AMD eyes big business from gaming, multimedia content

"India is one of the strategic markets for us. We already have an R&D centre here, which is doing a lot of designing work for our global product portfolio. We are really excited by the immense opportunity that the Indian markets presents," AMD Senior Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer Nigel Dessau told PTI.

There is a growing population of gamers in India and the way people are consuming multimedia like on Youtube, sharing files and social networking, he said. All these require graphic capabilities, which is key in our processors, he added.

The company, which has about 1,100 engineers in India, has two R&D centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad.

"We were relatively late in India, partially because our product portfolio was not that great. But our 2011 range of products that we have launched, we feel are designed to deliver great results and make more sense for the Indian market," Dessau said.

"Experience is the differentiator. We are investing a lot in raising awareness about our products and our brand and we are confident that this will help us in capturing more market here," he added.

Recently, AMD had declined to support the newly-launched Sysmark 2012 chip standard and quit the benchmark body, BAPCo, saying it did not accurately reflect the performance of its chips.

"Its like cars. Rather than focusing on just the maximum speed, people today also want to know how many miles per gallon of fuel does the vehicle give... It will take about a year or so to have another benchmark in place," Dessau said.

He added that AMD was talking to governments and companies globally to understand the requirements of these entities in a standard benchmark.

When asked about the global demand environment, Dessau said, "The replacement cycle is coming back and new companies also require technology. So, business is good. However, there are still regions which are not yet out of the woods and that is leading to a cautious outlook by most technology firms."