Opinion: Why AMD can be the catalyst behind cheaper Ultrabooks

It's roadmap time at AMD and the big news is the promise of mobile chips that should give those snazzy new Ultrabooks powered by Intel processors a run for their money.

A little further out, AMD also hinted that ARM processor cores, currently the architecture of choice for smartphones and tablets, might find their way into its chips.

But first, Ultrabooks. A little like Intel's Centrino effort of the naughties, the Ultrabook is a simple but deceptively clever idea that has gained traction with astonishing speed. And jolly nice they are too, with their slim proportions, strong performance and excellent battery life, largely courtesy of Intel's latest Core-i-whatever mobile processors.

There's just one problem. Pricing. Intel's original pitch for Ultrabooks involved slick, super-slim computing for $1,000 or less. Just the thing to give Apple's pulchritudinous but pricey MacBook Air a beasting.

The reality for punter's wallets has been significantly less salubrious, especially in the UK. Retail stickers well above £1,000 have been common and to date only a handful have hit the shelves for under that figure.

Chip pricing to blame

Part of the problem, ironically enough, is Intel's chip pricing. AMD hasn't exactly been snapping at its heels of late. Whenever Intel's only significant competitor for PC processors falls behind, the same thing happens. Intel's prices go up and its thirst to innovate dries up.

Enter, therefore, the long awaited AMD Trinity chip. It's AMD's second performance-orientated APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) after last year's Llano model. And it looks rather promising. On the CPU side, it gets an updated version of AMD's new Bulldozer architecture, known as Piledriver.

As regular TechRadar readers will know, the Bulldozer architecture didn't deliver on the desktop. However, updated to Piledriver specification and inserted into an APU that also contains one of AMD's absolutely excellent graphics cores, now that's a different box of CPUs altogether.

We won't know for sure until we get our filthy mitts on Trinity-powered laptop PCs. But AMD recently showed off an early Trinity system developed in partnership with Compal. It's just 18mm thick and will allegedly sell for under $900.

Moreover, AMD is making some pretty startling claims for Trinity. For starters, it's said to pack double the performance per watt of the existing Llano APU along with 50 per cent better graphics performance. And Llano already has the fastest integrated graphics core of any PC chip.

But the real killer is that AMD claims Trinity will deliver all this along with better battery life than equivalent Intel mobile CPUs. What we're promised then, is a chip that goes harder and lasts longer than Intel but will also bring prices down on Ultrabooks.

Supernote, anybody?

Of course, any system powered by an AMD chip can't actually be called an Ultrabook. That's an Intel-only gig.

But if I was AMD, I'd be thinking hard for a snappy name for mouth-breathing PC shop salesmen to bandy about. Would sir prefer an Intel Ultrabook or an AMD Supernote?

Whatever, the arrival of Trinity will almost definitely be a good thing for everyone, even Ultrabook buyers. If it's any good, it'll bring down prices across the board.

But what of that tantalising prospect of an ARM-powered AMD chip? Well, AMD has been dropping bigger and better hints in recent months about its willingness to consider use ARM cores in its processors. And people have been getting excited.

In truth, there's really not much reason to do so. There's no shortage of competition and innovation in the ARM processor game. The addition of AMD to the battlefield won't make much difference. At most it'll force everyone to up their game in graphics a little. No, it's x86 why AMD can make the most impact. Fingers crossed for Trinity, folks.

In Depth: The tech behind London 2012

The man in charge of Acer's London 2012 involvement is sat in front of one of the desktops PCs that the company is providing in the thousands for next year's Olympics, explaining that he would love for his team of engineers to be bored out of their minds when the Games roll around.

"If they are bored then everything is going well," explains Michael Trainor, the project manager for the Acer Olympic Project.

Acer is just one of a group of tech partners for the London games tasked with making sure that everything runs smoothly; for the Taiwanese computer giant that involves preparing, providing and supporting an estimated 13,500 bits of kit over 107 Olympic venues.

