During press event in Munich, Germany, one of the topics was AMD's new branding strategy – “Vision”. New branding names are usually so exciting, but there is a catch now, new marketing scheme de-emphasizes AMD's own brand in favor of what a customer can actually do with the machine. As a result, the OEM brand will become the PC's selling point, meaning that you will sometime in a future buy new branded laptop that will be Vision sticker, but without AMD sticker on it.

 This to happen, new, second generation of their ultrathin platform (now renamed to Tigris instead of Congo) should be used. During presentation, Leslie Sobon, vice president of world wide product marketing at AMD said: "I don't care if a mainstream consumer remembers the AMD brand. What I care about is if they buy an AMD-based platform in a retail setting.” She suggested that AMD's brand will “not be in conflict” with the OEM brand. We must admit that this decision caught us off guard, and this really changes approach to the market as we known before. We are sure that there is so many people out there that doesn't care what kind of hardware is inside of their laptops, as long as they do what they expect them to do. On the other hand, there are many people with technology knowladge, and many of them are opinion makers. It remains to be seen how this decision will appeal to them, but AMD for sure needs to watch every step they are taking noe. On the other hand, this means that laptop manufacturers and their brands will be more in the focus, and that probably means they will push this AMD base machines harder, making this a good decision. There is maybe enough truth in Leslie's words: “Nobody cares what processor is in their iPhone”. 

 

AMD will use three brands initially: a basic "Vision" brand, "Vision Premium" and a "Vision Ultimate" brand, timed to make an appearance when Microsoft ships Windows 7 on Oct. For more details on technology specification for different Vision sticker look at pictures. Labels with "See," "Share," and "Create" will also be used to define the PC as a basic model used for consuming content, a mid-tier one optimized for sharing it, and a high-end, content-creation machine that can author and edit video and high-end graphics. A Vision PC, for example, will be used for casual gaming and listening to music. A Vision Premium PC will be used for watching Blu-ray movies on the PC, live TV, and some light photo editing and web camera work. Vision Ultimate PCs are designed for online gaming, music editing, recording TV shows, and "advanced" photo editing. It appears that this decision was not done over night. AMD told us that they started researching this problem some 18 months ago, and spoken with 4,000 consumers in that time. After taking all data in account, AMD is ready with “Vision” for the Windows 7 launch and 2009 holiday season. Leslie said that she expects that the “sweet spot” for notebook sales will be between $550 to $750. She also said that AMD will have eight OEMs with over 40 different notebook platforms using the Tigris platform, each with up to a 17.1-inch screen and DirectX 10.1 graphics, all for mainstream segment of the market. Ten OEMs plan over 20 ultrathin notebooks using AMD's next-generation ultrathin platform, with 1080p support for Blu-ray movies, and up to a 13.3-inch screen. At the moment we don't know what manufacturers and models will be presented, but it is sure that ACER will stay as strong supporter of AMD based laptop technology. Leslie even showed us a new Ferrari, as good as it can be.