Chipmaker AMD today launched “Business Class,” a PC brand featuring AMD Phenom and Athlon processors aimed squarely at business users rather than home users, consumers, or PC enthusiasts. The initial desktop offerings are based on AMD’s 780V chipset and are designed to appeal to small and medium sized businesses; AMD pans to add notebook computers and enterprise-grade systems to the equation as they move the brand forward. Several OEMs are already working to product PCs on the platform (Hewlett-Packard looks to be the first out of the gate), and AMD says that the platform will be available for a minimum of 18 months, giving solutions providers a guaranteed roadmap they can take to their customers.
“IT decision-makers have a broad range of commercial client solutions to choose from and it is not always clear which systems deliver the best business value,” said AMD president and COO Dirk Meyer, in a statement “At its heart, AMD Business Class processors are based on the same innovative technology that powers the world’s most advanced servers. Our solutions are designed to give commercial customers the assurance that platforms are designed with their business in mind to help get more from their computing infrastructure, longer.”
Systems manufacturers will be able to build Business Class PCs using the AMD 780V chipset or ATI Radeon HD 3000 graphics controllers; optionally, the platform can support non-AMD components such as graphics controllers from Nvidia. All in all, the systems are designed to offer businesses a good long-term value, while providing a stable, and manageable platform they can roll out to employees. Along with HP, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, and Lenovo are on board with the platform.
HP is the first out the gates with machines built on AMD’s Business Class platform, with the HP Compaq dc5850 and dx2450 desktops; the dc5850 incudes the ATI Phenom processor and Radeon 3000 HD graphics, while the dx2450 microtower is available with AMD Sempron and Athlon processors, along with Nvidia GeForce 6150SE graphics.
From a consumer perspective, AMD’s Business Class platform is basically a recipe for boring PCs, but the brand might be very important for the chipmaker as it attempts to make inroads into business and enterprise markets where organizations value platform stability and the capability to inexpensively install and maintain thousands of PCs.
