August 12, 2009

Lenovo ThinkPad X100e
Starts at P28,990
www.lenovo.com

Lenovo announced the ThinkPad X100e, the company’s first professional-grade ultraportable laptop starting at PhP28,990. The introduction pioneers a new category of PCs for today’s business users that blends professional performance, usability and design with new color options at an extremely affordable price. The X100e also represents the first time Lenovo and AMD have collaborated to offer AMD processors on ThinkPad laptops and to leverage AMD’s VisionPro branding.

“By listening to our customers and observing market trends, we identified an opportunity to create a new type of ultraportable laptop for business users,” said Vicky Agorrilla, country general manager, Lenovo Philippines. “Customers asked us for low cost and extreme portability without sacrificing usability or the manageability needed to run a business. By expanding the ultraportable ThinkPad X Series to reach prices of about PhP28,990, the X100e delivers on all counts.”

The ThinkPad X100e excels in the areas important to business users with professional-grade features, exceptional usability and outstanding mobility.

Professional-Grade Features
Equipped with choices of AMD Athlon Neo single and dual core processors and Turion dual core processors1, the X100e provides strong performance needed for multitasking and running typical office applications. It also has the performance needed to support corporate operating systems like Microsoft Windows 7 Professional. The X100e comes with Lenovo’s ThinkVantage Technologies, hardware-software tools that help customers deploy, manage and maintain their PCs. The laptop features global availability and technical support along with a variety of warranty options.

Exceptional Usability and Design
Lenovo designed the small and compact X100e to be incredibly comfortable to use. An 11.6 inch high definition display provides ample screen real estate, and an ISO full-size keyboard with a multitouch touchpad and Trackpoint make navigation easy. The new contemporary keyboard design features

enlarged keys, removal of rarely used keys like System Request and the embedded number pad. The X100e also brings color to ThinkPad with a new choice of heatwave red in addition to midnight black models.

Outstanding Mobility
The X100e maximizes mobility with models starting under three pounds. For wireless connectivity on the go, the laptop comes with 802.11n WiFi and optional Bluetooth and 3G.

Based on VISION Pro Technology from AMD, the X100e delivers outstanding value and performance on visual productivity applications vital to today’s business.

“The X100e delivers the full promise of VISION Pro Technology from AMD,” said Leslie Sobon, vice president, Product Marketing, AMD. “It delivers the visual experience necessary to leverage most of today’s collaboration tools, strong battery life and unbeatable value, all in a sleek, durable ultrathin laptop. With out-of-the-box support for dual monitors to enable greater productivity, the ThinkPad X100e defines what a commercial ultrathin laptop should be and sets the bar for future products based on VISION Pro Technology from AMD.”

Business-Class Service and Support
Lenovo offers a full portfolio of service and support offerings to protect the ThinkPad X100e and the data on it and also to give IT departments the technical support they need. To keep business productivity high and to protect from unexpected repair costs, ThinkPad Protection cover repairs resulting from accidents, drops and spills. ThinkPlus Priority Support provides 24×7 business-class technical support for IT professionals responsible for maintaining these PCs. Lenovo Hard Disk Drive Retention lets customers keep their hard drive in case of damage or failure, ensuring that their data remains safely in their hands.

February 3, 2010

Lenovo ThinkPad Edge Series
Starts at P36,990
www.lenovo.com

Lenovo announced a new ThinkPad laptop Series, simply called “ThinkPad Edge,” with 13, 14 and 15 inch models designed specifically for the small to medium sized business (SMB). The 13-inch model represents the first ThinkPad laptop to offer AMD dual core processor technology and to be offered on AMD’s VISION Pro Technology. In addition to performance, the new laptops are designed with style and affordability in mind for today’s budget-conscious customers. For example, they include new rich and vibrant color choices and a new contemporary keyboard. Lenovo is also expanding its retail sales channel to offer select ThinkPad Edge models in Best Buy stores.

