AMD in 2012: Cloudy With a Chance of Tablets
AMD just sent out its invitations for its 2012 analyst day, which was originally scheduled to take place in November, but was moved to February 2, 2012.
AMD traditionally updates customers, the press and its customers with a full day worth of presentations and meetings about the company's strategy in the immediate future. While we do not know yet what the content will be in detail, the invitation shows a tablet that is connecting to cloud applications. The topic of the event is "Consumerization", "Cloud" and "Convergence".
Of course, the hint is that AMD will be aiming to cover the cloud aspect with its high-end processors, and convergence would be referring to multiple platforms growing into one. However, the consumerization aspect is the interesting one for AMD. Typically, we refer to consumerization as a trend that first emerges in the consumer world and then makes its way into business, which is quite different from what we have seen in the IT industry in the past when technologies trickled down from businesses to the consumer.
Tablets are the obvious technology AMD will be aiming for with new products we should be seeing in 2012. This may be a shift from a previous note provided by CEO Rory Read during the Q3 earnings call, when he said that he was not "sure the tablet just in the form factor itself is the real game in hand" and indicated that AMD may be looking at different form factors.
What we know for sure is that Read is cracking down on manufacturing, which should enable AMD to execute on its roadmap much better than it has been the case this year. Expect a number of announcements that will especially address greater flexibility of processor production.

AMD is not planning on making a tablet. They are planning on making a processor for a tablet. Big difference, but I guess your lack of logical deduction can be forgiven, since being intelligent and being an apple fan are mutually exclusive.
Bulldozer was everything but a "main market" product. Chipset manufacturers make 95% of their money off either consumer grade products (aka, Dell laptops and Emachines, workstations fall in this class of bulk product) or high end servers. AMD has never been a big server chip maker, Xeon has dominated for a while.
But the target audience of i7 chips and Bulldozer is strictly an enthusiast DYI builder class of buyer. They recognize it is often this audience that makes the buying decisions for everyone else, but their main revenue stream is not selling high end CPUs. For every Sandy Bridge E chip they sell this quarter they will sell thousands of i3s. For every bulldozer chip, hundreds of llanos.
I second that. I am extremely wary of cloud storage, gaming, or computing. I want no part of it. I don't trust it. I don't see how or why it is a good idea. I don't like the privacy risk, or the security risk. I just do not see a single upside to it.
Well, I guess when you bomb really bad in your main market *cough* Bulldozer *cough* you look for other opportunities for revenue. Even so tablets are a low margin business and if AMD puts too many resources into it before they are really ready to compete they will loose alot of money. Of course, Dirk Meyer knew that.
But I will never endorse or use the "cloud" nor "the tablets" in any way.
Bulldozer was everything but a "main market" product. Chipset manufacturers make 95% of their money off either consumer grade products (aka, Dell laptops and Emachines, workstations fall in this class of bulk product) or high end servers. AMD has never been a big server chip maker, Xeon has dominated for a while.
But the target audience of i7 chips and Bulldozer is strictly an enthusiast DYI builder class of buyer. They recognize it is often this audience that makes the buying decisions for everyone else, but their main revenue stream is not selling high end CPUs. For every Sandy Bridge E chip they sell this quarter they will sell thousands of i3s. For every bulldozer chip, hundreds of llanos.
RIM tablet = fail
99% of Android tablets = fail
There is a pattern can you see it ?
this is apple turf smarten up.
um unless you are joining apple which I could see happening
I second that. I am extremely wary of cloud storage, gaming, or computing. I want no part of it. I don't trust it. I don't see how or why it is a good idea. I don't like the privacy risk, or the security risk. I just do not see a single upside to it.
AMD is not planning on making a tablet. They are planning on making a processor for a tablet. Big difference, but I guess your lack of logical deduction can be forgiven, since being intelligent and being an apple fan are mutually exclusive.
With the netbooks, the lack of power and graphics holds them back from keeping a large market share. Noone wants to pay $300 for an inadequate laptop, we can see that now.
Obviously mobility is here to stay, but form factors will change. What I think AMD should work on is wireless connectivity, such as the wireless video tech in the core i3/i5 processors. Moving all devices toward wireless and mobile just makes sense for what consumers want.
Think about this, if all these devices connected wirelessly regardless of protocol (bluetooth, wifi, 4G, or some newer tech) because it was built into every APU people would certainly buy this. Let's say you enjoy the tablet because the larger touchscreen works with your big hands and is easier to write with. Depending on your location, it would use the fastest connection available to stay permanently connected except for the most remote rural areas. You can also communicate with any networks that use different protocols. You can walk into a meeting room in the office building of a competitor, wirelessly connector to their projector, and show them with your tablet why they should accept your proposal. Communication would no longer be limited by technology but actually enhanced by many times what we enjoy today. Phones are very close to reaching this ideal, but still have some limited internet usability. It looks like WIN8 will move toward this type of convergence. The way I see it, form factors will come and go but mobile connectivity and communications will continue to be at the center of everything. Hopefully, AMD will have some folks smart enough to figure this out before putting all their efforts into one form factor or another. Work on refining the APU to be a very powerful yet small and mobile processor that can power any number of devices. Then show the world that you have the facilities to keep up with demand for such ubiquitous devices.
couldn't agree more. this tablet crap is not going to make AMD money, what are they thinking. The whole tablet fad will slowly die off once people realise they are useless unless AMD can get into bed with Apple, and chances for that are low.
they are about worthless, so in america that means it will sell like hotcakes
its all about marketing
Face it CD drives are going away just like floppy did, and even the 'crappy' netbooks/tablets can do 90% of what most people need at a decent price point.
I didn't buy it, but The Academy I'm in gave it to us.
Personally I like Android.
I'm not saying it will replace my pen and paper but it beats carrying around a Laptop, Ultrabook, or Netbook for looking up stuff and taking notes in class.
It's not entirely useless.
Hey if AMD can get x86 to run well on a tablet. They can get the same chip running in a Cellphone. I might just buy one. Especially when AMD and Intel are pushing Android onto the x86 platform like intel.