Dirk Meyer

'We are a proper company rather than a development community, but we do find a strong affinity with Linux as a small guy trying to tackle a monopoly situation. Indeed we have just opened a Linux open systems centre in Dresden, but this is more than a psychological thing.

'Our approach to saving money is similar. AMD based servers use less electricity, and in many applications the servers will actually pay for themselves by using less energy.

'We first came across this saving in getting the maximum capacity in a fixed space for Wall Street firms. But this has now proven equally valuable for oil and gas companies and we are winning a lot of business thanks to this power saving, something which is likely to become even more of a theme over the next few years.

The boss of AMD was in the UAE this week for the group's first-ever Global Distributors Conference in Dubai, an annual gathering of those involved in distribution of AMD processors around the world. AMD is on a roll at present, and is growing faster than its peers at a time when the global IT industry is fairly stagnant.

'In the last three years we have managed to stay one step ahead of Intel with Opteron and the way we introduced 64-bit computing without negating existing software, with backwards compatible systems,' explains Mr. Meyer.

'We also took a leadership position with multi-core technology which has enabled us to improve system efficiency through higher computing power for less energy input, and this has been the foundation of our product launches of recent years.

'Customers also appreciate having a competitor in an industry so dominated by one player, and our future strategy is clearly to break the Intel monopoly. Aside from our technology we will be targeting high growth regions, like the Middle East and setting the agenda for the data centre and enterprise through virtualization technology.

'It is a question of making a new architecture for commercial clients, and at the same time we also want to work with property developers to equip buildings to provide smart technology to consumers in their homes.

Mr. Meyer also points to AMD's '50x15' strategy for the emerging markets with the declared aim of achieving 50% internet access by 2015: 'This is great for educational needs but also a neglected business opportunity.'

Only this week AMD announced that DTK Computer Middle East will be manufacturing a $249 low-cost computer which is a concrete manifestation of '50x15' in action. It is clear that AMD intends to have a much higher profile in the region than in the past, and Mr. Meyer says he will be back again very soon.