GEC NEWS WIREAfter being in the quiet zone for a short span of time, AMD is all set to make noise in the region with new product launches, hard-hitting marketing strategies and great partner enablement strategies for the next quarters.
“For AMD, the focus market for the last 18 months has been Iraq, Egypt, West Africa, South Africa, KSA, UAE, etc.”
Omar Fakhri, Head of Sales MEA, AMD
How has 2014 been for AMD and how promising is 2015?
AMD has had a quiet time for the past few months, but we are all set to hit the market with some great products and innovations. At AMD we have always believed in streamlining the products to be in sync with the customer needs. 2015 looks to be very promising as we are gearing up for the launch of Corrizo—the 6th generation APU that has redefining technologies in the graphic and HSA platform.
How does AMD respond to the evolution of the market? How has AMD’s pioneering technologies evolved with the market?
MEA is a developing and emerging market and differs hugely from other market. MEA has been a hotspot for product launches, especially Dubai. For AMD, the focus market for the last 18 months has been Iraq, Egypt, West Africa, South Africa, KSA, UAE, etc. All these markets differ hugely in terms of consumer awareness and technology adoption. As an example, we had a consumer system partner program in KSA and Egypt but the level of response that we got from both the region differed hugely regardless of the concord of the concept and theme.
B2B and B2C are of equal importance for us. But whatever activities we do, it is done through partners. Our growth in the Egyptian market has been significant in the past 18 month owing to the component partner program and secondly because of the high level of understanding of graphics in the Egyptian consumers.
Apart from that Relationship business is key to Middle East. People like to meet people and unlike in other parts of the world, it is very difficult to establish a successful business without having a good workforce on the ground. One of the greatest challenges for AMD is that, we wish to invest in high growth markets but to invest hugely on headcounts in countries that are unstable economically or politically becomes a spoil sport. This is the reason we are covering as much of the Middle East region as possible so that if we fail to do well in one region, we have another region to look forward to.
What is your market approach in MEA? How do you define your partner ecosystem in this region?
Partnerships have been our greatest strength and asset in catering to the demands of the region. Partners have been our key to enter and under this vast territory. They help us understand the local conventions and market behavior and help us boost our brand power. AMD as a brand is not much powerful, but when we work with brands like HP and Lenovo in the region that empowers and enhances our brand value.
We also have a dedicated Component Partner Program that has 4 key segments wherein our partners can know exactly how to ascend in the program to gain increased benefits. Partner reviews and dashboards are key features that help partners keep track of their progress in the program as they continue reaching for new heights.
Earlier there were some language barriers to this region which we have overcome and now it is easy for our partners to comprehend the program and understand what they need. We have also simplified our structures which has made it easy to get back to our partners within 24 hours and by this way we can be more productive, responsive and stay ahead of the competition.
Tell us something about your recent technological ventures and your new generation processors?
AMD is a pioneer in the APU technology. APU in a nutshell is CPU and GPU combined on a single chip of silicon. We are launching Carrizo –which will be the most advanced APU AMD has brought to the market, offering better performance and better efficiency than ever before, perfect for users who enjoy content on the go. AMD’s APUs are redefining graphics. AMD has the largest amount of graphics on a single piece of silicon than most of our competition. The 6th Generation A-Series APUs is the perfect solution to the growing demand for TV and video on the move.
Graphics has always been the spine of AMD. 47% of the silicon is graphics and the rest is CPU. This shows how important graphic is in today’s marketplace and in the whole compute experience. We have invented a premium SOC where GPU, CPU, memory and all other elements of a computer is actually added on to the processors and fixed in the same place where the previous APU was. This has enabled better and quicker communication between the components than earlier.
Where do you see the market heading in terms of live streaming and other on-demand applications?
Streaming is yet to be a big thing in the Middle East. Netflix, one of the most popular on-demand streaming media is yet to establish itself in the Middle East compared to other countries. According to me, the prime reason for this is connectivity. In some parts of the MEA region, connectivity per person is still very low. On top of that, mobile data is very expensive. But this situation is now changing and there are a good number of on-demand applications available now but people are not aware of it.
AMD joined other HSA Foundation members including ARM, LG Electronics, MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Samsung. How has this step helped you in bringing the industry closer?
HSA empowers the graphic part of the processor and enables the GPU and CPU to communicate with each other efficiently. HSA is a very key to Carrizo. We have an application on Carrizo that would render face recognition on video also which would have been impossible without HSA. Our association on board HSA has been fantastic. HSA is truly enabling software development and applications to go on to the next level.
How is AMD performing on the IoT platform?
Gaming and data center are key focus areas. We are also focusing a lot on the X86 High powered arm server technology. It will enable more efficient transfer of data between IoT devices and the data center. We are also developing traditional and commercial notebooks and desktop processors to be able to communicate with IoT devices in a better way.
The market has evolved from products to solutions to services. What is AMD’s plan to enter the services space?
We are a technology company, hence ‘Technology is our service’. We provide technology to our partners to deliver products and solutions. If our technology is used to create something for the market… that is service for us.
