest any market share away from Intel.
