Technology Reseller v38

technologyreseller.co.uk 25 Q&A Q: How has AMD factored customer priorities into the design of its products? Mario Silveira: AMD involves partners in building its roadmap and listens to all its retailers, integrators and customers. When consumers demanded smaller, more powerful, but less power-hungry chips, that’s what AMD delivered. We know portability and power consumption are priorities for consumers, the latter for environmental and economic reasons. The ability to deliver what were previously considered desktop levels of performance on mobile devices helps meet rising user demand for a premium experience – regardless of the device. As for our relationships with OEMs and system integrators; we’ve been working hard with them to generate awareness and demand for AMD products. That’s not difficult: these components deliver premium performance and they are priced to be highly competitive in the market. Often, it’s just a question of getting the word out. Q: What steps are you taking to strengthen relationships with channel partners and integrators? Mario Silveira: We’ve been working intensively on programmes such as AMD Arena, which provides our partners with the resources and support they need to successfully integrate and sell AMD products. For channel partners, we offer industry-leading training, as well as highly competitive incentives and rewards. I think everyone has seen that with the AMD Ryzen processors. Well, expect more of the same. Relationships work better when everyone wins. As customers have recognised the strong product proposition that we’ve brought to market, it has massively stimulated demand for our products. To meet this demand, AMD is developing deep strategic partnerships with our distributors, with programmes built around having the right partners, in the right places, to do business in the right way. Bringing certainty to an uncertain market is very important to us. Q: What are some of the reasons customers and partners give for switching to AMD from a competitor product? Mario Silveira: Choice is incredibly important. With the introduction of the latest Q: How has AMD adapted its approach to better serve its customers in light of these long-term trends and COVID- inspired digital transformation? Mario Silveira: We take pride in the fact that, together with our partners, we provide technology and products that the world needs now more than ever. Today, people are working safely and productively at home on AMD-powered laptops, using services running on AMD-powered servers, and searching for medical breakthroughs on AMD-powered supercomputers. If you look at the technologies AMD is developing, we lead in high performance, security features and in the effort to make computing more sustainable, with our 25x20 Energy Efficiency Goal. This committed AMD to develop processors that are twenty-five times more energy-efficient than they were when the challenge was set in 2014. Our aim was to achieve this by 2020 – and we did. In fact, the third-generation AMD Ryzen Processor with Radeon Vega Graphics didn’t just meet the goal, it exceeded it. We have also re-designed the AMD Partner Hub and Training Portal to address long-standing challenges our partners face; developed a virtual engagement model for AMD teams, equipping them for home working; and supported universities and research institutes throughout 2020 with the High-Performance Computing (HPC) Fund. So far this year, we’ve helped three universities set-up supercomputers for their COVID-19 research. I’ve already mentioned the AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors, which easily deliver the best performance in their category. The same is true of our high-end AMD Radeon RX 5000 Series GPUs, which provide a premium gaming experience on desktop and laptop, and the AMD EPYC processors, which are currently the world’s highest performance x86 server processors. No matter what sector you’re in, AMD has the technology you need to master the challenges of the COVID and post-COVID environment. generation of Ryzen and Radeon products, customers are able to offer alternatives to their own product offerings. Competition is incredibly healthy and having a single vendor strategy builds in more risk to customers. Having a competitive scenario is usually a healthy approach in challenging times. Again, the technology and the value for money speak for themselves. I don’t like the phrase ‘bang for your buck’ – it’s an industry cliché. But it’s true; you do get more bang for your buck when you choose AMD. Whether you’re a gamer or a CISO, who wouldn’t want that. From an integrator’s perspective, who wouldn’t want that as a sales story: buy from us and you spend less – and get more. Q: What recent wins are you most proud of? Mario Silveira: The particle physics research team at the CERN Large Hadron Collider recently chose to build the systems they use to crunch experimental data on AMD EPYC 7742 processors. That was really cool and brought out the science fanboy in me. As I think it would in anyone who works in science or technology! AMD’s work with the High-Performance Computing Center in Stuttgart to create the 64-core Hawk computer was also a high point, as was the launch of the AMD- powered Mahti supercomputer in Finland. AMD is also the first company to deliver new generations of CPUs and GPUs, back- to-back, for game consoles. Q: Any final thoughts you’d like to share with us? Mario Silveira: I’m excited about 2021. I fully expect AMD to grow its market share once more in the next twelve months. We’ll also be working very hard to maintain our reputation for innovation. Whatever we do, I know we’ll owe much of our success to our partners. To end, I shall simply say, ‘thank you’ to all of them.