The scale of the project is clear, despite there being nearly 250 days until the opening ceremony on 27 July, Acer is already preparing thousands of PCs to hit the eventual total of 11,500 desktops and 1,100 laptops, as well as 900 powerful servers and a variety of monitors.

This work is being done in a secret location in Canary Wharf at the headquarters of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), and the collaboration between the various tech partners has gone well so far.

"There's no room for politics," says Trainor. "The success of the tech team is the only significant thing for everybody involved."

Companies involved include worldwide partners like Atos, Airwave, Omega, Panasonic and Samsung, London 2012 partners that include BT, and official London 2012 supporter Cisco – so no shortage of technology stakeholders.

Acer's servers are at the heart of LOCOG's operation running all key applications from HR right the way through to accreditation and scheduling applications - and the company is providing Gateway games rack and games tower servers and Altos admin rack servers.

But it will be the PCs that garner the most attention, with Acer choosing its Veriton L670G as its standard desktop, which will be powering the specialised Atos software that will keep people across the Olympic venues abreast of what is going on, including commentary teams, other media and athletes.

The PC has been designed to be economical in its power use and, critically, to have a small enough footprint to be ubiquitous without getting in the way.

"Every PC has the same motherboard and the same RAM," adds Trainor, which simplifies the process of repairing and replacing faulty units.

The Athlete's Village will offer up access points to the isolated network, although competitors will also be able to take their own laptops and connect to the internet.

The logistics around an operation this size are fascinating - each sport has its own pod of computer equipment laid out in LOCOG HQ, and when a test event is run from an Olympic Venue it is shifted across and then back to the building.

Athletics has the biggest pod of computers, but every discipline from the Olympics and Paralympics is represented in the testing lab.

When the summer arrives, the computer equipment will be moved to the venues, and when the Paralympics finish it will be up to LOCOG what is done with it.

The technology and infrastructure is monitored from a special technology operations centre (TOC) with banks of people and monitors assembled in front of boards reporting any emergencies with Sev 1 the most critical - something that everyone involved is keen to not occur.

Trainor explains that the computers being used, including the Veriton desktop and the TravelMate laptops, are running with a 1-2 per cent failure rate.

"We can't run the Olympic project like we would any other business," he continues. "The operational requirement over such a large area means we will be doing zero repairs on site.

"If something fails then we will swap out the PC immediately. There is a reparation department within LOCOG."

When TechRadar asks Trainor what worried him most in terms of what could go wrong he professes to be relatively confident for the time being, although ramping up the staffing for the London 2012 period will be the trickiest job.

"We need to go from a relatively small UK operation up to 350 staff, and we are recruiting staff with similar skills to those being sought by other businesses in Canary Wharf," he explains. "And I'm hoping they will be the most bored individuals at the games."

In Depth: The tech behind London 2012

The man in charge of Acer's London 2012 involvement is sat in front of one of the desktops PCs that the company is providing in the thousands for next year's Olympics, explaining that he would love for his team of engineers to be bored out of their minds when the Games roll around.

"If they are bored then everything is going well," explains Michael Trainor, the project manager for the Acer Olympic Project.

Acer is just one of a group of tech partners for the London games tasked with making sure that everything runs smoothly; for the Taiwanese computer giant that involves preparing, providing and supporting an estimated 13,500 bits of kit over 107 Olympic venues.

The scale of the project is clear, despite there being nearly 250 days until the opening ceremony on 27 July, Acer is already preparing thousands of PCs to hit the eventual total of 11,500 desktops and 1,100 laptops, as well as 900 powerful servers and a variety of monitors.

This work is being done in a secret location in Canary Wharf at the headquarters of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), and the collaboration between the various tech partners has gone well so far.

"There's no room for politics," says Trainor. "The success of the tech team is the only significant thing for everybody involved."

