One of the things that struck me at this show was that AMD (NYSE: AMD) has become incredibly visible. AMD's message was on collateral and posted everywhere around the floor. In particular, the company set up a gaming section where attendees could play Unreal Tournament head to head against each other over a closely coupled network.
The subtext of this marketing effort is performance. Granted, the marketing at the conference showcased AMD as a gaming rather than corporate-technology supplier. But it did drive home the AMD brand. The more comfortable IT buyers get with the brand, the more likely they are to consider AMD as a product.
This new, strengthened AMD-Microsoft partnership first became apparent at Microsoft's PDC, when Microsoft hinted at a more aggressive move to 64-bit desktop and low-end servers. At WinHEC, Microsoft made the jump and started to favor its own 64-bit edition of Windows XP. The software giant drove home the point that NX -- the no-execute component of Longhorn and Windows XP SP-2 -- would run only on AMD's Athlon and Opteron 64-bit processors because of headroom limitations in the 32-bit parts.
Since that time, both Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and Transmeta have announced they are moving aggressively to adopt NX technology. Transmeta will be the first 32-bit provider to run NX. Via, which came out with news along these lines last week, is rumored to be on track to support this important security component as well, but it is AMD that is getting the majority of the visibility at Microsoft shows.
This visibility should result in increased sales as more and more buyers get comfortable with the AMD brand and related 64-bit products.
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