Corel Works with AMD: Adding Turbo Boost to Software Experiences!

By Shawn Cadeau, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Corel Corporation

If you want to create really outstanding software, you need to be sure that you're keeping an eye on latest and greatest technologies. But that's not as simple as claiming support for every new bell and whistle that comes out. Like most relationships, the hardware/software connection is complex. It's not good enough that you have a faster processor. If you want to truly experience the blazing speed of your new system, you also need software that's made specifically to take advantage of it. That's why Corel chooses to support technologies we can build on to deliver outstanding performance to our customers.

Today, our friends at AMD have officially announced one of those technologies. With this morning's introduction of the 2nd Gen AMD A-Series APUs, I'd like to let you know about some of the ways this exciting new platform is enabling us to offer exceptional new customer experiences.

Take Corel AfterShot Pro for example. For the past few months, we've been working behind the scenes with AMD to see just how much we can speed the photo workflow. Since conversion time and software responsiveness are big needs for photographers, we've always ensured that AfterShot Pro takes advantage of all the CPU resources available to make it the fastest photo product around. But now with the 2nd Gen AMD A-Series APUs, it's a whole new ballgame.

We've created a technology preview that shows off the potential of what AfterShot Pro can do with the 2nd Gen AMD A-Series APUs. We were already the fastest RAW conversion tool, but powered by these new APUs, our technology preview version is twice as fast! What's more, in some instances, we're seeing the AfterShot Pro preview running faster on a 2nd Gen AMD A-Series APU with OpenCL than on an Intel i7.

While we aren't offering this support to customers yet, the early results are impressive. Plans to release an update with support for the 2nd Gen AMD A-Series APUs and OpenCL are in the works. Stay tuned!

WinZip has been working closely with AMD to bring users a major leap in file compression and encryption technology. Available today, WinZip 16.5 uses OpenCL acceleration to take advantage of the significant power of the 2nd Gen AMD A-Series APUs and AMD Radeon™ GPUs. The result? Business professionals and consumers running WinZip 16.5 on the latest generation AMD hardware are able to zip, protect and share their files up to twice as fast!

In recognition of our industry leading work to support AMDs new APUs, John Taylor, director of Client Product and Software Marketing at AMD has called out our work saying, "Corel is a prime example of a software company that's delivering great products that take full advantage of the 2nd Generation AMD A-Series APUs. By selecting one of Corel's AMD-optimized products, customers can be confident that they'll be enjoying a smooth and fast experience that delivers on the promise of heterogeneous computing."

The bottom line? By choosing one of Corel's optimized products, customers can be confident they're making the most of their hardware investment and getting a creative, rewarding and productive experience. Congrats AMD on your new release! We're thrilled to throw our support behind your new platform.

By Shawn Cadeau, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Corel Corporation

Unbelievable! CES is here again already. It's hard to believe that it's been a year since we were last in Vegas, talking about how AMD's next-generation chips are helping Corel change customer experiences and usher in a new era of video editing and playback.

Video was just the start. Over the course of 2011, Corel and AMD upped our partnership activities and today we're working more closely in everything from product planning and testing to events and customer activities. Most importantly, Corel's support for AMD's latest technologies and chips is expanding beyond our video to include extensive optimizations in our photo and productivity product lines as well. We're proud to be able to show off some of the results here at CES.

Joining the new product madness at CES, earlier today we revealed Corel AfterShot Pro, a total RAW workflow solution to help you to manage, adjust and output your photos. We know that the #1 way to stand out in the world of photo software is to deliver lightning-fast speed. Optimized to take advantage of the full multi-core chip processing power, Corel Aftershot Pro provides an affordable alternative to products like Adobe Lightroom, without any compromise on performance, power or flexibility. One of the most amazing things about AfterShot Pro and unlike many other software tools, it takes full advantage of every core your system can throw at it. If you really want to see what your new AMD machine can do, AfterShot Pro is the software to give you the full experience.

We're also excited to announce that the upcoming WinZip 16.5 will tap the parallel processing power of AMD's graphics processor, making short work of even the largest file management jobs. For the first time, WinZip will be able to utilize the power of Radeon Graphics, whether they are on a discrete graphics board or integrated in a Fusion APU. WinZip 16.5 is also being optimized to take full advantage of AMD's multi-core CPUs, including the latest 8 core FX series processor.

John Taylor, director of Client Product and Software Marketing at AMD has called out our work supporting their latest technologies saying, "Corel is bringing the benefits of heterogeneous computing to its customers, whether they're enjoying faster and more creative experiences with Corel's digital media software or speeding secure information sharing with WinZip. The net effect will be a much smoother and faster user experience, made possible by multicore support along with AMD VISION technology and its ability to harness the power of the CPU and GPU compute in a single processor design - the APU."

To read more about AMD's benchmark speed testing on Corel AfterShot Pro, please check out their blog here.

We are always working to ensure that Corel software takes advantage of new hardware innovations to give our customers faster, more visual and more productive experiences. If you'd like to see the results of Corel and AMD's partnership at CES (including a sneak peek at the upcoming WinZip 16.5), please leave your contact information here and an AMD representative will contact you shortly.

Have you ever wanted to do more with your videos than simply point, shoot and watch? As in, really make them look good so your friends and family will be lining up to see them? Maybe you tried in the past but found your video-editing software was too tricky…

…Well, not for long! The barriers are coming down thanks to the latest software from Corel and the advances that AMD's newest family of APUs is bringing to the PC.

Corel and AMD redefine the future of video editing and DVD playback.

Corel and AMD are making great things happen in the world of video by offering the technology to bring video creation, video editing and DVD playback to new levels. Hear it from Shawn Cadeau, Corel's Senior Vice President of Global Product Marketing, in this video interview.

Or visit his blog to read about this new era in video editing.

Packed full of processing power, AMD's Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) lift the quality of video production and speed up video processing tasks, allowing more complex effects to be achieved in real time. Imagine, no more waiting to see results!

And, by offloading some of the processing to the GPU, AMD boosts the power and performance of Corel products, including our featured software.