AMD fuses partners together

Vendor unveils new global Fusion Partner Programme as it prepares to grab more market share

AMD has revamped its global channel programme to simplify its dealings with partners and grab a bigger slice of the market from its rivals.

The CPU and graphics card vendor unveiled the Fusion Partner Programme to the European press yesterday after extensive consultation with its channel partners.

For the first time it will bring all its partners together under the same programme, following its acquisition of ATI in 2006.

Partners will be split into three levels; Elite – which AMD says will only consist of around 60 partners worldwide; Premier – which will comprise several hundred partners globally, and finally the entry-level Select – which AMD anticipates will house thousands of partners.

Each level offers a range of different benefits and support, but Elite-level partners will be part of the AMD Partner Advisory Council and will qualify for increased market acceleration funds.

However, David Kenyon, vice president of worldwide channel marketing, said the new programme will benefit the smaller players as well.

“Most of our sales come from our smaller channel partners that are closer to the end users,” he said. “We were not spending enough time with our smaller partners and we wanted to make some investment further down the channel. We found we were spending a lot of time, money and effort on the distribution tier, but we wanted to make sure that focus was evenly split.

“The aim was to combine multiple programmes into one consistent programme that still had some flexibility regionally. It has been completely rebuilt from the ground up to allow our partners to get traction in the market.”

Partners will also be placed into one of six business tracks under the new programme, designed to reflect the diversity of the channel. These are: channel providers, e-tailers, retailers, commercial solution providers, consumer solution providers and commercial volume resellers.

AMD is also working on a new partner portal which it expects to unveil next year.