As I mused on the subject of Twitter, two thoughts crossed my mind (not a long journey). This collision of particles in a near perfect vacuum was created by something I saw on CNBC and something I read online.

Thought 1: Twitter is the Krispy Kreme of new media

I used to joke that when it came to Krispy Kreme donuts, there were only two types of people in the world: those who loved them and those who had yet to try one. The same can be said about Twitter.

Last Friday on CNBC the hosts of the morning show were making fun of one of their own team for using Twitter. It was the standard rubbish about “Don’t you just tell everyone you just ate a hamburger?”

It’s always ironic to me when a media outlet misses the point about a tool like Twitter. I suspect that the Executive Producers at CNBC could talk for a long time about who their audience consists of and what that audience is interested in seeing and hearing on TV. I would argue the same is true about most Twitter users.

Most of us are really clear about who we are talking to, and if those people were not on Twitter we wouldn’t use the tool. For me, Twitter gives me the ability to talk to AMD’s main target market, those people who we call our “processor-aware” audience. This audience includes analysts, investors, journalists, customers and enthusiasts, and a majority of these key people are on Twitter. If you want to know if the same if true for you, go to www.twellow.com and put in the name of your biggest customer – you may be surprised by what you see.

Of course there are people on Twitter who just talk about what they had for dinner and what the weather is like – and they enjoy it. Good luck to them. Who are we to say that’s a wrong use of the tool?

Thought 2: You should panic when bureaucrats and politicians get it before you do.

Federal Computer Week recently reported that The White House is ranked the #1 government agency on Twitter with more than a million followers, followed by CDC Emergency with more than 800,000.* There are 168 registered accounts tweeting from the Executive Branch and 33 accounts tweeting from the US Senate (that’s a third of them). The Senate seems to win over the other lot with only 118 accounts tweeting from the US House of Representatives (that’s 27%).  I also found this stat particularly interesting: 66% of the 2.74 million members of the military use social media.

All those numbers underscore my point: If you want to communicate your point of view then Twitter is a great way to talk to people who are interested in what you have to say. People who don’t care will continue not to.

For those risk-averse businesses out there that have shied away from adopting social media, let me I point you back to the military social media adoption stat. I’ve never heard of losing a war because of a Facebook entry. So if your company is sitting on the social media sidelines, my suggestion is to stop panicking, trust your teams and empower them to use these new tools to reach your key audiences and advance your goals.

For the record, I love Dunkin’ Donuts too…

*Top 10 agencies on Twitter, FCW lists the top 10 most popular tweeters

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.

What I also get is – it’s about so much more than playing games.

The “more” is around something called DirectCompute. In many ways it’s the feature that my favorite applications are going to benefit from more than any other so I thought it would be worth spending a blog on.

DirectCompute is a component of the DirectX11 API to be released with Windows 7. It is fundamentally designed to enable GPU compute and enables applications to take advantage of the massively parallel computing power of the GPU.

What does DirectCompute mean for users? Simple: you have two great processors in your PC – one CPU and one GPU. And your system can use both to solve problems. For some workloads, like GPU-accelerated video transcoding and rendering, this combination can really speed up your throughput.

So as you begin compiling your holiday wish list, keep your eye out for systems with this astounding GPU compute capability. But here’s my caveat emptor. When you look at specifications of GPUs, it is important to note there are different levels of support provided for DirectCompute.

One level, which AMD terms DirectCompute 10, runs on the legacy path of the DirectX 11 API to support previous generation of DirectX 10/10.1 GPUs. If offered a system with this feature, just say no.  You should demand what we at AMD call Direct Compute 11. This is the only version designed to unlock the full feature set of DirectX 11 and, as I mentioned previously, the only architecture that is fundamentally designed to enable GPU compute. 

For developers, DirectCompute 11 represents a paradigm shift for GPU compute development. It will now be much more straightforward for developers to code using this architecture. No longer will they have to do contortions and jump through hoops to code what they want to. DirectCompute enables new algorithms that were not possible previously. Some examples of these advanced techniques are order independent transparency, ray tracing, better shadows, and depths of field. If you are interested in more details, you can read this white paper. DirectCompute is a de-facto  industry standard for developers of GPU-compute applications and as such, it should not be confused with  proprietary APIs  (and by “proprietary” I mean supported by only one supplier’s hardware).  

These are some of the reasons why at AMD, we are excited about the ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series graphics products. It’s not only the first and only GPUs in the market with full DirectX 11 support it is the only one to unlock the full feature set of Windows 7 and DirectCompute 11.We are proud of this technology leadership. We believe this industry standard will accelerate industry adoption of GPU compute applications running on Windows7 and add a new dimension to the end user’s computing experience.

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.

Let’s take today’s news from EU about the Intel ruling. Watching Intel’s PR people respond is like a scene from Life of Brian. With all due respect to the movie, I offer you my hypothetical version as it played out in the press today.

Intel: The Commission consistently construed ambiguous documents in a manner adverse to Intel.

Interviewer: What about the emails from Intel employees?

Intel: Yes but ignoring those, they have no clear evidence.

Interviewer: What about the email from PC manufacturers’ employees?

Intel: Well, we’re ignoring those too.

Interviewer: And the retailers?

Intel: We don’t listen to retailers.

Interviewer: And all the memos?

