Founded in 1969 in Germany by industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger, frog is a creative convergence company specializing in product design, digital media, strategic branding and software development. frog is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., with offices in San Francisco, New York, Austin, Los Angeles and Ann Arbor, as well as in Berlin, Dusseldorf and Altensteig, Germany, and Tel Aviv, Israel.

frog employs more than 300 people worldwide. About 75 frogs share 75+ computer systems at the Austin, Texas studio, with each system used on average 30 or 40 hours weekly.

Current clients include Dell, SAP, Microsoft, Ford, Prodigy, Vignette, Fisher-Rosemount and i2 Technologies. frog's notable client roster has also included Sony, Disney, Yamaha, Lufthansa, Compaq, Packard Bell, Apple Computers, Sun Microsystems, AT&T and Olympus.

Software regularly used: Microsoft Office, Office 2000 Professional, SAPGUI, Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator, ZipIt, Timbuktu, Seagate Backup Executive, Norton Utilities, Palm Pilot, Adobe Acrobat, Cute FTP, Fiery XJ Color Printer Calibrator, HP JetAdmin, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Microsoft Exchange Administrator, QuickTime, multiple 3D, multimedia and design applications.

This is not intended to represent an all-inclusive list of the software used; it is a partial list of software applications used in conjunction with the AMD Athlon processor solely at frog's multimedia division in Austin, Texas.

"The digital media industry operates at breakneck speed," said Mark Rolston, VP Creative, Digital Media. "To keep our clients at the forefront of the movement, we have to meet tight, often seemingly impossible deadlines. Increased PC performance aids our efforts and helps keep our clients in the headlines."

Since its inception 32 years ago, frog? has evolved into one of the world's premier design firms, winning widespread acclaim for its innovations in design and technology.

Designers at frog's digital media studio in Austin, Texas recently found a new way to remain an industry vanguard - a computer endowed with an AMD Athlon™ processor.

With teams of industrial designers, graphic designers, engineers, GUI designers, digital media developers and branding experts around the world, frog has a formidable legacy of success in the design industry, including Sony's Trinitron, Apple Computer's Macintosh SE, Lufthansa's main airline terminals, the Ford THINK concept car, Dell.com, and the new SAP R/3 interface.

Punishing deadlines are one of the biggest challenges facing frog's designers.

According to "The digital media industry operates at breakneck speed," said VP Creative Director Mark Rolston,. "What may grab headlines today will be commonplace tomorrow. We want to keep our clients at the forefront of the movement., we have to meet tight, often seemingly impossible deadlines. The faster we're able to get our work out the door, the faster it can benefit our clients.

"Increased PC performance aids our efforts and helps keep our clients in the headlines. The AMD Athlon processor-based system cut our production time significantly," Rolston said.

Of all the employees at frog's new media division, 3D animators demand the most performance from their computers. A speedy processor can drastically reduce rendering times, and allow an animator to view and manipulate 3D models easily.