AMD has kicked off an initiative to get its chips into the small and medium-sized business market.

The company will offer a line of chips, collectively dubbed Business Class, which it promises to make available for at least two years.

AMD hopes this will allow vendors to extend the lifecycle on PCs sold to smaller enterprises.

"IT decision makers have a broad range of commercial client solutions to choose from and it is not always clear which systems deliver the best business value," said Dirk Meyer, president and chief operating officer at AMD.

"AMD Business Class processors are based on the same innovative technology that powers the world's most advanced servers.

"Our solutions are designed to give commercial customers the assurance that the platforms are designed with their business in mind to help get more from their computing infrastructure for longer."

The Business Class chips will include AMD's Phenom processors, which will be available in three-core and quad-core versions. The company will also offer PC builders the option of an Athlon dual-core chip.

PC manufacturers will also be offered a commercial desktop platform that combines Business Class processors with AMD's 780V graphics chipset or ATI's Radeon HD 3000 discrete graphics cards.

AMD plans to extend the Business Class programme to notebooks when it releases the Puma platform later this year.