14 DAY TRIAL // For a time, people actually thought that Advanced Micro Devices would follow a two-pronged approach regarding the tablet market, but AMD itself has just shot down that long-standing hypothesis.
To put it bluntly, the Sunnyvale, California-based company will do nothing to encourage Android tablet makers to use its Fusion APUs.
It will not bother trying to make the chip compatible with Google's OS, as it believes Windows 8 already provides it with enough of a market.
That Windows 8 has failed to cause any sort of change, positive or negative, in the IT landscape does not seem to be fazing AMD at all.
The company is probably hoping that 2013 will do what the last quarter of 2012 failed to do.
Then again, the Android operating system was made for ARM chips, not x86, so AMD has a good reason not to bother tweaking its Fusion APUs just to make the OS work.
Besides, Windows 8 already has all the mobile-friendly features (touch-based UI especially), and there is no question that the OS will be successful.
The only concern is about how quickly Windows 8 will take over for Windows 7. All in all, AMD's future is more or less secure with Windows 8.
Furthermore, we should remind everyone that AMD has a certain something called AppZone, a full-fledged app store maintained in collaboration with BlueStacks. More importantly, the AppZone player lets Android apps run on Windows.
Finally, the tablet-centric Temash APU has already been introduced and will start shipping this quarter (Q1 2013). Assuming a good price range is reached, AMD's strategy is quite solid.
“AMD is looking to make a mark in tablets priced starting at around $499 or $599. We are betting heavily on Windows 8,” said Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager of global business units at AMD, in an interview with IDG News Service.
Now we just have to wait and see what becomes of those ARM CPU plans we've been hearing about.