In today’s world of limitless market intelligence and data analysis, we all understand the problem with a customer sample of one. Having said that, here is mine …

I went into my local Best Buy at 9 am Thanksgiving morning – known in the US as “Black Friday.”

I was looking at televisions, but I’ll admit that I did wander over to the PC department (as you do). The front page of that Thanksgiving promo guide (aka the FSI or Free Standing Insert) featured a lovely looking dual-core Toshiba notebook with an AMD Turion™ X2, 3GB of DDR2 SDRAM memory, 160 GB hard-drive and a 15.4 inch high definition widescreen. All yours for $379.99 (maximum of 15 units per store, the advert said). I asked one of the floor sales associates if they had any of those notebooks left. He told me that people had started to queue at 7 pm the night before and by 1 am their allocation of 15 had been assigned. 

OK, even though this is a customer sample of one – what can we learn from this?

Firstly, it emphatically confirms what we all know – when you offer great technology at a great price, there will be buyers. Crazy ones – but we accept their money with gratitude.

Secondly, AMD has long been known for enabling new users to enter the market at attractive price points. We were the first to enable the sub-US$1,000 PC, and continue to give people round the world access to the great technology at the right price.

Next, these Black Friday shoppers could have bought a “mini-notebook” or as some people call them “net-books,” and potentially for less than $379.99. However, what they wanted was a genuine notebook that they could do real work on, and — to quote an Intel VP (if you believe what is reported) — use something that would be fine for more than just an hour![i]

Oh and yes, I bought that television on sale – just trying to do my bit to help save the world.

Nigel Dessau is senior vice president and chief marketing officer at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.