AMD yesterday announced the appointment of Wavestone Computers as a national distributor of its processor-in-a-box (PIB). The companies immediately sought to pre-empt the inevitable questions: Why another distributor? And why appoint a small company with one office with only one-and-a-half years` experience?
Jan Minnie, Wavestone director, explains the focus underlying this deal: "We will focus on the PIB, an all-in-one central processing unit [CPU] and thermal cooling solution. This box comes with instruction booklet and warranties on both thermal and CPU.
"The main benefit of this solution is a walk-in return material authorisation policy," Minnie says. While many companies offer a walk-in swop-out policy, Wavestone will do an immediate swop, he says. The company has testing facilities, and "if you walk in with a faulty processor or thermal unit, you walk out with a working one", he says.
PIB benefits
Selling PIBs and the resultant warranty benefits will help solve thermal problems in the market, says Minnie. "Some of the OEM partners put in third-party thermal solutions in ways that may damage the processor, but here there is control.
"There have been issues with tray processors, with negligence on system builders` side in terms of installation, and the question whether the thermal is adequate for the CPU," Minnie adds. "The PIB solution ensures a match, and it comes with installation instructions. It carries a three-year warranty."
Minnie promises that the PIB will be cheaper than any third-party tray processor.
Furthermore, Minnie points out, the staff of Wavestone are AMD-trained, "killing the two-to-three-weeks poor service myth surrounding AMD in SA".
Taking stock
"We also hold buffer stock of AMD kit, of altogether R1 million to R2 million worth at any one time." If this runs out, he promises, stock can be re-ordered and received within two days. The company uses a courier to deliver anywhere in SA.
The company will protect itself against new processor lines being ordered off overseas Web sites with the price protection it gets from AMD. "If AMD runs specials, we will be able to pass those savings onto the customers.
"We are aware of the grey market - people sometimes think they are better off ordering overseas and holding stock themselves. But we try to convince them they should leave that problem in our hands, for consistency`s sake, and not to be exposed to price drops when we have all the protection we or the customer need."
Wavestone will also keep motherboards and accessories for AMD products and give compatibility advice.
Channel surfing
AMD`s existing distributors are Sahara and Arrow-Altech distributors. With the former`s acquisition of the latter`s computer division, AMD still regards these as two distributors. Wavestone adds a third, but AMD has been rumoured to be speaking to Storgate Africa too.
AMD is making inroads into the market traditionally dominated by Intel, says Minnie, with 50% of countries like Russia already buying AMD as opposed to the market leader.
"And in SA, whereas tenders used to specify Intel, this is now open in many cases," he adds. AMD has considerably less market share in SA than the worldwide average in the low 20%.
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