AMD exec on Atom rival, no iPhone-like devices

AMD intends to make a serious push into the realm of ultra-low-cost notebooks, according to the company's new CEO. Only promoted to the role on Thursday, Dirk Meyer says that AMD intends to provide serious hardware competition in the realm of "netbooks," computers that typically cost less than $400, and embody UMPC traits such as small size and weight. Perhaps the best-known example is ASUS' Eee PC.

AMD faces tough competition from Intel, which developed its recent Atom processor with netbooks in mind. The former has been rumored to be working on a low-power CPU of its own however, and Meyer notes that the company is "starting to offer products" for netbook-like devices. "We actually haven't talked in public about that, but I expect we'll be talking about that roadmap when we get together in November at our analyst conference," adds Meyer.

The executive says that the company is not interested in building for so-called mobile Internet devices though, such as the iPhone 3G, which uses a small number of Intel components. "We're a much smaller company with not nearly the scale that our competitor has," says Meyer. "We don't intend to try to do absolutely everything they do in the marketplace. [But] slightly smaller form factor notebooks and inexpensive notebooks. That is a market segment that we're interested in."

Filed under: iPhone, computers, industry
Other story tags: Intel, AMD, Atom, notebooks, UMPC