“Small to medium business customers tell us they want PCs with bold yet professional designs, uncompromising durability and reliability with the latest technologies that meets their budgets,” said Vicky Agorrilla, country general manager, Lenovo Philippines. “Our answer is the new ThinkPad Edge family of laptops. They deliver stunning technology and powerful performance at an unprecedented value.”

Sophisticated and Simple Design
The ThinkPad Edge Series laptops reflect a new progressive and strikingly clean appearance while retaining ThinkPad durability and reliability. For example, the laptops include spill resistant keyboards and value-added ThinkVantage Technologies like the Active Protection System and Rescue and Recovery.

However, the new laptops blend expressive design and ease of use in several new ways:

Contemporary keyboard
A new contemporary keyboard gives the laptop a clean and inviting look. Uniform black keys and removal of the embedded number pad also help create a modern design. The Function keys have even been re-designed so that users only need to use one finger to access multimedia functions and more. Other rarely used keys like System Request have been removed. Additionally, select models of the ThinkPad Edge 14 and 15 inch versions will come with illuminated keyboards for visibility in low light conditions while adding a touch of elegance to the keyboard.

Expanded touchpad
A large multitouch touchpad provides an oversized landing pad for fingers to pinch, zoom and scroll.

Expressive, colorful palette
Midnight glossy or midnight soft black remain the traditional color for business, but for those who want to make a statement, ThinkPad Edge laptops come in heatwave red too. Additionally, a sleek silver band frames the exterior of the laptop.

SMB Performance Gets New Edge
SMBs “are a 24×7 business,” and their PC technology reflects their personal brand. Lenovo designed the ThinkPad Edge Series specifically to give these customers stylish and eye catching designs with high performance, reliability and the latest technologies including:

• Great performance with choices of AMD Turion and Athlon Neo dual core processors or Intel Core 2 Duo ultra low voltage and standard dual core processors
• Optimized for Windows 7 under Lenovo’s Enhanced Experience program
• Long battery life of over eight hours
• Wireless connectivity technologies including WiFi and optional Bluetooth, 3G and WiMAX3
• Crisp and clear voice over Internet protocol with Skype software, high definition speakers, high resolution, low light sensitivity cameras and microphone and camera mute keys
• Commitment to green technology. The laptops carry a Gold rating from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool and meet Energy Star 5.0. The Edge laptops contain no foam and use many materials which are derived from 100% recycled content, such as thermoplastic, sugarcane or sorghum

“Expanding our relationship with Lenovo to include ThinkPad laptops represents a turning point for AMD’s commercial client business and creates enormous opportunity for both companies,” said Leslie Sobon, VP-Product Marketing, AMD. “By basing these laptops on VISION Pro Technology, Lenovo is enabling customers to gain a competitive advantage with performance you can see on today’s collaboration and visual productivity applications, unbeatable value at every price point and a means of eliminating IT headaches through open standards manageability and security features.”

Total Service and Support
Lenovo also offers a full suite of flexible service and support solutions for the new ThinkPad Edge Series. Lenovo-branded services give customers and business partners a single source solution that helps minimize risks and increases protection and productivity.

These services include:

• ThinkPad Protection to protect from unexpected repair costs in case of accidents or spills
• Priority Support for 24/7 tech-to-tech support
• Hard Disk Drive Retention that lets customer keep their failed or damaged hard drive to ensure data remains safely in their hands

Pricing and Availability
The ThinkPad Edge 13-inch version is now available with models starting at approximately PhP36,990 through Lenovo Business Partners and www.lenovo.com.

January 19, 2010

AMD announced VISION Pro Technology, a new commercial PC platform brand that delivers a superior visual computing experience, and can help businesses increase productivity and gain competitive advantage by enabling visually stunning communications, marketing and sales materials.

Graphics matter more than ever in business communication and innovative companies are leveraging balanced PC platform technology to generate and view rich visual presentations, including videos and 3D graphics to communicate winning ideas. Studies show that more than 80% of human comprehension is gained visually and that the use of visual aids with oral presentations improves content retention as much as 6.5 times greater than using words alone. Furthermore, the increased viewing area provided by multiple monitors helps improve worker productivity by as much as 40%. Commercial PCs based on VISION Pro Technology from AMD offer out-of-the-box support for multiple monitors, seamless viewing of videos, use of video conferencing software, and the performance necessary to create and view rich presentations with embedded video and 3D graphics.

