AMD Pioneers Interactive Online Resource, Redefining Traditional Ways IT Industry Accesses Information

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today unveiled the AMD Virtual IT Experience, a revolutionary online event that offers a new way to approach audiences seeking access to information about AMD and its partners. The AMD Virtual IT Experience is an interactive, content-rich venue to help customers quickly locate information, tools and advice to combat IT problems and advance their business – whether it’s finding new ways to solve issues concerning power and cooling within the datacenter or the latest trends in server virtualization. AMD collaborated with fellow IT industry leaders, including Accenture, CDW, HP, IBM, Microsoft®, Novell, Oracle and Sun Microsystems, to provide comprehensive, compelling information which will now be accessible from this new online platform.

By using the latest interactive technology, the AMD Virtual IT Experience revolutionizes the approach to traditional marketing to be more customer-centric, targeting high-level business users with a one-of-a-kind experience. Its three-dimensional (3D), first-person experience brings users into a simulated trade show environment through which attendees will navigate, interact and gather valuable information. Because it is an online resource, all attendees are empowered to steer their own course, choose information of interest, participate in demos, and observe the keynotes at any time they wish – 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Participating vendors are able to connect effectively with interested customers and generate sales leads that both help satisfy sales managers and do not irritate customers.

“The AMD Virtual IT Experience is an important step forward in providing customers with rich and useful content in an accessible format. We live in a world where time is money, thus executives want to access the latest information without any delay in order to stay competitive,” said Henri Richard, executive vice president and Chief Marketing Officer at AMD. “Mirroring the physical world where meaningful transactions are now being conducted online, this virtual site leverages the benefits of the Internet to create a new, cost-efficient vehicle for communicating a company’s value proposition. This innovative customer-centric approach is a great marketing tool that brings great value to customers, and is another reason partners are selecting AMD as the smarter choice. While nothing can replace face-to-face interaction, we believe this will augment physical events and meetings to help facilitate the exchange of critical information, any time, any place.”

Attendees can expect to have a more rewarding experience obtaining information through the AMD Virtual IT Experience than they would through more conventional online avenues, such as multiple vendor Web sites. Accessible over the Internet on a standard system, the online site features rich, interactive 3D audio and video components, as well as access to relevant information that maps to specific industry issues. Specifically, the AMD Virtual IT Experience includes:


--An interactive walk-through of individual vendor booths, allowing attendees the option to view demos, obtain information, as well as engage in live chat with participating representatives
--3D visual representation of new partner products
Keynotes speeches
--Virtual event bag: a virtual bag for attendees to collect key information collateral and contacts and then download with one click rather than dozens
--Gifts and giveaways: since AMD understands that half the fun of a tradeshow is snagging the “coolest” shirt or novelty item, attendees can still add their favorite giveaways.

“We live in a world that has been vastly changed by the Internet and this means that the industry is looking for greater choice when it comes to how they access information, beyond relying simply on physical events,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst of the Enderle Group. “Forward-looking companies are looking for new ways to use the Web to address the purchasing needs of IT buyers while eliminating the lost time that physical events create. The AMD Virtual IT Experience is one of the most advanced examples of this change and showcases how AMD is leading the technology industry into this new world of more efficient, and more convenient, technology showcases.”

As the site was being created, AMD commissioned a study with leading market research firm, Russell Research, to determine what benefits and learnings could be derived from physical events and redrawn in an online experience and what elements were redundant or inefficient. While respondents find clear benefits in attending tradeshows, several drawbacks were identified in the survey, mostly related to cost and time involved in attendance. In fact, AMD discovered that approximately 44 percent of tradeshow attendees attest that they do not get their money’s worth; that is a significant group of people who are not reaping the benefits of what a tradeshow can potentially offer.

Top level results include:


--Of the total number surveyed who attended a trade show, cost and time were cited as the two largest drawbacks by 33 percent and 32 percent respectively. As a trade show season gets underway, many organizations may seek to leverage multiple resources outside of trade shows to get the largest return on investment.

--Traditional trade shows offer organizations the option of in-person interaction, but, according to the survey, a leading reason for attending trade shows was the ability to get information from vendors with 84 percent citing that aspect as extremely or very important. The second most popular reason was learning from industry experts. The AMD Virtual IT Experience site is live today; please visit at http://virtualexperience.AMD.com