With the formal launch of the Puma mobile computing platform from Advanced Micro Devices we're starting to see how the next generation of graphics technologies is likely to change the way we visualize applications.
While most of the conversation around graphics tends to focus on gaming, the people who develop corporate applications are pretty keen to leverage embedded graphics technologies to help drive the next generation of visualization inside enterprise applications that increasingly include business intelligence modules.
Up until recent times, most corporate PC systems did not have any built in graphics capabilities because those capabilities were provided by a graphics card that most IT organizations determined added a lot of extra cost but very little additional value.
But now the next generation of platforms from AMD and Intel will include robust graphics capabilities in the platform for a negligible additional cost. This means that the people who build corporate applications will be able to take full advantage of these capabilities in a new generation of applications that should become more prevalent in 2009.
The reason that we may have to wait a year is that while AMD has made some advances with Puma and its recent desktop offerings, corporations are looking for advanced graphics capabilities to be built into business class notebooks. AMD will answer that need in a follow on platform to Puma that is known as Shrike, which will feature an Accelerated Processing Unit that combines processor cores for running specialized functions such as graphics will the main CPU.
Whether Intel or AMD has the best approach to building graphics into the core platform is a matter for debate but right now it appears that AMD has a significant edge here. The real question is whether AMD will be able to deliver enough platforms in the market to provide a significantly better visual experience running business applications before Intel can deliver similar functionality.
If history is any guide, that window of opportunity will probably be a year at most. The good news is that operating systems such as Windows Vista put a premium on the visual experience so as Windows Vista goes mainstream with a new generation of visually enhanced applications, AMD could gain some ground on Intel assuming that developers leverage the graphics capabilities of the AMD platform and, secondly, people are actually aware of the visual experience to be obtained on AMD platforms.
A lot of that may simply come down to marketing, which isn't something that AMD has always been great at. But if AMD can actually get systems in front of enough people, this may be a real case of seeing is believing.