“At virtually every price point, commercial PCs based on VISION Pro Technology from AMD offer incredible value and the balanced platform performance needed to leverage today’s visually oriented business applications,” said Nigel Dessau, Chief Marketing Officer ofAMD. “With support for the latest in open standards-based security features, as well as the performance headroom needed for standard productivity applications, VISION Pro Technology has been designed to provide businesses with PC systems that generate, propagate and display world-class business materials.”

Industry Support for VISION Pro
VISION Pro Technology is an extension of the September 2009 launch that introduced VISION Technology from AMD. By focusing on real-world usage, not just technical specifications, VISION Technology can help consumers, retailers and PC manufacturers better understand and communicate the benefits and value of well-balanced AMD platform technology. The dramatically positive response from industry partners has brought VISION Pro Technology to the commercial space, enabling innovative, affordable platform technology for business users.

“VISION Pro Technology from AMD is an ideal foundation for the business-class entry ultraportable ThinkPad X100e and our full-featured ThinkPad Edge laptops designed especially for small to medium businesses,” said Sam Dusi, VP-ThinkPad Product Marketing at Lenovo. “These laptops offer features like great visual computing performance, manageability and security that give businesses an edge, and they come at prices customers will find attractive in this tough economic environment.”

“Business customers have told us that they want to use their PCs for business applications, as well as the full set of consumer scenarios in Windows 7,” said Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Windows Platform Strategy at Microsoft Corp.  ”To respond to these needs, Windows 7 Professional and Vision Pro technology from AMD deliver the manageability required by businesses without compromising the performance and functionality end users demand.”

Security and Virtualization
Security features supported by VISION Pro Technology include the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), AMD’s Enhanced Virus Protection (EVP), and key Windows 7 Professional features. AMD client virtualization technology [AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) technology] provides the full, chip-level optimization needed to support legacy applications under Windows XP Mode.

January 18, 2009

AMD ATI Radeon HD 5670

www.amd.com

AMD has introduced the ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card, the latest addition to the award-winning line-up of the world’s first and only graphics products to fully support Microsoft DirectX 11 gaming and computing, as well as new innovations such as ATI Eyefinity technology. Priced at less than USD $100, the ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card enables a superior HD gaming experience in the latest DirectX 11 titles, employs ATI Stream technology to boost performance in video playback and productivity applications, and helps enable the full Windows 7 experience.

Big performance, small price.

The ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card delivers up to 620 GigaFLOPS of compute power and GDDR5 memory, delivering unprecedented gaming performance for under USD $100 in the latest DirectX 11 titles such as Codemaster’s Colin McRae: DiRT 2, EA Phenomic’s BattleForge, GSC Game World’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as well as DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL titles. In some of today’s most popular games, the ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics processor showed a more than 20% performance improvement over the closest competing product in its class.

Panoramic computing hits the mainstream

The latest in ATI Eyefinity technology enables up to three displays to be used with a single ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card, delivering the most immersive gaming experience with a graphics card for under $100.

Accelerate with ATI Stream technology
ATI Stream technology speeds up video transcoding and improves video playback performance with applications such as Adobe Flash, and helps to deliver video enhancements that produce better visual quality with sharper, more vibrant images.

“AMD recently celebrated the shipment of its two millionth DirectX 11 graphics chip. AMD has already enabled DirectX 11 support for the majority of the PC market and today’s introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card is yet another  clear indication of AMD’s commitment to address the strong market demand for DirectX 11-capable graphics cards,” said Matt Skynner, VP and general manager, AMDGraphics Group.  ”Combined with the successful launches of the ATI Radeon HD 5970, ATI Radeon HD 5800 series and ATI Radeon HD 5700 series, AMD has defined the DirectX 11 gaming experience like no other, bringing graphics innovations like ATI Eyefinity technology and ATI Stream technology to millions of consumers worldwide.”

