Sapphire, ATI's 100% partner
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Date: 19.10.2005 |
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Recently, Adrian Thompson - director for international marketing, Sapphire Technologies - visited Russia. It is not accidental that the arrival of Adrian Thompson concurred with ATI's official announcement of new-generation 3D GPUs of Radeon X1000 series. That event, so significant for the world's IT industry wasn's passed over by the Russian representation office of Sapphire Technologies, and in particular a briefing for journalists was held to listen to the company's current affairs and plans for the future.
Adrian Thompson,
Sapphire's director for international marketing
We can make the readers of Digital-Daily.com happy: not only did Adrian Thompson visit our office at the office of Alena Andrianova, Sapphire's marketing manager in Russia and Ukraine, and Konstantin Martynenko, Sapphire's manager for technical marketing in Russia and Ukraine, - he also agreed to answer a number of our questions, which made up this interesting interview.
Photo taken at 3DNews.ru test lab (from left to right):
Adrian Thompson (Sapphire),
Anton Polyakov, 3DNews.ru editor-in-chief,
Alena Andrianova (Sapphire),
Konstantin Martynenko (Sapphire)
It was especially interesting to talk with the representatives of the company on the eve of the announcement of new-generation chips ATI Radeon X1000 for which Sapphire is building special plans. In the circle of a friendly talk we discussed all the aspects of Sapphire's activities - marketing plans, plans for releasing novelties, outlooks for the Russian market, and a lot more.
To be fair, we note that this visit of Adrian to Russia is far not the first. For several times already the visit of Sapphire Technologies director for international marketing is dated for the announcement of new company's products, which happened just this time.
Born in New Zealand, Adrian is currently living with his family in France. His life credo sounds about like this: "I can replace a video card, I can replace a computer and buy a new car, but nothing can be a substitute for my family. So the family safety is of topmost priority". That is why Adrian's wife, despite the high price for petrol, drives the monstrous Land Cruiser and not a small-cylinder car.
Before his coming to Sapphire Technologies. Adrian Thompson showed himself a talented specialist, he even had worked at NVIDIA. So it's all pleasure to talk to him about technology in general and Sapphire products in particular. Like on any topic, because most men of his age have seen a lot in his life and can tell many ingenious and instructive stories. In fact, a real boon for a company.
3DNews.ru: Adrian, we appreciate you for your time. The first question is traditional one: please tell the readers about Sapphire company. We all are very well aware of Sapphire produce, and it would be curious to know more about the structure.
А. Thompson: I believe it won't be a discovery for anyone that Sapphire Technologies is one of the most important and largest suppliers of graphic cards and motherboards based on ATI chips all over the world. Not only does our company develop but also produce a complete spectrum of products based on the chips by ATI Technologies - from video cards of the Radeon 9250 class for mass computers to the latest super-boards Radeon X1000; from cheap motherboards for mass PCs up to high-performance solutions aimed at systems with support for ATI CrossFire.
All the produce of Sapphire stands out with a high level of quality, and Sapphire produce rightfully enjoys a deserved popularity among computer manufacturers all over the world due to our ability to follow the latest trends on the market and manufacture products in great quantities.
For over ten years by now, Sapphires has been shipping the most functional and technically advanced products onto the market. Sapphire is permanently striving for attaining high quality standards for each product manufactured at factories certified under ISO9001 and ISO14001 standard, so you can stay assured that components you buy are of topmost quality.
3DNews.ru: Judging by the produce assortment, for many years Sapphire has used graphic chips, chipsets and other chips solely made by ATI Technologies. Such consistent policies by Sapphire deserve much respect. Nevertheless, does the Sapphire's management have any plans to change the status quo at least for the motherboards?
A. Thompson: I can tell it with full responsibility that Sapphire has been a devoted and consistent partner of ATI. All the produce based on ATI chips manufactured by Sapphire are made in compliance with all the requirements of ATI, including quality control and outgoing inspection. The factory of Sapphire has always been a largest supplier of ATI boards for most part of the companies within the first top ten world's manufacturers of PCs. Why look for other manufacturing partners if we are fully satisfied by ATI produce?
We do not rule out a possible future cooperation with other manufacturers of components, but for the time being we can state with confidence: Sapphire is ATI's 100% partner.
3DNews.ru: The next question relates to making the Sapphire's brand. Current product lines TOXIC, PURE and others have quite aggressive and overly energetic appearance. The all-known striped little person, judging by the anatomy is a lady extraterrestrial which has taken a firm place on most boxes of Sapphire produce, on the company's web site, and are even seen in the design of cooling systems on most recent graphic cards. Are you not afraid that the not so ordinary look of the lady may scare some buyers away from the Sapphire brand?
Sapphire's lady extraterrestrial
А. Thompson: Not at all. Since most of our best known retail products are aimed at use in high-end systems, that is, in the computers of explicit gaming bias, we believe our lady extraterrestrial will be adequately perceived by this most advanced category of buyers. If you are curious to take a look at the appeal of our lady extraterrestrials [at that moment Adrian goes deep into the bottoms of his notebook], you can stay assured: our lady extraterrestrials are the best! See for yourselves:
Sapphire's lady extraterrestrials living on the Earth
Sapphire's lady extraterrestrials living on the Earth
3DNews.ru: Well, indeed we have to admit you are ready for the most ticklish questions. OK. It's high time we moved to questions that disturb our readers regarding new products by Sapphire.
We know the company's graphic cards very well and see that Sapphire's motherboards are getting increasingly popular. But unfortunately the Russian buyer has a poor idea of your multimedia products - in particular, with universal tuners of the Theatrix series on the ATI Theater 550 PRO core and support for MPEG-2, Dolby Digital, FM Radio. Are there any specific plans regarding expansions in Russian with this part of the company's produce? What are your estimates of the potentials of Russia's market in this regard?
А. Thompson: Every year, Sapphire Technologies is expanding its presence on the markets of Russia, Ukraine, and other ex-USSR countries. While originally Sapphire offered in Russia only its high-end produce, we now have close contacts with not only distributors and retail resellers but also with a great number of system integrators.
We are closely studying the dynamically growing market of PCs and for the future we have some far-reaching plans regarding supplies of our multimedia products not only as retail devices but also as components for home and office digital systems. At least, all is being done to explore the prospects for our presence in this sector.
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