Channel Chief
“Phenom has got a great response”
 AMD has seen challenging times for the past two years, with rival Intel capturing both greater mindshare and marketshare. But the vendor is rebounding, says Sandeep Naik, who heads AMD’s channels in South East Asia
How are AMD and its channels coping with the global slowdown? What strategies are you evolving to help partners?
In India, at least as of the first quarter of 2009, it’s apparent that only the commercial segment has been affected. Current indicators are that the home and SOHO markets continue to be healthy.
Nevertheless, the last quarter of 2008 was extremely bad for the industry, and this has affected the supply chains because volumes dipped badly. We believe that to some extent partners have recovered during Q12009.
AMD has been helping partners with regard to their inventories. We have ensured that supplies and billings from distributors are such that partners don’t need to plan more than a week’s inventory. Since the market is unpredictable, the liquidity of stock is important.
In a recessionary market, customers will value price/performance over all other considerations, and that is where we believe we have the edge.
The demand for assembled PCs has slipped, as has overall desktop marketshare. In this scenario, how is AMD going to ensure that its numbers through channels are healthy?
The recession has not really affected our numbers through the channels in the country as yet. We have however seen a 6-7 percent drop in the average selling price of the processors.
The overall desktop marketshare has slipped over the past few quarters because the demand for mobile computers is high. However, I do not believe the absolute numbers are slipping. In India and in most growing economies, we expect new users and smaller-city users to continue buying desktops. In addition, the demand for desktops from power users such as gaming enthusiasts, developers and designers will continue to be healthy.
Has AMD made any changes to its channel strategies?
Our channel strategies have been consistent over the past six quarters. We have a three-tier channel structure, with Avnet, Ingram Micro and Rashi as the three distributors. AMD has around 40 regional distributors across 18 cities catering to almost all markets in India.
We also have around 88 premier partners across 54 cities. These partners are mostly into direct selling to end-users. We also engage with another 3,000-odd partners who carry the tag of AMD Solution Provider; they integrate desktops and servers using AMD processors.
Last year we had launched a partner connect program called AMD Connect. So far around 5,000-plus systems builders have registered with us.
What major channel initiatives have you launched recently?
We have seen a tremendous response to the High Fliers program which we launched last year, and we recently flew around 90 of our top partners to Australia where we shared our roadmap and awarded some of the top performers. We are trying to encourage more partners to sign up and sell AMD-based PCs through the AIR Network program.
AMD has also launched a program for its retail partners called AMD Visibility Program (AVP), and around 15 partners with retail shops have signed on for it. AVP will help partners earn additional incentives through live demo and product showcasing. Depending on the response, we will fine-tune AVP and add more retail partners.
We have also improved our support with a tie-up with Accel Frontline. We will hold 35 seminars this year and aim to train and certify around 2,000 partners.
The response to AMD’s Phenom has been lukewarm, and brand awareness is not great either. What are you doing to ensure that Phenom sells better?
Earlier this year we launched the next-generation Phenom processors as well as the Dragon platform, both of which got a great response from the channels and end-users. We are hoping that the [better] overall price/performance which Phenom offers over comparable products from the competition will help us get back the momentum. Already, 10 percent of the processors we sell in the country are Phenom. Semperons and Athlon 64 X2 processors account for around 45 percent each.
Intel has done remarkably well with Atom. How are you trying to combat the Atom wave?
We have been in the sub-$30 market for the past several years with our Semperon processors. Intel’s idea of selling the processor and motherboard as a package is novel, but we are not likely to ape it. We don’t need to, because Semperons are selling in healthy numbers especially in the upcountry market.
How is your server initiative through the channels coming up?
We are presently pushing single-processor server solutions through channels, and Rashi is selling a server-in-box solution which is easy for partners to integrate as a white-box server solution. A number of AMD partners are extremely tech-savvy; they are sourcing and configuring two-way and four-way server and workstation solutions on their own. |