“DICE prides itself on delivering the best possible experience to gamers, and ATI Radeon graphics cards help us to do that with Battlefield: Bad Company 2 through the use of DirectX 11 and our Frostbite engine,” said Johan Andersson. ”The fact that AMD has now shipped two million DirectX 11 graphics processors demonstrates how excited gamers are by the awesome performance and feature set of the latest ATI Radeon products.”

Gigabyte Technology, a global manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, is pleased to announce the worldwide “Gigabyte Dragon Overclocking Contest 2009″ in cooperation with the Futuremark Corporation. Utilizing AMD and Gigabyte hardware, contestants worldwide will compete in two segments for the overall “Gigabyte Dragon” title within multiple prize award categories.

The contest entry period will run from Aug 17^th to Sep 13^th. Prizes will be awarded for first to third place finishers for top 3DMark score and top CPU overclocking segments.

Grand prizes include a Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P motherboard, FSP Everest 800 Watt power supply, Maxcube Amoris 6010 Architectural Designed Gaming Case, GlacialTech X-Wing Notebook Cooling Pad, Gskill F3 Triple Channel DDR3 6GB memory module, and Enermax Apollo series 12cm Fan. Additional prizes will be awarded to second and third place runners-up, as well as two weekly lucky draw prizes for Gigabyte motherboards given away just for entering.

“This is the largest overclocking event of its type we’ve ever seen. We’re delighted to be partnering with Futuremark to support Gigabyte overclockers everywhere with this community building competition,” said Tony Liao, Gigabyte marketing director.

Contestants will be competing to see who can achieve the highest score with 3DMark06, a benchmark program from Futuremark that measures the 3D gaming performance capabilities of PCs. 3DMark software has been downloaded more than 45 million times. The 3DMark06 edition is currently the world’s most popular benchmark and can be downloaded for free from the Futuremark Web site. http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/.

AMD has announced that industry-veteran Tomo Kamiya has been appointed regional VP-Sales and Marketing for South Asia. Under this designation, Tomo will oversee all sales and marketing activities for Australia, New Zealand and the ASEAN countries.

Tomo will also continue to drive AMD’s regional business forward through the engagement of the various business partners and stakeholders towards closer collaboration to meet the technology needs of the end-user.  This is in line with the company’s unique proposition of delivering unparalleled, industry-leading GPU and CPU technology to meet the technological demands of today’s end-users.

Prior to his current appointment, Tomo was sales development director for Asia Pacific and Japan at AMD, where he managed the company’s business engagement with Dell across Asia Pacific and Japan.  During this time, he successfully led the charge of rolling out commercial product launches in the various regional markets, including the launch of AMD’s first 45-nanometer processor, Shanghai, in late 2008 and most recently, Istanbul, the company’s six-core AMD Opteron processor.  Tomo expanded his responsibilities in January 2009 to include managing relationships with many of AMD’s strategic OEM customer accounts.  He supported the overall business development efforts undertaken by the respective teams throughout the Asia Pacific region, as well as developed key solutions and partnerships that enabled customers to position their AMD platforms competitively in the market, including strategic account wins in China.

Tomo began his career at AMD at its Japan office in 2005, where he headed the marketing group consisting of product marketing and key go-to-market elements.  Prior to joining AMD, Tomo held a number of positions in sales, business consulting and marketing management positions in IT, which included leading the Server Product and Alliance Solutions group at Dell Japan.

For his latest appointment, he will continue to be based at AMD’s office in Singapore.

