14 DAY TRIAL // Since it has its share of the consumer graphics card market well in hand, AMD is switching its focus to another quarry, the industry revolving around professional graphics accelerators.
AMD is an odd beast, divided between the CPU and GPU industries. Although one might say it's not been divided ever, or at least since it successfully fused the CPU and GPU into an APU.
Still, it can't be denied that the supercomputing and professional CPU segment is mostly owned by Intel, while the professional graphics market is mostly dominated by NVIDIA.
Sure, AMD has FirePro adapters, and even FireStream accelerators for supercomputers, but they aren't used much compared to NVIDIA Quadro and NVIDIA Tesla/Intel Xeon Phi, respectively.
AMD has now vowed to increase its presence on the professional graphics market. Its present 18% is unacceptable after all.
“We also continue to make steady progress in another of our growth businesses in the third quarter, as we delivered our fifth consecutive quarter of revenue and share growth in the professional graphics area,” said Rory Read, chief executive officer of AMD.
“We believe we can continue to gain share in this lucrative part of the GPU market, based on our product portfolio, design wins in-flight, and enhanced channel programs.”
Sadly, AMD didn't exactly say how it will increase the adoption rate for FirePro adapters. New designs and chips are one thing, but it will have to play hardball when advertising too.
According to market analyst Jon Peddie, even if the Sunnyvale, California-based company succeeds, it will be a long road.
“After years of neglect, AMD’s [graphics] workstation group, under the tutorage of Matt Skyner, has the backing and commitment of top management and AMD intends to push into the market aggressively. We have seen them gain market share this year and expect them to gain even more,” said Jon Peddie, the head of Jon Peddie Research.