Companies involved include worldwide partners like Atos, Airwave, Omega, Panasonic and Samsung, London 2012 partners that include BT, and official London 2012 supporter Cisco – so no shortage of technology stakeholders.

Acer's servers are at the heart of LOCOG's operation running all key applications from HR right the way through to accreditation and scheduling applications - and the company is providing Gateway games rack and games tower servers and Altos admin rack servers.

But it will be the PCs that garner the most attention, with Acer choosing its Veriton L670G as its standard desktop, which will be powering the specialised Atos software that will keep people across the Olympic venues abreast of what is going on, including commentary teams, other media and athletes.

The PC has been designed to be economical in its power use and, critically, to have a small enough footprint to be ubiquitous without getting in the way.

"Every PC has the same motherboard and the same RAM," adds Trainor, which simplifies the process of repairing and replacing faulty units.

The Athlete's Village will offer up access points to the isolated network, although competitors will also be able to take their own laptops and connect to the internet.

The logistics around an operation this size are fascinating - each sport has its own pod of computer equipment laid out in LOCOG HQ, and when a test event is run from an Olympic Venue it is shifted across and then back to the building.

Athletics has the biggest pod of computers, but every discipline from the Olympics and Paralympics is represented in the testing lab.

When the summer arrives, the computer equipment will be moved to the venues, and when the Paralympics finish it will be up to LOCOG what is done with it.

The technology and infrastructure is monitored from a special technology operations centre (TOC) with banks of people and monitors assembled in front of boards reporting any emergencies with Sev 1 the most critical - something that everyone involved is keen to not occur.

Trainor explains that the computers being used, including the Veriton desktop and the TravelMate laptops, are running with a 1-2 per cent failure rate.

"We can't run the Olympic project like we would any other business," he continues. "The operational requirement over such a large area means we will be doing zero repairs on site.

"If something fails then we will swap out the PC immediately. There is a reparation department within LOCOG."

When TechRadar asks Trainor what worried him most in terms of what could go wrong he professes to be relatively confident for the time being, although ramping up the staffing for the London 2012 period will be the trickiest job.

"We need to go from a relatively small UK operation up to 350 staff, and we are recruiting staff with similar skills to those being sought by other businesses in Canary Wharf," he explains. "And I'm hoping they will be the most bored individuals at the games."

Behind the decision to combine Lexmark's divisions

Lexmark International's recent decision to combine its laser and inkjet printer divisions was made to mirror the company's strategy of recent years, its chief executive said last week.

Paul Rooke is a firm believer that a company's management structure should follow its strategy, he said, and Lexington-based Lexmark's has been evolving to focus its inkjet division more on business customers, who are the core base for its laser division.

Lexmark has been radically realigning its inkjet division because the company found in recent years that the consumers who once bought their printers, which were sometimes bundled for free with computers, weren't buying enough of the highly profitable ink to meet profit expectations.



Since that time, the company has redesigned its inkjets to focus more on business customers, who print more than consumers. The printers now offer touchscreens and so-called "Smart Solutions" that allow companies to customize many settings and applications for individual users.

As the company evolved technologically to build those products, it already was consolidating technical functions because the laser and inkjet offerings were blending, Rooke said.

When the company began discussing the October retirement of CEO Paul Curlander and Rooke's elevation from inkjet leader to CEO, the latter said "it was a natural transition point, if you will ... to transition the rest of the organization."

"Structure follows strategy," he said. "I looked at our strategy and how it was evolving. As ... inkjet and laser's strategies were converging, it made sense to therefore converge the structure."

The combination of divisions didn't mean any job losses, the company has said, other than the position of inkjet leader, which wasn't filled after Rooke's promotion. Marty Canning, who led the laser division that was previously overseen by Rooke before he took over the troubled inkjet unit, leads the combined division.

The move will help Lexmark's salespeople, as the combined division will mean "a broader and better set" of offerings for customers as the development teams work united instead of as part of two divisions, Canning said.

