AMD is ready and willing

Vendor ups the ante in fight to win over businesses blighted by Intel's defective chip

AMD has vowed to get more aggressive in the market as it launches a campaign to woo channel partners affected by Intel's Sandy Bridge woes.

The Ready. Willing. And Stable. campaign aims to raise awareness of AMD's technologies and drive sales to channel partners and enthusiasts. The firm's channel marketing director, Tim Martin, said the Sandy Bridge episode has presented his firm with an opportunity.

"We are reaching out to the channel partners and saying: ‘whatever difficulties you are having, AMD is there, and we have solutions'," he said.

"I do not know if you would have seen this kind of reaction from AMD in the past, but we are becoming much more nimble, flexible and aggressive," he added.

AMD interim chief executive Thomas Seifert expected the vendor to post market share gains this year. "Of course [Sandy Bridge] is an opportunity," he said. "It will buy us goodwill and move momentum in our dir­ection."
AMD has also deepened its relationship with system builder Viglen. Martin said the chip-maker will provide its Fusion APU for Viglen's education-focused PCs.

AMD is backing the marketing buzz with a UK cashback campaign. Customers buying a qualifying CPU and GPU before the end of March from eBuyer, CCL, Dabs or Novatech can claim back £20.

Kelly Coxon, purchasing manager for distributor Tar­get Components, said: "The Sandy Bridge debacle caused a great deal of chaos and confusion for Target and our resellers. Information and solutions were communicated so poorly, the channel is sure to have lost confidence, leaving the door wide open for AMD to take full advantage."