Intel: Yes but besides the emails from us and the PC manufacturers, evidence from retailers and the memos they have, there’s really no support whatsoever for their side of this case.

Interviewer: What about the secret conversations?

Intel: Secret conversations! What else you got?

Interviewer: And what about the two previous findings against Intel in Japan and Korea?

Intel: Now listen clearly. If you ignore the emails, evidence from retailers, memos, secret conversations and the findings from a majority of the civilized world, I think we can all agree their evidence is “insufficiently clear”.

Can I play the John Cleese part?

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.

Sometimes, that means doing the complete opposite of the conventional approach. And today, we believe it’s time for some unconventional thinking.

The truth is that little has changed in the way x86 processors are marketed since AMD introduced 64 bits and multi-core processors. Even then the marketing, while it was new and creative, was another way of saying, “faster, better and more.”  It didn’t fundamentally change the way the industry talked about its products.

And today, in the mobile or notebook world the key issue for consumer is not the processor (or even the speed of the processor), but rather the combination of parts – or the “platform” as we call it – that make up the machine. There are of course customers who still want the processor which has the fastest “0-60 mph” speed, but we believe most mainstream consumers are more interested in how they are going to use the system, not necessarily how fast it is.

One of the reasons for this disconnect is that the “0-60 mph” speed metrics are derived through benchmarks like SysMark07. I have used this blog to talk about how a benchmark like MM07 on its own does not reflect typical battery usage (i.e. they don’t tell the “whole story”), and SysMark07 has the same limitation with workloads.  I will leave it to other people to detail why this benchmark is inadequate for most users, but I will point out that the software the benchmark uses has virtually nothing to do with videos, music or helping your manage your photos. Also, it doesn’t run Windows 7.

The Consumer PC Buying Experience Today

For the typical consumer considering a notebook purchase, the first question is typically a usage question, maybe followed by a size and weight consideration. In testing we did, not once did the shopper ask for a processor brand as primary consideration. What mainstream consumers want is machines on which to do office work, to watch movies, to listen to music, to edit their photos and even edit their videos.

While processor speed has an effect on how quickly some of these types of workloads can be done, other parts of the platform – elements like the graphics cards, the size of the screen and the reality of how long the battery will really last – can be just as important.

If we are going to help the consumer get the right machine for them, we really need to market to them in a way that makes sense. We started that a few months ago by beginning an industry conversation around battery life. Today we want to take that to the next level.

A New VISION

Today we introduce a whole new way to help consumers buy the right machine for their needs. Today AMD is introducing a new approach in retail we call VISION Technology from AMD.

Other  blogs will give you all the details about what this represents in terms of the brand and the technology – the platform. In particular, check out Pat Moorhead’s blog on our new ultrathin mainstream notebook platform  or Ian McNaughton’s blog on how Microsoft Windows 7 and DirectX 11 are also going to enhance users’ computing experiences. And for a simple guide you can check this website www.amd.com/whichvision.

In its simplest form we are connecting the needs of the consumer to the PC – not the processor. When you go into a retail store this holiday you will see VISION Basic, VISION Premium and VISION Ultimate on many PCs powered by AMD technology – not the name of our processor. Straightforward guides for retailers and consumers will help them know which VISION is right for them.

• VISION – Basic is for people who use productivity tools like Microsoft® Office and who surf the web, maybe listen to music and look at their photos
• VISION – Premium is for those who also want to watch High-definition and Blu-rays, edit photos and play some games
• VISION – Ultimate is for the video editor and 3D game player

We are also going to enable a VISION – Black edition for our technology partners who build the high-end, top of the line systems.

There is a lot more to VISION than I can capture in one blog – I am sure I will be doing others.

Just in case you were worrying, VISION Technology from AMD will extend to desktops early next year and your retailers will be able to tell you what parts went into your VISION system (it will be on the fact tags).

In the end it is about getting you the right machine for your needs because it’s about making your vision a reality.

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.

A thank you as well to Camilla Webster; she is the Forbes editor who conducted the interview.  Camilla clearly spent time researching AMD and that paid off in terms of insightful questions that helped drive a solid interview.  Good answer are often possible when asked good questions.

Enjoy.  Please let me know what you think.

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.

Having worked around news people for a short time in my life I know it’s a frantic pace and there often isn’t the time to do the 2nd and 3rd level check.  But still, it’s frustrating when people use simplistic arguments like, “Someone in PR said it, so it must be spin,” or “You work where someone else got it wrong, so I can’t trust you.”

Here at AMD we strive to be transparent, and you rightly should call us on it when we’re not.  But we do try to point to the truth, or at least our perspective, and ask you to make up your own mind.

And when others clearly don’t do that, please dig beyond the fluff.

I am disappointed on the reporting on recent claims from our competitor that hasn’t really thought through whether the implications are really practical for datacenters.  I am referring to their “nine for one” consolidation claim.

AMD’s John Fruehe posted an “At Work” blog today on this subject that is worth a read– particularly if you are actually in the market for a new server.  Our competitor’s claims about their new server chip bear some well thought-out review; John explores this in depth.   Today’s economy has most of us on edge, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to show reason the door.

Bottom line: if you have ever actually worked in a datacenter you know that people are now a majority of your costs. One application doesn’t make a business case.

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.