Q: The consumer space is expected to be a major growth driver for semiconductors, over the next few years. Could you characterize AMD's Live! initiative, in this context? Many people in the industry adopt the phrases Media PC, Media Center, and so on, but in practice few seem to specify exactly what shape and form the concept might take. The current situation is rather like the proposal to go to Mars. Everyone seems to agree that it's a good idea, but no one’s too sure how to do it. What is AMD's approach to the Media PC concept?
A: I think you’re right in the sense that one needs to realize the complexity of connecting and synchronizing all the various devices that are going to be an integral part of our digital life at home. It’s a very complex question, and therefore I look at it as a marathon, not a 100-meter dash. I don’t think anyone has a secret recipe for making all these things work immediately and in such a way that’s so easy my grandmother can use it. But you have to start somewhere, and I think that from that perspective, Intel is challenged because, once again, they’ve chosen the approach of trying to lock up a solution and completely control it from A to Z.
That makes Intel a hostage of their own strategy, in the sense that they need everything to work, and because it’s a very complex situation, my understanding is that they’re struggling. We, in contrast, have decided to go one step at a time, partnering with a lot of people, not necessarily positioning the PC at the center of the digital home but more as a senior member of a network of devices. As a result of that approach, the threshold of being able to deliver a good, delightful experience to the user is much more of a realistic possibility for us, so I would like you to look at Live! as a solution that will incrementally get better and be more comprehensive as time goes by.
From my perspective, delivering the full promise of a Live! experience is something that’s going to take two to three years. As you know we have put in place a series of initiatives. We have a website. We’ll continue to progressively enrich the software stacks that’s are being delivered as part of the Live! experience. So I think that our approach as to what we’re going to deliver with the Live! experience – being more reasonable, more open to the market and more modular in concept – enables us to have a smoother ramp than the competition, who in reality are putting themselves in a tough spot by promising a lot and not delivering it. But it will take some time to get there.
We have a very nice presence in the media-center system, so I see a Live! media-center PC as a first step, and at Computex we’re unveiling a lot of systems from all of our major OEMs. I think that the coming Christmas season will be the first consumer Christmas season where customers will look seriously at AMD Live!-type functionalities for their purchase.
But again, we have very realistic objectives. I’m not seeing 100% of our consumer sales switching over to Live! this season. It will be progressive. We want the solution to be open and allow you to progressively integrate more and more as part of the Live! experience.
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