-Highlights Customer Focus as the Foundation for True Innovation -


HANNOVER, GERMANY - MARCH 10, 2003 - In a keynote address to leaders of global information and communication technology (ICT) companies at the ICT World Forum at CeBIT today, AMD (NYSE: AMD) President and Chief Executive Officer Hector Ruiz highlighted the need for technology companies to reexamine their relationships with partners and customers and consider a new, more collaborative and connected business model promoting shared success in order to deliver truly innovative technology solutions that are applicable and accessible to the widest possible group of users.

"Software and silicon have become the 'plastic and steel' of today's economy," said Ruiz. "The information and communication technology industry is rapidly becoming the DNA of every industry - and changing the competitive dynamics of everything it touches."

"With this change comes great responsibility," continued Ruiz. "We, as an industry, must move away from technology advances for the sake of technology advances. We must ground every aspect of our business in delivering true, customer-centric innovation through the migration to a connected business model."

Sharing some of the insights AMD has gained as a result of its connections with partners and users, Ruiz pointed to enhanced connectivity capabilities and the proliferation of increasingly data-intensive applications as key drivers of next phase of growth and change for the ICT world. Over the past decade, the combination of a universal connection medium, the Internet, with pervasive, intelligent data capture devices such as personal computers (PCs), personal digital assistants (PDAs) and high-end mobile phones, has increased users' capability to generate and compile vast quantities of data. As a result of this trend, end users are generating ever-growing volumes of increasingly complex datasets that push the limits of today's computing models.

"It became very clear to AMD that if we are going to meet evolving user needs, we must free users from the limitations imposed by today's 32-bit processors, but also allow them to take advantage of all the current investment and energy dedicated to today's 32-bit processing platform," said Ruiz. "Based on this customer feedback, AMD designed its upcoming next-generation 64-bit-capable AMD Opteron(tm) and AMD Athlon(tm) 64 processors to provide a graceful and seamless upgrade path for everyone in the ecosystem."

Ruiz concluded the keynote with a call to action for fellow executives. "When we look for ways to restore the direction of our industry today, I don't see any reason to look beyond an approach that keeps that focus on providing real innovation that people can use - customer-centric innovation delivered through a connected business model," said Ruiz.