At the International Supercomputing Conference, AMD announced that AMD Opteron processors continue to power many of the highest-performing supercomputers in the world, including the top two overall. AMD Opteron processor highlights from the latest Top 500 Supercomputer Sites list include:

1. For the third straight time, the AMD Opteron processor helps power the number one “Roadrunner” supercomputer;
2. The Cray “Jaguar” supercomputer based on Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors at Oak Ridge National Labs is number two;
3. AMD is utilized in nine of the top 20 supercomputers, more than any other processor provider;
4. Four of the top 10 supercomputers use AMD Opteron processors;
5. The AMD Opteron processor powers 20 Cray supercomputers, including six in the top 25;
6. The recently launched Six-Core AMD Opteron processor (formerly code-named “Istanbul”) has already appeared in two Cray XT5 supercomputers;
7. “Ranger” at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) is number eight.

At a press conference in Taipei, Taiwan, AMD publicly demonstrated the world’s first Microsoft DirectX 11 graphics processor. The series of demonstrations shed new light on the significantly improved computing experience set to debut at the end of 2009. The fusion of AMD’s new graphics processors with the forthcoming DirectX 11 programming interface is set to change both applications and PC gaming for the better. To illustrate, AMD showed numerous examples of faster application performance and new game features using the world’s first true DirectX 11 graphics processor.

Get ready for a revolution: Games and other applications are about to get a lot better as a result of AMD’s new graphics hardware and DirectX 11.  DirectX 11 features such as tessellation will bring consumers higher quality, superior performing games making use of 6th generation AMD technology. Another DirectX 11 feature, the compute shader, will enable AMD’s DirectX 11 graphics cards to help make Windows 7 run faster in a wide number of applications and in a manner that’s completely transparent to users, for example, in seamlessly accelerating the conversion of video for playback on portable media players through a drag-and-drop interface.

DirectX 11 done right on AMD: The development of DirectX 11 has been broadly influenced by AMD graphics technology.  Each new version of DirectX builds on the versions that came before it, and many of the capabilities of DirectX 11 were pioneered on AMD GPUs, including DirectX 10.1, tessellation, compute shaders, Fetch4, custom filter anti-aliasing and high-definition ambient occlusion shading.

Bringing consumers DirectX 11 sooner: The preview of the world’s first DirectX 11 graphics processor at Computex 2009 validates AMD’s commitment to delivering leading technologies to market before anyone else, and to continuing to foster innovation in computing.

Fueling developer demand: It’s not just consumers who are excited about the prospects of DirectX 11, game developers are also incredibly enthusiastic about taking advantage of new DirectX 11 hardware to bring even better games to market, in large part due to AMD’s readiness to meet their DirectX 11 needs.  Many developers have indicated their commitment to building DirectX 11 games initially on AMD’s DirectX 11 hardware, delivering superior performance and compatibility.

“AMD has a long track record of delivering pioneering features that have gone on to become mainstays in the DirectX experience, and we’re doing it again with two mature, AMD-developed technologies in DirectX 11 - tessellation and the compute shader - both of which enable a better DirectX 11 experience for consumers,” said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President, AMD Products Group.  “Today, we’re previewing AMD’s DirectX 11 graphics processor to build enthusiasm for this key technology so developers will have games available at launch and shortly thereafter.  With the benefits it delivers to gaming, applications and Windows 7, developers are lining up to get their hands on our hardware, and we’re confident that consumers will too.”

AMD has announced a new operating model that centers the organization on four equally critical functions: products, technology, marketing and customers.  The new structure is designed to better optimize AMD’s operations to drive industry-leading performance graphics and microprocessors and further integrate the company’s x86 processor and graphics technologies. 

“We are tightening our focus on delivering the winning products and platforms our customers want based on AMD’s industry-leading microprocessor and graphics technologies,” said Dirk Meyer, AMD President and CEO. “The next generation of innovation in the computing industry will be grounded in the fusion of microprocessor and graphics technologies.  With these changes, we are putting the right organization in place to help enable the future of computing.”

Meyer organized the company around these four operating teams.  The rest of Meyer’s direct reports remain unchanged.

