AMD IS INTRODUCING its new Business Class platform, and is doing it using the letter B and three prongs. Those are longevity, efficiency and manageability.

The geeks out there will want to know the hardware stuff first, and in a blinding flash of common sense so often missing in the CPU world, AMD did the right thing in naming the new CPUs. All of the Business class CPUs will have the suffix 'B' appended to them but are otherwise the same as existing parts. There are seven CPUs, an X4 9600B, X3 8600B, X2s 5400B, 5200B, 5000B, 4450B and a single core Athlon 1640B. The Phenoms are 95W, the last two are 45W and the rest are 65W parts.

AMD Business Class logo

The new part of this is the guaranteed 24-month availability and a three-year warranty for tray parts. CPUs don't go bad ever, or at least VERY rarely do, so this is just to make CIO/CTO types feel good about themselves. Feeling good is the main plank of longevity, one of the three pillars mentioned above.

That is backed up by an 18 month guaranteed availability for the 780V chipset, the little brother of the lauded 780G. This one is a downclocked 780G without HD video decode and Hybrid Crossfire fused off and runs at 350MHz instead of 500. Other than that, it is the same great chipset that the 780G is. It should be more than enough for business uses, and even supports two monitors.

Combine this with a validated mobo program, and you have something that corporations like a lot, a stable platform that does not change even at the BIOS level. This lowers TCO and that makes CxOs even happier so they can go golf instead of patching. Validated platforms should live for two years.

The performance and efficiency that AMD is claiming is a bit more tenuous, the chipset performance will stomp Intel, that is quite clear, but the CPU game is what Intel does best. In any case, in the performance and efficiency stakes, AMD will do OK, the more video related the task is, the better they will fare. The new systems will meet Energy Star 4.0 requirements as well.

For management, Intel has it's Vpro, and AMD is supporting DASH 1.1, a DTMF manageability standard. Vpro does more, DASH is much more open, take your pick. In any case, it brings AMD back into the manageability game, something you flat out need to be in business desktops.

It isn't 100 per cent there yet, but anything that they sell now under the AMD Business Class banner should be compatible when DASH is rolled out in 2H/08. Both Marvell and Broadcom will put out silicon that supports DASH, so look for one of them on every AMD Business Class mobo or system

If you want an AMD Business Class system, you can get it one of two ways, buy or build. The buy is generally is easiest, with Dell, HP, Lenovo, Fujutsu-Siemens and Acer rolling out boxes today with the new logo on it. Basically, everyone that matters will be selling them

Back to the mobo side of things, AMD has had a validated mobo program for a while, and it had longevity, better support and a pre-failure replacement program to offer people. The programme was available only in the US and EU, but now it is sort of expanded everywhere. The mobos themselves will be sold worldwide, but the support outside of the US and EU will be provided by the OEMs themselves.

In addition to the 'B' on the CPUs, the boxes will be changed to reflect the Business Class status. The CPU boxes will be a little more frumpy, and the mobos will have the same frumpy markings. Think colours, not metallic demons and busty babes with flamethrowers.

Business Class box art

The last thing AMD is going to do for system builders is to provide a template for ads to allow them to put out branded ad campaigns. Think an AMD ad with a vendor's PC taking up about half the page.

In the end, this will take AMD into territory they don't really play in now. This is an uphill battle, but it is easy to gain market share from almost zero. All the things AMD is proposing are sensible and add value to the end user, so there is no real down side to this program. The best part? The CPU naming makes sense, hear that Intel? µ