AMD delivers CPU rebates to specific resellers meeting the company’s criteria for growth with its “aggressive” invite-only partner program
As stated in the headline, the AMD partners are VARs—a value-added reseller that adds features or services to existing products and resells those to end-users as a newer integrated creation or full solutions. Online computer magazine CNR spoke with Terry Richardson, a veteran of Hewlett Packard Enterprises and North America Chief Channel Officer for AMD. Richardson explained to the online magazine that this new program is one of several benefits AMD plans to offer, beginning the first 2022. This exclusive benefits plan for partners includes personal computers utilizing the Ryzen processors and servers that use AMD’s EPYC processors, including OEMs like Dell Technologies, HPE, and Lenovo. Richardson continues to detail that the benefits and rebates that partners will receive also include training, sales, and marketing support from AMD to educate those resellers on the major differences between their product and their competitors, such as Intel. The rebates that AMD plans to offer will be on an individual CPU foundation, meaning that if a partner sells more CPUs than another, they could then be placed in AMD’s Elite and Executive tiers of the incentive program. The sales will be determined by each company’s annual sales of AMD processor-based systems. The training and rebates that each company can receive will increase for any of the included processors in core counts, placing them higher in the stack. — a statement from Richardson to CRN What is interesting about what partners are saying about AMD’s volumetric rebates for CPUs is that they are increasingly higher than Intel offers their partners. Rob Schaeffer, President and COO at Orange, California-based CBT, and who formerly operated on Terry Richardson’s team at HPE, remarks: Rebate programs can heighten profits for enterprises that generally witness narrow sales margins with systems. With AMD’s CPUs being significantly competitive in Intel’s offerings over the last several years, the rebates being offered to sweeten a potential partner become all that more enticing. The benefits of these rebates offered by AMD vary per company. Still, the rebates can potentially use them to invest in hiring more staff members and further education for the employees of a partnering company. AMD will also offer funds for market development and marketing programs in conjunction with AMD and entry to technologists and executives at the company. Terry Richardson notes that AMD is pushing to achieve a sizable index of undersized partners through the company’s distribution channels. The presentation of AMD’s new partner incentive program comes over a year after AMD CEO Lisa Su told CRN for its December 2020 cover story that the chipmaker is narrowing the company’s focus on specific partners, which she considered to be the organization’s “biggest learning experience.” Now, AMD has employed Richardson to spearhead the program and previous Tech Data executive Marty Bauerlein to lead the VAR side of the business. Richardson said the program, isolated from AMD’s supply channel program, said the worldwide program is beginning with some of the biggest VARs and public arrangement suppliers in North America. Out of the around 500 accomplices absolute in the program worldwide, roughly a quarter are in North America, as indicated by Richardson. Source: CRN