"The sales organization was already representing both of these product portfolios," he noted. "They just didn't have a product development organization as aligned as we will be ...

"We can solve a larger set of their business problems because of this."

Rooke added that the combination of divisions also will mean "more consistency across the full breadth of technologies addressing business customers' needs."

"That will be a powerful statement for us," he said.

Employees have been receptive to the change, Rooke said, as many already had seen the shift coming since the inkjet strategy change in recent years.

One group of employees that will still be a standalone division, though, is Lexmark's recently acquired Perceptive Software unit. The Kansas-based company develops software that helps businesses manage content.

"We intentionally kept it separate because it's a smaller piece," Rooke said. "A lot of times if you try to combine a smaller piece with a bigger piece, it can get squashed, and we didn't want that to happen."

Perceptive Software CEO Scott Coons said the key is that Lexmark's reorganization hasn't changed its strategy.

"The goal is to grow Perceptive Software and leverage all the great things Lexmark brings to bear to grow our business," he said.

Reaction to the reorganization has been positive from the analyst community, Rooke said. Among those who find it encouraging is Ed Crowley, founder of Versailles-based printer industry research firm The Photizo Group.

"That's really going to be a big positive for them," Crowley said. "I think it's a smart move."

He said it didn't make sense at this point to have a full division and the infrastructure that comes with it to go after the business customers for inkjet.

"It really brings them to a singular focus," he said.


Source: www.kentucky.com/2010/12/13/1564495/behind-the-decision-to-combine.html

Behind the decision to combine Lexmark's divisions

Lexmark International's recent decision to combine its laser and inkjet printer divisions was made to mirror the company's strategy of recent years, its chief executive said last week.

Paul Rooke is a firm believer that a company's management structure should follow its strategy, he said, and Lexington-based Lexmark's has been evolving to focus its inkjet division more on business customers, who are the core base for its laser division.

Lexmark has been radically realigning its inkjet division because the company found in recent years that the consumers who once bought their printers, which were sometimes bundled for free with computers, weren't buying enough of the highly profitable ink to meet profit expectations.



Since that time, the company has redesigned its inkjets to focus more on business customers, who print more than consumers. The printers now offer touchscreens and so-called "Smart Solutions" that allow companies to customize many settings and applications for individual users.

As the company evolved technologically to build those products, it already was consolidating technical functions because the laser and inkjet offerings were blending, Rooke said.

When the company began discussing the October retirement of CEO Paul Curlander and Rooke's elevation from inkjet leader to CEO, the latter said "it was a natural transition point, if you will ... to transition the rest of the organization."

"Structure follows strategy," he said. "I looked at our strategy and how it was evolving. As ... inkjet and laser's strategies were converging, it made sense to therefore converge the structure."

The combination of divisions didn't mean any job losses, the company has said, other than the position of inkjet leader, which wasn't filled after Rooke's promotion. Marty Canning, who led the laser division that was previously overseen by Rooke before he took over the troubled inkjet unit, leads the combined division.

The move will help Lexmark's salespeople, as the combined division will mean "a broader and better set" of offerings for customers as the development teams work united instead of as part of two divisions, Canning said.

"The sales organization was already representing both of these product portfolios," he noted. "They just didn't have a product development organization as aligned as we will be ...

"We can solve a larger set of their business problems because of this."

Rooke added that the combination of divisions also will mean "more consistency across the full breadth of technologies addressing business customers' needs."

"That will be a powerful statement for us," he said.

Employees have been receptive to the change, Rooke said, as many already had seen the shift coming since the inkjet strategy change in recent years.

One group of employees that will still be a standalone division, though, is Lexmark's recently acquired Perceptive Software unit. The Kansas-based company develops software that helps businesses manage content.

"We intentionally kept it separate because it's a smaller piece," Rooke said. "A lot of times if you try to combine a smaller piece with a bigger piece, it can get squashed, and we didn't want that to happen."