•           A products group led by Rick Bergman, 45:  This new group is responsible for delivering all of AMD’s platforms and products and aligning the graphics and microprocessor product development groups into a single unified organization. Jeff VerHeul, 50, will head the Processor Solutions Engineering team, to deliver AMD’s platform silicon and improve time-to-market and innovation for near-term roadmaps.
•           An Advanced Technology Group, led by Chekib Akrout, 51: This new group will focus on developing AMD’s future technology innovation.
•           A marketing group, led by Nigel Dessau, 44:  The singular marketing group will drive cohesive and consistent external messaging across all of AMD’s products and platforms.
•           A customer group, led by Emilio Ghilardi, 51:  The sales organization is responsible for expanding AMD’s customer relationships globally.

AMD announces another key appointment - that of Corporate vice President Ben Williams, as general manager of the Asia Pacific (APAC) region sales and marketing, based in Singapore. Countries under Ben’s responsibilities include Australia, New Zealand, ASEAN, India, Japan and Korea.

“I am excited to be given the opportunity to lead a dedicated team in this vibrant region,” said Ben Williams.  “Singapore offers an excellent business environment and is in close proximity to our customers in the region. This is a significant move as it illustrates our continued commitment to our customers in the region who continue to look to AMD to deliver the fusion of next generation of computing and graphics solutions at home, at work and at play.”

The company also announced that Randy Allen, senior vice president, Computing Solutions Group, has decided to leave the company.

“Randy has been an important engineering and business leader who has played a key role in many of AMD’s most significant achievements in recent years,” said Meyer.  “We wish him well in his future endeavors.”

The European Commission today found Intel guilty of abusing its dominant position in the global x86 microprocessor market, saying that “Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years. Such a serious and sustained violation of the EU’s antitrust rules cannot be tolerated.” The Commission also stated that “there is evidence that Intel had sought to conceal the conditions associated with its payments.” The EC decision requires Intel to change its business practices immediately and fines Intel a record EUR 1.06 billion (US $1.45 billion).

“Today’s ruling is an important step toward establishing a truly competitive market,” said Dirk Meyer, AMD President and CEO.  “AMD has consistently been a technology innovation leader and we are looking forward to the move from a world in which Intel ruled, to one which is ruled by customers.” 

“After an exhaustive investigation, the EU came to one conclusion - Intel broke the law and consumers were hurt,” said Tom McCoy, AMD executive VP for legal affairs.  ”With this ruling, the industry will benefit from an end to Intel’s monopoly-inflated pricing and European consumers will enjoy greater choice, value and innovation.”

The EC decision stated specifically that:

•                      “Intel gave wholly or partially hidden rebates to computer manufacturers on condition that they bought all, or almost all, their x86 CPUs from Intel”.
•                      “Intel made payments to major retailer Media Saturn Holding from October 2002 to December 2007 on condition that it exclusively sold Intel-based PCs in all countries in which Media Saturn Holding is active.”
•                      Intel “interfered directly in the relations between computer manufacturers and AMD. Intel awarded computer manufacturers payments - unrelated to any particular purchases from Intel - on condition that these computer manufacturers postponed or cancelled the launch of specific AMD-based products.”

Intel has so far failed to convince any antitrust enforcement agency that its business practices are lawful and pro-consumer. 

In 2008, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) issued a 26 billion won fine (approximately $25.4 million USD) saying that Intel’s abuse of its dominant position included coercing and paying customers millions of dollars on the condition that they use only Intel chips, delay launches of AMD products, and/or not develop any new products with AMD chips.   The KFTC also found that, “South Korean consumers had to buy PCs at higher prices as domestic PC makers were forced to buy Intel’s pricier CPU.”  In addition to a fine, the KFTC ordered Intel to stop the practice of offering payments to PC makers conditioned upon them not doing business with AMD.  Intel is in the process of appealing the ruling. 

In 2005, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) ruled that Intel had violated the country’s anti-monopoly laws by illegally forcing full or partial exclusivity with five Japanese PC makers.  Intel did not appeal the ruling.

In the United States, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and New York Attorney General’s office are investigating Intel for abuse of its monopoly position.  In 2005, AMD filed private litigation in the US District Court of Delaware, which is scheduled for trial in spring 2010.