IDC: Intel Sandy Bridge woes not helps AMD

Committed by a competitor is generally good for business, but recent problems with its chip Intel Sandy Bridge does not enable Advanced Micro Devices to steal market share from its biggest rival, according to IDC.

The delay of an upcoming AMD chip, code-named "Llano," which has been designed to compete with Sandy Bridge, stopped the AMD opportunities to gain market share from Intel, said Shane Rau, a research manager at IDC. The chip Llano, which were due at the beginning of this year, was delayed due to manufacturing defects and will launch no earlier than the middle of this year.

Intel announced the new Core i5 and i7 processors based on the Sandy Bridge architecture for high-end PCs in early January. But shipments hit a snag later that month when Intel has found a design flaw in the 6 series chipset, code-named Cougar point, used in PCs with Sandy Bridge processors. Stopped shipments of chipset, which led to PC makers to delay and issue refunds. Intel has been solved the problem and has begun shipping chipset replacement on February 14.

Trying to take advantage of Intel, AMD chipset woes said 18 February that would launch a new marketing campaign, entitled "ready. Willing. And stable "to promote its CPU and graphics processor.

But such promotions will not make a difference in market share of AMD, Rau said.

AMD doesn't have any equivalent to compete with microprocessors Sandy Bridge, which could ramp up shipments complete by early April, said Rau. Laptop and desktop chips current AMD compete with older chips and Core i3 i5 i7 Intel Westmere architecture, which are still being shipped to PC manufacturers. Most laptops in the market are still based on Intel Westmere chips.

"I don't think there will be lots of opportunity for AMD steal," said Rau.

The market share lost AMD to Intel in the fourth quarter of last year, according to an IDC Study due out on Thursday. Intel had a share of 80.8% of processors shippped, compared to 80% in the fourth quarter of 2009. AMD's market share fell to 18.9% from 19.5% over the previous year. Overall microprocessor shipments in the fourth quarter remained more or less flat, 0.21% fall compared to the previous year.

Until the launch of the Llano, AMD has an opportunity with its new chip low power Fusion, shipments have been encouraging, Rau said. Chip Fusion combines a processor CPU and graphics in a single chips and are targeted at netbooks and low-end desktop.

Overall, IDC predicts that shipments of microprocessor to grow by about 4.0% this year, compared to the growth of 17.1% in 2010. Growth will be driven primarily by large and medium businesses buying mobile computers, while consumer purchases may remain weak due to economic concerns and competition of tablets.

"Media tablets like iPad are working on the edges of the space PC" and damage the shipment of devices like netbooks, Rau said.

Most tablets available today, including the Apple iPad, are equipped with ARM processors. AMD has no presence in the market for Tablet PC and boards based on Intel's chip Trail Oak ship until the end of this quarter.

ARM in time could threaten x 86 PC processors, Rau, he said. ARM into the PC market when released Windows 8, which could be a couple of years off. A pile of hardware and software, including drivers, also must be available so arm PCs are functionally equivalent to x 86 PCs, Rau said.

(IDC is owned by International Data Group, parent company of IDG News Service).

RingCube vDesk VDI Edition, proposes helps VMware and Citrix users deploy virtual desktops

vDesk VDI Edition

RingCube Technologies has recently launched vDesk VDI Edition to help organizations adopt virtual desktops more efficiently, more controlled. Their goal is to help organizations quickly pilot projects in production.

RingCube Technologies, a leading provider of managed virtual workplaces, today introduced vDesk VDI Edition – a new desktop virtualization solution that expands an organization VDI user base, allow faster and more efficient VDI implementations, reduces cost of VDI infrastructure and reduces the cost of a VDI project for each user, increasing your return on investment (ROI). With vDesk VDI Edition, organizations can achieve the promised cost savings and productivity benefits from their vista VMWare and Citrix's XenDesktop investments.

One of the most persistent challenges of VDI is the inability to scale within an enterprise to its various types of employees. Most organizations choose to implement VDI deployments dedicated pool in order to keep costs low and storage infrastructure, thus giving you the ability to customize the desktop users.

vDesk VDI Edition addresses this challenge by expanding the rollout of VDI desktops within an organization that lowers the cost per user and increase economies of scale. It is no longer the VDI is limited only to workers of structured activities-employees who require highly customized desktop can now be included in VDI implementations. Expanding your VDI rollout for a higher percentage of employees, organizations lower the cost of their projects VDI that results in a higher ROI.

Maximize the user base of VDI virtualizes desktop environment full of a user, including data, applications, and settings profile and also supports user-installed applications and Department.Expanded VDI implementations beyond business employees who require custom desktop, including mobile workers and knowledge.The roll-out VDI more faster and more efficient, Minimal installation requirements; vDesk VDI Edition is easy to implement and use.It uses Windows management expertise of staffs with no steep learning curve.Reduce cost of VDI infrastructure uses VDI pool model to reduce storage costs by offering 100% customization still persisted.Unlike other virtualization technologies, it works perfectly with VMware view, Citrix's XenDesktop and supporting their ability to manage images and to preserve their ability to reduce storage costs.Integrates with the application management and provisioning tools preserves the existing management structure of the organization.Lowering cost of VDI for you and increase your ROI. Dramatically decreases a VDI project cost per user, because a higher percentage of employees can use VDI. Also increases a VDI project return on investment.

The desktop virtualization market, which is the combination of access virtualization, application virtualization and software virtualization offer access virtualized desktop applications or perhapse, a complete system of virtual clients, lit is disputed.  Vendors like Citrix, Microsoft, MokaFive, virtual machine, VMware and others are fielding solutions. Each solution has its merits and challenges.

I've written about in the past, RingCube (see RingCube vDesk 3.0) and have spoken with a number of customers (see RingCube vDesk customer profile as an example). The company seems to be well regarded by its customers.

With this announcement, the company is facing some of the things that have held organisations back when you considered virtual desktop solutions (see five reasons desktop virtualization has been a slow start.)

If your company is considering virtual desktop solutions, RingCube offers interesting tools that might make life easier.

Daniel Kusnetzky is a distinguished analyst and founder of the Kusnetzky Group LLC.