Perceptive Software CEO Scott Coons said the key is that Lexmark's reorganization hasn't changed its strategy.

"The goal is to grow Perceptive Software and leverage all the great things Lexmark brings to bear to grow our business," he said.

Reaction to the reorganization has been positive from the analyst community, Rooke said. Among those who find it encouraging is Ed Crowley, founder of Versailles-based printer industry research firm The Photizo Group.

"That's really going to be a big positive for them," Crowley said. "I think it's a smart move."

He said it didn't make sense at this point to have a full division and the infrastructure that comes with it to go after the business customers for inkjet.

"It really brings them to a singular focus," he said.


Source: www.kentucky.com/2010/12/13/1564495/behind-the-decision-to-combine.html

Behind the decision to combine Lexmark's divisions

Lexmark International's recent decision to combine its laser and inkjet printer divisions was made to mirror the company's strategy of recent years, its chief executive said last week.

Paul Rooke is a firm believer that a company's management structure should follow its strategy, he said, and Lexington-based Lexmark's has been evolving to focus its inkjet division more on business customers, who are the core base for its laser division.

Lexmark has been radically realigning its inkjet division because the company found in recent years that the consumers who once bought their printers, which were sometimes bundled for free with computers, weren't buying enough of the highly profitable ink to meet profit expectations.



Since that time, the company has redesigned its inkjets to focus more on business customers, who print more than consumers. The printers now offer touchscreens and so-called "Smart Solutions" that allow companies to customize many settings and applications for individual users.

As the company evolved technologically to build those products, it already was consolidating technical functions because the laser and inkjet offerings were blending, Rooke said.

When the company began discussing the October retirement of CEO Paul Curlander and Rooke's elevation from inkjet leader to CEO, the latter said "it was a natural transition point, if you will ... to transition the rest of the organization."

"Structure follows strategy," he said. "I looked at our strategy and how it was evolving. As ... inkjet and laser's strategies were converging, it made sense to therefore converge the structure."

The combination of divisions didn't mean any job losses, the company has said, other than the position of inkjet leader, which wasn't filled after Rooke's promotion. Marty Canning, who led the laser division that was previously overseen by Rooke before he took over the troubled inkjet unit, leads the combined division.

The move will help Lexmark's salespeople, as the combined division will mean "a broader and better set" of offerings for customers as the development teams work united instead of as part of two divisions, Canning said.

"The sales organization was already representing both of these product portfolios," he noted. "They just didn't have a product development organization as aligned as we will be ...

"We can solve a larger set of their business problems because of this."

Rooke added that the combination of divisions also will mean "more consistency across the full breadth of technologies addressing business customers' needs."

"That will be a powerful statement for us," he said.

Employees have been receptive to the change, Rooke said, as many already had seen the shift coming since the inkjet strategy change in recent years.

One group of employees that will still be a standalone division, though, is Lexmark's recently acquired Perceptive Software unit. The Kansas-based company develops software that helps businesses manage content.

"We intentionally kept it separate because it's a smaller piece," Rooke said. "A lot of times if you try to combine a smaller piece with a bigger piece, it can get squashed, and we didn't want that to happen."

Perceptive Software CEO Scott Coons said the key is that Lexmark's reorganization hasn't changed its strategy.

"The goal is to grow Perceptive Software and leverage all the great things Lexmark brings to bear to grow our business," he said.

Reaction to the reorganization has been positive from the analyst community, Rooke said. Among those who find it encouraging is Ed Crowley, founder of Versailles-based printer industry research firm The Photizo Group.

"That's really going to be a big positive for them," Crowley said. "I think it's a smart move."

He said it didn't make sense at this point to have a full division and the infrastructure that comes with it to go after the business customers for inkjet.

"It really brings them to a singular focus," he said.


Source: www.kentucky.com/2010/12/13/1564495/behind-the-decision-to-combine.html