AMD introduces Business class in personal computing

AMD on Sunday unveiled its first computer brand, aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, with design and sales help from its major chip customers such as Dell Inc. AMD Business Class desktop personal computers will be followed by notebook PCs in the second half of this year. The new product line is part of AMD's efforts to regain its competitive edge against Intel Corp after a disastrous 2007. AMD has reported six consecutive quarters of net losses as Intel has regained much of the market share that it lost to AMD in 2005 and the first part of 2006. AMD is also seeking to use the leverage it built with the success of its Opteron microprocessors, which have made inroads into the server market over the last few years against Intel, a larger company. AMD said Business Class is initially aimed at the small- and medium-size business market, but is also designed to scale up to the biggest corporate clients as well. The desktops include AMD Phenom X3 triple-core and AMD Phenom X4 quad-core processors as well as AMD Athlon X2 dual-core processors. PC makers can also choose AMD 780V chipsets or optional ATI Radeon HO 3000 series graphics chips, and the platform will support non-AMD graphics and chipsets, such as graphics chips from ATI rival Nvidia Corp.

Analysts said that big-business customers like a General Electric Co as well as small and medium businesses want stability, longevity, reliability, manageability and good performance in the PCs they buy for their employees.