Robert Kennedy made famous the alleged Chinese Curse to the effect of, "May You Live in Interesting Times." Historians haven’t been successful in verifying this gem so it appears to inauthentic, but it nonetheless sums up today’s world up nicely, don’t you think?

In my last blog I mused aloud how the economic uncertainty puts being smart about your computing purchases into perspective - and how. Now here I am in Munich at the Handelsblatt Annual Congress, and it’s heartening to see hundreds of senior IT people here exploring how to be smart about managing their IT. These folks aren’t playing ostrich; they’re here for actionable discussion.

I’m keynoting today, looking at how evolving technology trends - from virtualization to cloud computing to super-mobility - are undeniably transforming our lives - at work, home and play. For some time now the x86 computing world has been undergoing, if you will, a bifurcation between server and client computing devices, with the market demanding ever-more complicated servers yet less complexity in the client. Yet in both instances we’re looking for more utility, increased performance and a superior user experience.

So, what’s behind this?

First, server computing.

We know it’s expensive to power data centers, and we know it’s expensive to cool them. With the demand to store, access and manage data exponentially growing, the associated energy consumption costs have taken center stage - if you’re climbing out from under a rock let me be the first to tell you this isn’t going away. AMD has been at the forefront in addressing this for years, and the most current generation AMD Opteron™ processors are our most energy-efficient ever - just yesterday we introduced 5 new low-power processors.

And of course virtualization is an excellent way to achieve a more energy-efficient IT infrastructure. Starting from my IBM mainframe days I have written a lot on this subject, but what’s new is that beyond energy, space and cost savings, virtualization is now helping drive new approaches to how IT is managed. "Cloud Computing" in particular is capturing increasing attention because of the ready access - regardless of where you are - it promises.

This trend to smarter, more efficient servers will continue because our increasingly complicated, networked and data-rich world demands it.

And now, a look at what’s happening with clients.

I remember writing a memo for IBM about their evolving line of PCs, specifically The Convertible which was different from The Portable in as much as it was "movable!"

By today’s standards? Not so much.

Now we’re at the age of what I like to call "super-mobility," and my favorite recent example of this is the PC I’’m traveling with, Laptop Magazine’s Best of CES , the HP Pavilion dv2, based on the AMD "Yukon" platform for ultrathin notebooks. You can’t get it just yet but I expect you’ll want one as soon as you can.

Another compelling trend we’re seeing in client computing is the fact that the speed of the processor no longer defines the user experience. I’ll have more on this throughout the year (to illustrate my prediction, of course), for now let me just ask which was more important the last time you bought a PC: the graphics experience or the processor speed? That’s what I thought.

Interesting times, indeed!

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.