I went to school at a time where most of the assignments and tests were based only on individual skill and merit, so the concept of team was something that one experienced almost entirely on the athletic fields.  For me those experiences were on the baseball diamond, or with a partner on the tennis court.  I really enjoyed being part of something that was bigger than what I was capable of doing on my own, and so it was that the concept of teamwork has been instilled in me from the beginning.  No matter if it’s athletics, academics or business, everyone knows that teamwork (and defense) leads to success.

That’s why I was thrilled to find out that AMD was named one of CRN’s Best Companies to Partner With for 2011. And when I discovered the main criteria for making the list was a company’s ability to help solution providers adapt and succeed in today’s rapidly changing business environment, I couldn’t think of a more rewarding accolade.

It’s no secret we’re living in a volatile time, filled with challenges and just as many opportunities. The consumerization of IT has all but taken over IT; everyone from system integrators to VARs are looking at new ways to take advantage of cloud computing; and the global stock market continues its roller coaster ride with record highs and lows.

When I look at today’s business environment and where the challenges/opportunities lie for the channel, I can’t help but look back on the year and recall a handful of ways AMD is working to help our channel partners succeed:

• We launched our first AMD Fusion APU for small-form-factor, long-battery-life PCs that consumers crave, with the powerful, next-generation visual experiences that can help create a competitive advantage in a hyper-competitive market.
• We celebrated the first AMD VISION Challenge as part of the AMD Youth High-Growth Market campaign designed to empower the technology-savvy millennial group to educate their peers about AMD technology via social media.
• We recently introduced the world’s first 16-core X86 server processor to handle multi-threaded workloads such as cloud computing, virtualization and HPC, along with the AMD Ready Solutions program that enables easier and faster upgrade paths to the AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processor for our partners and customers.
• And, we welcomed our new CEO, Rory Read who was named one of the Top 10 Channel Advocates of 2011 by CRN for backing our channel partners and ensuring they have the tools needed to be successful.

As someone with over a dozen years working in indirect sales, and currently working for a company that sells 100 percent of its products through the channel, I’ve come to truly appreciate the saying, “there is no ‘i’ in team.” It has prepared me to take on the challenges and opportunities of working with tens of thousands of companies across the world.

I’m happy about what we’ve accomplished together this far, but I’m eager to tackle the next challenge and take advantage of the next opportunity. I have a few ideas what those may be, but would love to hear from you about where you see the market heading… what opportunities are you looking to take advantage of? What challenges can AMD help you address? Shoot me a note or comment below.

David Kenyon is the Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Channel Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.